From Sicily to California, through the Scudetto won with Pescara. That’s the way you can summarize Marco Palazzo’s career: ten years ago the former Italian player (41) moved to USA to keep on playing in American college waterpolo (NCAA). Then he became a coach, participating to London 2012 Olympics as assistant of USA Team head coach Terry Schroeder. We’ll meet Palazzo in Lignano Sabbiadoro, during the 9th edition of HaBaWaBa International Festival, where he’s going to lead the U11 team of Newport Beach, the Californian club he’s currently working for along with another Italian coach, Stefano Ragosa.
“I’m so glad to bring my kids to HaBaWaBa – Palazzo said -, it’s something I’ve always wished to do”.
You look very happy. Are your little players too?
They’re enthusiastic about it, they’re training madly to do well. None of them has ever been to Italy, they are excited to go there to play waterpolo. I gave to each of them an Italian name: Dane became Dino, Gavin became Gino and so on… They loved this joke so they are calling each other with their “new names”.
How is to be a waterpolo coach in California?
It’s good for two reasons: the pools and the large participation. Newport Beach is essentially the first waterpolo academy for players before the high schools, that owns wonderful pools. I’m training the U12 team, but kids start in U10 category: they swim or play waterpolo, but all of them attend junior lifeguard lessons, where they can learn how to behave in the ocean, an environment very different from our sea.
You’ve talked about large participation to waterpolo.
Data are impressive: Newport Beach has 140 kids playing in U10-U14 teams. In California the number of young people practicing waterpolo is huge, even Slavic players as Predrag Zimonijc or Deni Lusic were impressed when they came to visit me. But coaches’ quality isn’t so good as it is in Europe: if it increased, USA would produce talented players constantly.
Potentially USA could became a real force in waterpolo.
They have a huge potential. Here they perceive waterpolo as a sport that gives many chances to get success in life: playing waterpolo could bring you to a sports scholarship by prestigious university as Stanford or Berkeley.
Can HaBaWaBa build a stronger bond between your kids and waterpolo?
Absolutely yes. The Festival is the more famous youth waterpolo event in the world. Once a great former player as Carlo Silipo, quoting one of his coaches, told me that we need to put inside every child’s mind a little worm that push them to love waterpolo. HaBaWaBa is that worm.
HaBaWaBa Festival will give you the chance to come back to Italy as a waterpolo coach.
I’m very happy, I hope to meet many old friends of mine, people I haven’t see for a while. The connection between people that deal with waterpolo world is very hard to find elsewhere. Italian, Greeks, Spanish, Slavs: we all grow old with the same culture, doing the same sacrifices. In the USA that formation is universally rewarded: companies appreciate more a worker or a businessman who was a waterpolo player, because this means he was used to work hard in a team.
Are there other waterpolo values that were useful in your life in California?
Americans have a golden rule: “treat the others just the way you want to be treated”. Waterpolo teaches that: respect.
