BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — In the history of Olympic men’s water polo since the first tournament was hosted in 1900 in Paris, the United States men’s team has participated in 22 of 27 tournaments through the 2016 even at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Team USA, which first competed in 1904 at the St. Louis games, has had a number of collegiate athletes make the roster – the first being Rex Beach of Rollins College and Bill Ortwein of Yale University who made the roster of one of the three United States entrants during the 1904 games (which sponsored water polo as an exhibition sport with Team USA becoming the only team to sweep gold, silver and bronze).
During the early years of United States participation in water polo (women’s water polo did not become an Olympic event until 2000), New York was a hot bed of talent.
In fact, the college that produced the most Olympians in the early years was Columbia University which placed Herb Vollmer (1920, 1924), Ray Ruddy (1936) and Edward Jaworski (1952) on the United States’ roster.
However, for this story we turn our attention to another New York institution – Fordham University – and Joseph P. Farley – a man who became a real-estate executive. a rear admiral in the Naval Reserve and served as chief of staff of the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs from 1965 to 1973.
A 1928 graduate of Fordham where he served as a team captain of the swimming team and went undefeated in the 100 yards freestyle during his time in the Bronx, Farley was part of the 1928 and 1932 United States Olympic swimming teams that competed in Amsterdam and Los Angeles. In addition, he was part of the 1928 men’s water polo team that placed fifth and featured future Tarzan Johnny Weismuller on the roster.
The United States is recorded as having played three games during the tournament – a 5-0 quarterfinal loss to Hungary followed by consolation games versus France (2-1 L) and Malta (10-0 W). Overall, the event consisted primarily of a single-elimination bracket that determined the gold and silver medals. The bronze medal was supposed to be awarded through a modified Bergvall system tournament, in which the teams who lost to the top two nations (that is, Belgium and Great Britain—who had lost to Germany—and France, the United States, and Argentina—who had lost to Hungary) would conduct another single-elimination tournament for the third place. However, the tournament organizers did not understand the system. The Official Report of the Olympic Games lists three third-place matches, in which France defeated Great Britain, the United States, and Argentina in succession. To additional matches of the United States-versus-Malta and the Netherlands versus Belgium are also listed. However, it is noted that, “some of the matches played may have been friendlies or exhibitions.” The France–Great Britain match was treated as the bronze medal game.
Between his Olympic swimming appearances, Farley won the AAU national championship in the 440 yards relay in 1929
Following his Olympic and AAU competition days, he entered the business world and held several executive posts with the City Investing Company, a real-estate development concern, before and after World War II.
A Navy veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, he became president of the Security Title and Guaranty Company in 1947 and later entered the mortgage banking field.
A 1975 inductee to the Fordham Athletics Hall of Fame and the 1982 New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame, he served as captain of NYAC for many years starting in 1950.
Farley died on May 29,1984 at his home in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was 78 years old.
