BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — The Collegiate Water Polo Association launches the PoloCAST Podcast – a biweekly series highlighting some of water polo’s best minds and athletes over the past 50+ years.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify, PoloCAST features Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Hall of Fame member George Gross, Jr., providing 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.
Follow the entire series by CLICKING HERE.
Listen to the inaugural PoloCAST podcast below:
About Mike Schofield: A 2014 inductee to the CWPA Hall of Fame, Mike Schofield retired from the United States Naval Academy in 2013 after leading the Midshipmen to nine CWPA/Eastern Championships during his 29-year tenure on the Navy bench as the squad competed in 13 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournaments. Twenty-one Navy athletes earned 31 All-America honors under Schofield, and Navy was represented on the All-America team in each of the last 14 years of his career.
The school’s all-time leader in coaching victories thanks to compiling 631 wins in 28+ years in charge of the Navy water polo program, he surpassed baseball’s Joe Duff, who had 595 career wins, in 2011 for the Naval Academy record. He then recorded his 600th career win with a 12-10 victory over Brown University in the CWPA Championship semifinals, propelling the Midshipmen into their seventh straight league title game appearance.
The Mids dominated the East, compiling a remarkable 149-29 (.837) record against East Coast teams in the last eight years of Schofield’s career.
In 2012, Schofield guided the Midshipmen to a 23-6 record and a CWPA Southern Division regular-season championship. The Midshipmen bolted out to a 20-2 record in 2012, one of its best starts in school history, and scored a whopping 467 goals, an average of 16.1 goals per game.
In 2011, Navy compiled a 24-7 record and won the CWPA Southern Division tournament title for the 13th time in 19 appearances.
Four years ago, Navy recorded a 25-7 record and won the CWPA Southern Division title with a 7-1 mark. It was the 29th straight year that Navy had won at least 19 games and the Mids reached the CWPA Championship Finals for the sixth straight year. Schofield was named the CWPA Eastern Coach of the Year for a remarkable seventh time in his career.
Navy posted a 22-9 record five years ago, once again winning the CWPA Southern Division Tournament title and owning an 11-match winning streak late in the year, while advancing to the CWPA Championship title game for the fifth straight year.
The 2008 season was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Mids. However, all Navy did was win its third straight CWPA Championship title, its fifth title since 2000, while finishing with a 20-11 record. Navy became the first program to win three straight CWPA titles twice, accomplishing the feat from 1986-88 as well as 2006-08.
The 2007 team compiled a 30-6 record, setting a school record for wins in a season. The Mids won their eighth CWPA title and finished third at the NCAA Championship, also a program best. Navy went 19-1 for the second straight year against Eastern teams and boasted a school-record 19-game winning streak heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Schofield had a long line of All-America athletes under his guidance with 31 selections. From 1999-to-2012, at least one Navy player was named to the All-America team.
The Mids also succeeded in the classroom under their longtime head coach with 57 Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-Academic citations since the 2001 season. In addition, five Navy players ince 2001 have earned College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America honors, including Eric Gardiner who earned a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, was named first-team CoSIDA All-America selection (at-large team) and was a Marshall Scholarship recipient in 2008.
Schofield is well recognized in the water polo community, having also coached on the international level, guiding the U.S. Water Polo Team at the 1997 World University Games to a fifth-place finish. He also served as an assistant for the 1992 National Team and as an assistant for the U.S. Water Polo Team that won gold medals at the World University Games in both 1991 and 1993.
Schofield also directed the Naval Academy Aquatic Club, which produced some of the top young water polo players and swimmers in the country, many of whom continued their careers at the Naval Academy.
A 1979 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where he was the captain of the water polo team and received Most Valuable Player recognition, Schofield led the Panthers to their only NCAA Championship appearance in 1976 as the team defeated Bucknell University for the then Mid-Atlantic League crown. He arrived in Annapolis in 1982 and assisted in resurrecting a water polo program that had been dormant for 32 years. He took over the head coaching duties in 1985, and his teams enjoyed 23 20-plus win seasons, playing to an overall record of 586-230 during his tenure. A seven-time (1986, 1990, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2010) Eastern Championship Coach of the Tournament selection, he added National Coach of the Year accolades to his resume in 2004 and was inducted into the United States Water Polo Hall of Fame in March of 2004.
