Water Polo: Woodhead recounts ‘incredible experience’ at Olympics

For most of the first week he was in Tokyo, Dylan Woodhead was still coming to terms that he was an Olympian.

It was a lifelong dream realized for the water polo standout from San Anselmo and even now that he’s back stateside he’s still working through processing everything he went through for the past three weeks.

“I felt like I grew a lot,” Woodhead said Thursday from the East Coast where he is taking some well-earned vacation. “I felt like my team grew a lot. I felt like it was just an incredible experience just based on the fact that it was a dream that I lived through.”

The former Archie Williams and Stanford star helped the U.S. Men’s Water Polo team to a sixth-place finish in Tokyo, and while the team didn’t come home with any hardware, it was still the best finish for the program since 2008. Woodhead believes it’s also just the beginning for this young group, which now has some crucial experience as it starts to look ahead at Paris in 2024.

The U.S. had one of the younger teams with eight of its 13 members, including Woodhead, being first-time Olympians.

“The experience is so valuable and with such a young team, the longer we stick together, the better we’ll get,” he said.

Woodhead has been no stranger to playing on big stages during his career in the pool. His youth and prep days featured some legendary years for then-Drake High and the Sleepy Hollow Aquatics club team, not to mention his last season at Stanford in 2019 that saw the Cardinal win the NCAA Championship. But none of that compared to what he faced in Tokyo.

“I think it was the most pressure I’ve ever felt, with reason,” he said. “I think it’s the pinnacle of our sport and not something to take lightly but I just think that going through experiences like that where you are uncomfortable, you feel pressure, you are dealing with it is when you learn and grow most as a person and as an athlete.

“Being in that situation was such a privilege — there’s that saying ‘Pressure is a privilege’ and you feel that pressure because you’re at such an incredible stage of your job or of your sport. Just the experience as a whole and going through that I felt like I grew and learned a lot about myself and grew a lot as an athlete just dealing with being uncomfortable.”

That’s what he says will help the U.S. and its young core in the long run.

What made his experience even more special was that he got to share it with high school and SHAQ teammate Joe Ryan, a top Minor League pitching prospect who made the U.S. Baseball team. The old friends first connected at the Opening Ceremonies and stayed in touch throughout the Games.

“It was so fun,” Woodhead said. “I introduced him to my team and he talked so much water polo because he’s just such a great guy and is interested and obviously loves the game as well. Our whole team started following baseball and we watched him pitch and I’d see him around and we’d chat and talk about each other’s performances and stuff. It was super fun. Just a crazy thing to have a childhood friend at the Olympics together.”

The two also marveled over the mass of support they were getting from back home in Marin.

“That was incredible,” Woodhead said. “It was overwhelming, the love and support I received from the community. Joe and I kind of bonded over that, people coming out the woodwork and congratulating you and your family. It’s really incredible. It’s just a testament to how supportive the community we come from is. … I couldn’t have asked for a better team and community that helped me get here but also just continued to push me while I was playing in the Olympics.”

Woodhead said the first week he was in the Olympic Village was surreal and one of his best memories from the Games. He also met a handful of NBA players like Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert and former All-Star Pau Gasol, whom Woodhead said he had a great conversation with at one point.

“The energy the first five days was incredible,” he said. “Like I’d just walk outside and it would hit me multiple times a day for a couple days in a row, where it’s such a unique experience and it’s just so cool to be surrounded by people that have worked so hard and have, honestly, done a lot of things similar to you to get there. You’re surrounded by a lot of incredible people.”

Also among his most memorable moments was being able to witness some of the world’s elite men’s water polo teams like Serbia, the gold-medal winner, and Spain, in action. He said the semifinal game between those two powers was one of the “greatest games I’ve watched in person, in any sport.”

Woodhead said he’s looking forward to taking some time off in the coming weeks after having played water polo all over the world for the better part of the last year. He also plans on going back to Stanford to get his Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and possibly help out with the school’s water polo program, where his younger brother Quinn will be finishing his senior year.

Woodhead said Quinn could be in the mix for a spot on the U.S. team for Paris and with any luck the two could be sharing the Olympic experience in 2024.

“That’s another dream that would be pretty freaking cool,” Woodhead said.