BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Three athletes and a pair of coaches will join the ranks of the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Hall of Fame this Fall as the league will award former Johns Hopkins University head coach Ted Bresnahan and former St. Francis College Brooklyn head coach Carl Quigley along with athletes Peter Sabbatini (Princeton University), Aaron Recko (United States Naval Academy) and Igor Mladenovic (St. Francis College Brooklyn) with the highest honor bestowed by the organization.
Bresnahan and Recko will be inducted during the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) Championship at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on Friday-Sunday, November 22-24. A Hall of Fame reception featuring hors d’ouevres and a cash bar is scheduled for O’Brien’s Oyster Bar & Seafood Tavern (113 Main Street, Annapolis, MD 21401) on Saturday, November 23, from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.. The cost for attendance at the Hall of Fame reception is $70.
The trio of Quigley, Mladenovic and Sabbatini will join the CWPA Hall of Fame at the 2024 Northeast Water Polo Conference Championship hosted by Princeton University on Friday-Sunday, November 22-24. A Hall of Fame reception featuring hors d’ouevres and a cash bar is scheduled for Metro North Bar & Grill (378 Alexander Street, Princeton, NJ 08540) on Friday, November 22, from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.. The cost for attendance at the Hall of Fame reception is $70.
The cost to attend either ceremony is $70 per person (if paying by check, please email office@collegiatewaterpolo.org registration information (name, number attending & which event) and send a check to: Collegiate Water Polo Association, 129 W. 4th Street, Bridgeport, PA 19405 with a notation of Hall of Fame in the subject line). To register/pay online, CLICK HERE.
The quintet raises the number of CWPA Hall of Fame members to 44 as Bresnahan, Quigley, Sabbatini, Recko and Mladenovic join Richard Hunkler (Slippery Rock University/Coach, 2002), Dick Russell (Bucknell University/Coach, 2002), Lynn Kachmarik (Slippery Rock University/Athlete, Bucknell University/Coach, 2003), Ed Reed (Brown University/Coach, 2003), John Barrett (University of Maryland/Athlete, 2004), Paul Barren (West Chester University/Referee, 2004), Sue Kolczak (Slippery Rock University/Athlete, 2005), George Gross (Yale University/Athlete, 2005), Robbie Bova (Slippery Rock University/Athlete, 2006), Scott Schulte (Bucknell University/Athlete, 2006), Katie Grogan (University of Massachusetts/Athlete, 2007), Russ Yarworth (University of Massachusetts/Coach, 2007), Betsey Armstrong (University of Michigan/Athlete, 2008), Tom Popp (United States Naval Academy/Athlete, 2008), Diane Stein Swigart (Slippery Rock University/Athlete, 2009), Lars Enstrom (Brown University/Athlete, 2009), Leslie Entwistle (Slippery Rock University/Athlete, 2010), Chris Judge (Fordham University/Athlete, 2010), Carrie Basye-Becker (Slippery Rock University, University of Maryland/Athlete, 2011), John Benedick (Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Coach, Administrator, 2011), Kristin Stanford (Indiana University/Athlete, 2012), Mark Gensheimer (Bucknell University/Athlete, 2012), Adele McCarthy-Beauvais (Princeton University/Athlete, 2013), Simon Gould (University of Arkansas-Little Rock/Athlete, 2013), Tom Tracey (Villanova University/Director of Officials, 2014), Mike Schofield (United States Naval Academy/Coach, 2014), Goga Vukmirovic (Princeton University/Athlete, 2015), Rich Russey (Brown University/Athlete, 2015), Shana Welch (University of Michigan/Athlete, 2016), Tony Paxton (Bucknell University/Athlete, 2016), Krista Peterson Polvi (Indiana University/Athlete, 2017), Jeff Hilk (Bucknell University/Athlete, 2017), Patricia Ann “Trish” McGuire (Slippery Rock University/Athlete, 2018), Steve Ennis (Brown University/Athlete, 2018), Elyse Colgan (Princeton University/Athlete, 2019), Garrin Kapecki (Bucknell University/Athlete, 2019), Julie Hyrne (University of Michigan/Athlete, 2020), Luis Nicolao (United States Naval Academy/Athlete, 2020) and Dan Sharadin (West Virginia University/Villanova University/Collegiate Water Polo Association/Coach & Administrator, 2023).
The CWPA did not induct individuals during the Spring 2021, Fall 2021 and Fall 2022 seasons in a precautionary decision due to the COVID-19 pandemic prior to not conducting inductions during Fall 2023 and Spring 2024.
The Hall of Fame class is historic as Bresnahan, Quigley and Mladenovic become the inaugural inductees from Johns Hopkins and St. Francis Brooklyn. Further, Bresnahan and Quigley join Hunkler, Russell, Kachmarik, Reed, Yarworth, Benedick, Schofield, Nicolao and Sharadin as current/present National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) head coaches to make the Hall of Fame.
Recko joins Popp and Nicolao among Navy athletes who earned spots in the Hall of Fame, while Sabbatini becomes to the first Princeton men’s athlete to make the cut following McCarthy-Beauvais, Vukmirovic and Colgan who claimed laurels for their performance in women’s competition.
Biographies on the Class of 2024 Hall of Fame selections follow:
Carl Quigley – St. Francis College Brooklyn
Among the founding fathers of the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) and advocates for the game joining fellow Hall of Fame members Dick Russell, Richard Hunkler, Mike Schofield, Ed Reed, Russ Yarworth and Dan Sharadin, among others, Cathal “Carl” Quigley’s long time association with St Francis College Brooklyn began in 1971 as a freshman student athlete of the class of 1975. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and is a member of the Dun Scotus Honor society. He continued his education at Long Island University (LIU) where he received his Masters Degree in Adapted Physical Education and Rehabilitation in 1979.
Upon his graduation from St Francis College in 1975, Quigley was immediately hired as the water polo team’s coach by athletic director Dan Lynch Sr. and Dean of Students John Clifford.
He began working as a part time coach the following fall a position that he has maintained throughout his career. Following his graduation from LIU, Carl worked for the State of New York at the Staten Island Developmental Center “Willowbrook” with developmentally disabled individuals in association with Long Island University where he was employed as a clinical supervisor for their graduate program.
When Staten Island Developmental Center was closed, Carl sought a career change.
That search ended with his eighteen year run in the art business working for Knoedler Publishing, the exclusive publisher of the works of LeRoy Neiman in their production and shipping departments. His responsibilities there included coordinating art shows, overseeing product production and he served as a liaison between the artist and the publishing company.
In 1979, Quigley founded and organized the St Francis Youth Water Polo Club under his direction the club has been most successful. Providing countless youngsters with the opportunity to play water polo at local, state (Empire State Games) and national competitions and even had one of the group’s members play in three Olympic competitions.
After the extensive stint with the publishing company he left the art world to work full time at his alma mater. He was hired as assistant athletic director for aquatics in 1999.
His responsibilities there included overseeing the men’s and women’s water polo teams and coordinating use of the colleges pool to some forty community groups. Some of which include CHSAA, PSAL and CYO swim teams, local summer camps, and special groups Brooklyn Special Olympics, the Young Adult Institute and the American Red Cross and on occasion a movie production company. He served on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Water Polo Rules and Championship Committees as well as the Northeast Conference Swimming Committee and he has served as the President of the CWPA Board of Directors from 2001-2002.
As a full time employee at the college, Quigley was able to devote more of his energy to coaching the water polo team which resulted in three Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association (ECAC) Championships and CWPA Northern Division Championships (2000, 2004, and 2005), a CWPA Eastern Championship in 2005 and an automatic bid to the NCAA National Championship Final Four. He coached 14 All-America selections at the college and led a program which achieved the top grade point average in the nation for four years (1998-2001) and consistently rated among the top academic teams nationally with a roster that included many athletes for whom English was a second language.
Two members of those teams also won prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships during his coaching tenure as Tamas Katona and Gergely Fabian garnered recognition.
In 1990 he was inducted to the St Francis College Hall of Fame and currently lives in metropolitan New York.
Igor Mladenovic – St. Francis College Brooklyn
Among the best athletes of his generation to compete for St. Francis College Brooklyn and in the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA), Igor Mladenovic led the Terriers to three CWPA Championships and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) appearances along with a 78-35 four-year record during his tenure in Brooklyn.
A native of Belgrade, Serbia, Mladenovic started his time in New York by splitting time with All-America Honorable Mention goalkeeper Nikola Djuric to help lead SFC to a CWPA crown and a berth in the NCAA Final Four during the 2010 season.
The Most Valuable Player of the 2010 Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship hosted by Harvard University as the Terriers took down Fordham University (19-7 W), Princeton University (7-6 W) and Brown University (13-9 W), he was recognized with All-Northern Division Second Team honors following a season in which the Terriers claimed the Northern Division crown with a 7-0 regular season mark before stopping Connecticut College (22-3 W), Fordham (11-7 W) and Brown (14-7 W) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the division championship tournament. At the Eastern Championship hosted by Bucknell University, he aided SFC in turning back Johns Hopkins University (9-8 W), Bucknell (10-9 W) and the United States Naval Academy (8-4 W) for the league title to earn a spot in the NCAA Championship field where the Terriers fell to the University of Southern California (10-7 L) and Loyola Marymount University (9-7 L) to claim Fourth Place and cap off a 23-5 season.
In 2011, he returned to the SFC cage to anchor the Terriers to a 6-0 Northern Division regular season mark and defeats of both Iona University (13-3 W) and Brown (11-10 W OT SD) at MIT for another division title. At the Eastern Championship hosted by Harvard, he backstopped St. Francis Brooklyn to victories over Johns Hopkins (14-12 W) and Brown (16-10 W) with a semifinal defeat by Princeton (13-11 L OT) to claim Third Place and complete a 15-9 season. For his season performance, Mladenovic earned his second All-Northern Division Second Team nod.
As a junior in 2012, he made his mark on the national stage by garnering Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America Third Team recognition for a season in which he posted 225 saves with 192 goals against in 84 quarters with 37 steals, seven assists, 11 penalty shots saved and three goals during a 17-9 campaign according to the SFC records. An All-Northern Division First Team honoree, he helped the Terriers earn a second place finish during the Northern Division regular season prior to stopping Connecticut College (14-3 W), Harvard (17-14 W) and regular season titlist/host Brown (8-7 W) to capture the program’s third consecutive Northern Division Championship. At the Eastern Championship hosted by Princeton, Mladenovic earned his inaugural All-Tournament award by earning First Team recognition as St. Francis Brooklyn sank Navy (14-10 W), Mercyhurst University (12-11 W) and Bucknell (10-9 W OT) to claim the program’s second league title in three years. At the NCAA Championship hosted by the University of Southern California, St. Francis fell to the University of California-Los Angeles (17-3 L) before overcoming the United States Air Force Academy (14-8 W) behind 16 saves and an All-NCAA Championship First Team performance by Mladenovic to take home Third Place.
Mladenovic’s First Team All-NCAA Championship award places him in elite company as Dan O’Connell (1983, Loyola University Chicago), Luis Limardo (1995, University of Massachusetts), Brian Stahl (1996 & 2000, Massachusetts), John Vasek (1997, Queens College), Pat Kain (1999, Massachusetts), Michael Vieira (2002, Queens) and Thomas Nelson (2011, Princeton) are the only other athletes from an institution east of the California state line to receive recognition as the elite-of the-best at an NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship tournament.
The Third Place finish marked the seventh time a CWPA institution claimed a top three finish at the NCAA Championship via competition joining Massachusetts (1999), Princeton (2009, 2011), Queens College (1997, 2002) and Navy (2007). Since the elimination of the NCAA Championship Third Place game prior to the start of the 2016 season, both non-advancing semifinal teams were credited with Third Place – a mark both Harvard (2016) and Princeton (2023) have achieved over the subsequent years.
Mladenovic capped off his intercollegiate career in 2013 by allowing 175 goals with 232 saves and 50 steals in a 23-12 season for the Terriers to repeat as Northern and CWPA Champions.
St. Francis finished 10-2 to claim the Northern Division regular season title before handling Connecticut College (17-1 W), Brown (10-7 W) and host Harvard (12-4 W) at the Northern Division Championship tournament. At the Eastern Championship hosted by Brown, the Terriers stopped George Washington University (14-6 W), Bucknell (10-6 W) and Princeton (11-9 W) to repeat as CWPA Champions and earn another berth to the NCAA Championship.
At the NCAA Championship hosted by Stanford University, the Terriers took down the University of California-San Diego (6-5 W) before falling against the University of Southern California (10-3 L) and the host Cardinal (17-2 L) to earn a Fourth Place finish.
For his efforts, he received All-NCAA Tournament Second Team recognition to join Mike Mulvey (2008 Second Team; 2007 Second Team) and Aaron Recko (2007 Second Team; 2006 Second Team) of the United States Naval Academy along with Stahl (2000, 1996) and Kain (2000, 1999) of Massachusetts as the only two-time All-NCAA Tournament selections from outside California. The number of athletes selected each season has fluctuated as a Second Team was not selected for All-Tournament honors prior to 2004.
He concluded his time in an SFC cap by earning Northern Division Most Valuable Player (MVP) and All-Northern Division First Team status to accompany repeating as an ACWPC All-America Third Team honoree.
A 2015 graduate of St. Francis with Bachelor of Science degrees in Accounting and Economics prior to earning a Masters of Science, he completed his tenure in Brooklyn by serving as a volunteer assistant coach for the St. Francis Brooklyn teams during the 2013 (Northern Division – Third Place; CWPA Championship – Fourth Place) and 2014 (Northern Division – Third Place; CWPA Championship – Fifth Place) seasons.
A scholar and an athlete, Mladenovic achieved his athletic success while also maintaining a 3.65 cumulative grade point average and holding a 20 hours per week internship at Merrill Lynch.
Away from campus and work, he found time to volunteer to coach high school water polo with the Brooklyn Heights water polo club and participated in the Wounded Warrior Project by aiding disabled soldiers with swimming and scuba diving.
He is currently the Senior Manager for Capital Markets with Ernst & Young in New York and is a founding member of the Serbian Philanthropic Association, an organization that helps charities such as BELhospice (a beacon of hope and comfort for terminally ill children in Serbia) and The Feel to Heal program (led by the Novak Djokovic Foundation to help empowers children with essential emotional intelligence skills, vital for personal and professional success) among other causes for the betterment of society.
Peter Sabbatini – Princeton University
Among the best goalkeepers of his generation and in the history of East Coast water polo, Princeton University’s Peter Sabbatini helped build the foundation for the Tigers to become among the best teams in collegiate water polo.
A four-year varsity letter winner at Princeton for fellow Hall of Fame member/current United States Naval Academy head coach Luis Nicolao, Sabbatini helped solidify the Tigers as an East Coast powerhouse and backstopped the team to its second National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Final Four appearance in 2004.
Over the course of his collegiate career, he garnered multiple accolades: Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship Most Valuable Player (2003), Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Southern Division Player of the Year (2003), All-Southern Division First Team (2003, 2004), All-Southern Second Team (2002), CWPA Eastern Championship Most Valuable Player (2004), All-Eastern Championship First Team (2003, 2004), All-National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship Second Team (2004) and a pair of Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America nods (2003 – Third Team; 2004 – Second Team).
His performance in cage during the four-year span of 2001-to-2004 was unmatched as the Tigers finished 19-6 (2001), 20-9 (2002), 23-4 (2003) and 25-6 (2004) for a combined record of 87-25 – including a 31-3 record in Southern Division competition – with three Southern Division crowns (2001, 2003, 2004), a CWPA title (2004) and a Fourth Place finish at the 2004 NCAA Championship hosted by Stanford University. The NCAA Championship berth marked the second in school history as Princeton previously made and placed eighth at the 1992 event hosted at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach, Calif.
He saved his best performance at a CWPA Eastern Championship for his final league game in the 2004 Eastern Championship title game at Bucknell University.
Following 12-9 and 12-3 victories over the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, respectively, in the opening two rounds, Sabbatini stonewalled St. Francis Brooklyn for the remainder of regulation, two overtime periods and a pair of sudden victory frames (approximately 22 minutes and 21 seconds) until Nicholas Seaver swept in the game-winning goal with 1:43 left in the second sudden death period for a 3-2 victory.
At the 2004 NCAA Championship, Princeton dropped a pair of narrow defeats to eventual National Champion the University of California-Los Angeles (7-5 L) and Loyola Marymount University (6-5 L) to claim Fourth Place. UCLA went on to defeat Stanford for the NCAA Championship by a 10-9 final in overtime.
Away from Princeton, Sabbatini was a member of the National Youth Team (2001), National Junior Team (2000, 2003) and trained with the National A Team (April 2006 to December 2007), which provided him with the opportunities of training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO (1998, 2006), training internationally (Canada, Venezuela, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy) and competing in international tournaments such as NORAMS (1999), Junior Pan-American Championships (2000, earning Co-MVP Tournament Goalie), and the Junior World Championships (2003).
A 2005 graduate of Princeton with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, he is currently a Senior Project Manager for McDonough Bolyard Peck, a construction management company headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. In addition, he gives back to the sport as a 14U goalkeeper coach where he started playing as a child for then Navy head coach and fellow Hall of Fame member Mike Schofield – for the Navy AC Water Polo club in Annapolis, Md.
The Hall of Fame induction will mark one of two honors bestowed on Sabbatini while at Princeton during the weekend as his 2004 Tigers’ squad will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of their league championship title.
Ted Bresnahan – Johns Hopkins University
The godfather of Division III water polo, Edward “Ted” Bresnahan coached 27 seasons of the sport at Johns Hopkins University prior to retiring in December 2018.
Bresnahan coached the Blue Jays for all but three of the program’s varsity seasons. He took over as the program’s fourth head coach in 1991 and turned Hopkins into one of the premier Division III water polo programs in the nation. Bresnahan led JHU to a 414-389 (.515) record, while competing primarily against Division I competition, and he became the fifth head coach in Johns Hopkins’ athletics history to reach 400 wins.
Bresnahan coached 65 Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America selections, including 31 first team selections, a record five national Players of the Year and five College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-America honorees.
JHU produced at least one All-America recipient in every season since 1996. In addition, two of his players have been inducted into the Johns Hopkins Athletic Hall of Fame. Bresnahan led the Blue Jays to a record 17 Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Division III Championships and six times Hopkins has been ranked number one in the nation in the season’s final poll. He was named the ACWPC Division III National Coach of the Year in 2005, 2008 and 2015.
Arguably his greatest achievement was competing against Division I programs at a highly academic Division III team without the benefit of scholarships. In 2015, he guided the Blue Jays to the title game of the CWPA Championship hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with first round and semifinal defeats of St. Francis Brooklyn College (7-6 W) and Brown University (8-7 W) prior to dropping another one-goal game to Princeton University (7-6 L) for the league title. It marked the first and only time a Division III program has reached the title game of a Division I athletic conference in the history of modern intercollegiate athletics. For his effort, Bresnahan was recognized with the Dick Russell Coach of the Tournament award – the only Division III head coach to earn the accolade.
Bresnahan continues to give back to the sport as an official calling Florida High School, collegiate club and other competitions in the Sunshine State.
Aaron Recko – United States Naval Academy
Among a litany of outstanding players who have played at the United States Naval Academy, Aaron Recko becomes the third former Midshipmen to join the fleet of Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Hall of Fame members.
Recko – who joins fellow graduates Tom Popp ’89 and Luis Nicolao ’92 along with former Navy head coach Mike Schofield in the Hall of Fame – concluded his career with 172 goals and 43 assists for 215 points in helping Navy achieve a 95-32 record, three CWPA Eastern Championship title game appearances (2005, 2006, 2007) and pairs of CWPA Eastern titles and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship berths (2006, 2007).
His career did not set out on a Hall of Fame trajectory as Recko managed one goal in two games during his freshman year in 2004 when Navy finished 19-12 with a Third Place finish at the CWPA Eastern Championship hosted by Bucknell University.
Navy’s fortunes turned on the tides of Recko and his classmates’ performance over the next three years as the Blue & Gold accounted for 76-20 record from 2005-to-2007 to rate with St. Francis Brooklyn College as the dominant force on the East Coast.
As a sophomore in 2005, he accounted for 25 goals, 10 assists, 35 points, 24 steals and 25 ejections drawn in 29 games as the Midshipmen accounted for a 22-7 season. The Southern Division champion thanks to defeats of Mercyhurst University (14-3 W), Bucknell (9-8 W) and host Princeton University (10-8 W), Navy placed second at the CWPA Eastern Championship hosted by Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., as the Mids managed Iona University (9-5 W) and Bucknell (8-7 W) before falling to St. Francis Brooklyn (10-9 L).
The second place finish and Recko’s performance over the next two seasons helped lay the foundation for a three-year run of dominance by the Naval Academy that saw the team reel off a 54-13 mark with the team’s lone losses to a team outside of California coming against rival St. Francis Brooklyn.
Recko came into his own to fuel the charge for Navy in 2006 as the junior led the team with 70 goals, 19 assists, 89 points, 38 steals and 40 ejections drawn in 31 games as the Midshipmen finished 24-7, including a 20-1 record against East Coast institutions, to win the Southern Division and CWPA Eastern Championships.
Following defeats of George Washington (10-5 W), host Bucknell (12-9 W) and Princeton (11-10 W) to win the program’s second Southern Division crown in as many years, the Midshipmen dominated the CWPA Championship by defeating MIT (13-7 W), Bucknell (11-8 W) and host Princeton (9-6 W) to reclaim the league title and earn a berth to the NCAA Championship for the first time since 2003.
At the NCAA Championship hosted by Stanford University, Navy claimed Fourth Place after facing then top-ranked the University of Southern California (14-9 L) and Loyola Marymount University (11-4 L).
For his performance, Recko was lauded with Southern Division Most Valuable Player, All-Southern Division First Team, Eastern Championship Most Valuable Player, Eastern Championship All-Tournament First Team and Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America Third Team honors.
However, his best single season offensive performance was saved for the 2007 campaign as the senior struck for 76 goals, 14 assists and 90 points as Navy compiled a 30-6 record – including a 24-1 mark against East Coast schools – to repeat as both Southern Division and CWPA Eastern Champions.
In the wake of victories over Salem University (8-6 W), Gannon University (16-8 W), Princeton University (11-5 W) and Johns Hopkins University (11-7 W) at home in Annapolis to retain the Southern Division title, the Midshipmen repeated as Eastern Champions and the league’s NCAA Championship representative by sinking Iona (12-3 W), George Washington (15-3 W) and St. Francis Brooklyn (11-7 W) at Harvard behind another MVP performance by Recko. In the title game, Recko tallied four goals as the Midshipmen rallied back from a 3-1 deficit in the first quarter to defeat the Terriers.
At the NCAA Championship hosted by Stanford, Recko helped Navy against the University of California (8-5 L) and Loyola Marymount University (7-6 W) as Navy claimed Third Place to equal the highest finish ever recorded by an East Coast institution at the event.
He capped off his intercollegiate career with a bevy of awards as he repeated as an All-Southern Division First Team selection to accompany Eastern Championship MVP and All-Tournament First Team status. Recko added All-NCAA Championship Second Team notice – becoming the first of two Navy players to achieve the feat (Mike Mulvey – 2007, 2008 All-NCAA Championship Second Team) – prior to joining Mulvey (Honorable Mention) on the 2007 ACWPC All-America team with a Second Team nod. The All-America award places Recko in rare air as he stands with Sean Foster (2000, Second Team) and Isaac Salinas (2020/Winter 2021, Second Team) as the only Naval Academy men’s water polo athletes to earn All-America Second Team recognition.
One of three Navy water polo players to earn back-to-back Eastern Championship MVP laurels – joining fellow Hall of Fame members Popp (1987, 1988) and Nicolao (1990, 1991), Recko is tied for 20th in career points (215) and tied for ninth in single season goals (76, 2007). His performance came during a reign of dominance by Navy as the Midshipmen notched a school record tying 19-game (October 6, 2007-to-November 18, 2007) and a 14-game (September 27, 2006-to-November 14, 2006) winning streak during his time in Annapolis.
A 2008 graduate of the Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering, the Vice President of Special Projects for Guido Companies, a privately held Commercial Construction and Building Materials firm in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas, is the husband of Bella and the father of a five-year old daughter Cameron and a two year-old son Mark with an additional Recko on the way in February.
