BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — George Washington University men’s and women’s water polo head coach Barry King is the guest on Episode 003 of the PoloCAST Podcast with George Gross, Jr.
A biweekly series highlighting some of water polo’s best minds and athletes over the past 50+ years, PoloCAST is available on Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Anchor and Spotify.
Hosted by Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Hall of Fame inductee and former Team Canada Olympian George Gross, Jr., the podcast provides listeners with more than just an X’s and O’s conversation about water polo – but a dialogue about what helped good players, coaches and administrators reach the top of the game.
New episodes release on the first and third Tuesday of every month with some bonus episodes arriving during the Holidays.
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About Barry King: George Washington University head coach Barry King has taken the GW water polo programs to new heights in his few seasons at the helm. The veteran coach led the men’s program to its first conference championship and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament berth in 2017 before earning a repeat title and won their first game in the national tournament in 2018.
In the spring of 2019, the GW women tallied 14 victories in their first season under King with their best winning percentage since 2013. They also collected their most CWPA wins in 13 years to earn the No. 6 seed for the CWPA Tournament.
In 2018, the GW men put together its best season in program history, capped by a memorable postseason run. At the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) Championship, the Colonials beat McKendree University and Wagner College before taking an epic conference final over top-seeded Bucknell University. They tied it on Atakan Destici’s goal at the end of regulation before earning a 12-11 overtime victory.
GW then erased a five-goal deficit to down Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) Champion Princeton University in overtime for their first NCAA victory and advanced to face perennial power the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) in the national quarterfinals. Led by All-Conference honorees Atakan Destici, Austin Pyrch and Andrew Mavis, the Buff and Blue earned their best-ever national ranking at No. 11 and tied the program record with 23 wins.
In 2017, GW completed a remarkable turnaround by capturing the MAWPC title with three wins in as many days at the United States Naval Academy’s Lejeune Hall. The squad then advanced to NCAA play, where it fell to NWPC Champion Harvard University in overtime. The Colonials finished the season with their most wins (15) in nearly two decades and a No. 17 national ranking.
King, who turned the women’s program at Indiana University into a national power through the course of a 19-year stint, was named head coach for GW men’s and women’s water polo on July 31, 2017.
At IU, King brought the Hoosiers from a club squad to a powerhouse that made six national championship appearances and achieved 20 or more wins in 17 of 19 seasons. He accumulated a career record there of 426-225-2 (.654).
In his final three seasons at IU, King led the Hoosiers to a 70-26 record with three consecutive appearances in the CWPA championship game, including a title in 2014.
King’s squads captured five conference championships (1998, 2000, 2003, 2011, 2014) and finished in the top 20 of the national rankings in each of his final seven seasons. Twice the Hoosiers ranked among the top 10 in the country, finishing eighth in the polls in 2014 and ninth in 2011.
Among IU’s six appearances in the national championships, King led the Hoosiers to a Final Four appearance in 2003 and a seventh-place finish in 2014. He was named CWPA Coach of the Year in 2013 after leading IU to its first Western Conference Championship in program history. King’s student-athletes have been no strangers to success either, as Hoosier water polo players tallied 15 All-America, 58 All-CWPA, 14 All-Big Ten (1998-2000), 106 Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-Academic, 107 Academic All-CWPA and 153 Academic All-Big Ten honors under his tutelage.
In 2012, the Hoosiers won a school-record 28 games and finished the year ranked No. 14 in the nation. The year prior, King surpassed 300 career wins as IU qualified for the NCAA National Championship.
IU first became a varsity program in 1998, when the Hoosiers won 26 games and a Midwest Regional Championship to earn a trip to the National Championship. Appearances at nationals followed in 1999 and 2000 before he guided IU from the Big Ten to the CWPA in 2001, where the same success followed. The Hoosiers narrowly missed the NCAA Championship in 2002, 2004 and 2005, while reaching the Final Four in 2003.
The Madera, Calif., native earned his Bachelor of Arts in athletic counseling (1988) and Master of Arts in exercise physiology (1996) from Fresno State University.
Before going to Indiana to work on a doctorate in exercise physiology, King coached men’s and women’s water polo at Madera High School (1987-88), freshman boys basketball at Clovis High School (1986-88) and varsity swimming at San Joaquin Memorial High School.
King and his wife, Mindy, have two sons, Creighton and Aidan.
