BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Former University of Pennsylvania club coach/USA Water Polo Women’s National Team Video Coordinator/University of California-Los Angeles women’s water polo assistant coach Chris Lee is the featured guest on Episode 12 of the All Access Water Polo podcast.
The head coach of the United States women’s beach water polo team which swept through the 2019 FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, the University of Pennsylvania graduate has experience on the collegiate club, varsity and national team levels.
No stranger to the collegiate game, Lee served as an assistant coach at the University of California in Berkeley, Calif., prior to joining the UCLA women’s staff for a run from 2018-to-2021.
Over five years and two stints at Cal, Lee helped the Golden Bears to four National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Water Polo Championships semifinal-round appearances. Individually, players from those teams accounted for 43 Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-Academic Awards and 31 All-America nods.
A veteran of the Southern California water polo scene, Lee guided the men’s and women’s teams at Occidental College (2015, 2016) between stints with the Golden Bears. He also turned in three seasons each with the Pomona-Pitzer College men’s (2009-2011) and women’s squads (2010-12), helping the Sagehens to Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) championships on both sides.
Lee entered the world of coaching at Penn in 2000, when he took over the women’s collegiate club water polo team as an undergraduate student. Eight seasons (2000-04, 2005-08) later, the Quakers had claimed four Mid-Atlantic Division championships (including the program’s first in 2004) and made Lee the division’s Coach of the Year four times. For good measure, Lee took over the men’s side in 2006 and did not miss a beat, helping his alma mater to a Mid-Atlantic title in 2007 and earning Coach of the Year honors in 2006 and 2007.
Also a veteran of international competition, Lee served the United States Women’s Senior National Team since 2011 in various roles. As a video analyst, he operated at head coach Adam Krikorian’s right hand on the way to gold medals at the 2012 London, 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020/21 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Further, Lee oversaw the growth of up-and-coming youth in the sport with the Olympic Development Program and as an assistant coach for the USA Women’s Cadet National Team (2011-15), which claimed gold at the 2015 Junior Pan American Games in Kingston, Jamaica.
