Bay Area water polo legend Maggie Steffens seeks fourth gold at Paris Olympics

Ask her if she’s the greatest of all time, and Maggie Steffens’ head just about explodes.

“I can’t,” she says. “I’m still playing. If I really believed that statement, I’d be done.”

Since joining the United States women’s water polo team at 15, the Danville native has collected a list of accolades that includes three Olympic gold medals, three NCAA championships while at Stanford and the world record for most goals in a single Olympics (21) and all-time at the Olympics (56).

At 31, she understands the 2024 Paris Olympics next month could be her last.

“Whether it is or it isn’t, I’m trying to have the perspective of, ‘What if it is?’ ” she said.

So there she is, living in Long Beach, waking up at 5 a.m. and hitting the pool for seven-hour days of training, still fine-tuning her shooting mechanics, still reaching for personal records in the weight room and still searching for new ways to get better, all while warding off anybody who tells her she’s already the best there ever was.

“If I really believed that and I really felt that, why would I keep playing?” she said. “Why would I be pushing myself past the limits, putting my body in pain physically, mentally, the stress, the pressure, anxiety, all the things that come with it, if I really believed that and accepted that? I wouldn’t still be here.”

The humility, her dad says, was built at home, where she hated to lose to her three older siblings but had to get used to it. He had a saying for her: “See the entire pizza.”

Life was more than one play or one moment. He always wanted her to see the big picture.

“Maggie’s style of play, there are only very few that understand the game who can understand how important she is and what she brings to the team,” said her dad, Carlos Steffens, a former member of the Puerto Rican national team and a national champion and three-time All-American while at Cal. “Her assists, her leadership, her steals, her positioning, her intimidation. And because she draws players, her passing is quite good.

“She understands the game. She sees the entire pizza.”

Her freshman year at Monte Vista High School, the water polo team had just lost six impact seniors, and first-year coach Scott Getty expected it’d be a down year.

“Maggie replaced the production from all six of them,” Getty said. “She’s physically gifted, she’s fast, strong, and has all that going on. But she was smarter than everyone else. Still is. Watch her games — she’s playing two moves ahead of everybody else out there. It’s not instinctual. It’s study. Hard work.”

That same year, Maggie’s older sister, Jessica, had made the women’s national team and was competing at the Olympics in Beijing. The Americans lost to the Netherlands, ending their gold medal dream, and Maggie was crying in the bleachers.

“I said, ‘Don’t cry, this is the best thing that ever happened to you,’ ” Carlos said. “This will give you an opportunity to give the United States the first gold medal in water polo with your sister at the next Olympics. And she believed me.”

Meanwhile at UCLA, water polo coach Adam Krikorian already had his eyes set on recruiting Maggie. A Mountain View native who was very familiar with the family, Krikorian had tried and failed to recruit three of the Steffens children: Maggie’s brother Charlie, who chose Cal, and her sisters Teresa and Jessica, who chose Cal and Stanford, respectively.

The idea of luring Maggie to UCLA seemed farfetched, but Krikorian planned to try. Then, in 2009, his luck changed: He was offered the women’s national team job.

“That was the best way for me to be able to coach a Steffens kid,” he said.

He called up the family and made an offer they couldn’t refuse: Maggie was headed to the national team.

“She was 15,” Krikorian said. “And the potential was oozing out of her.”

Her first tournament with Team USA, Steffens was playing “scrappy, aggressive, attacking,” her coach remembered, when it was becoming clear her opponents didn’t like seeing a 15-year-old play like that. Someone gave her an elbow to the nose. She swam to the side of the pool, bleeding everywhere. Krikorian took her out of the game for a minute.

“She said, ‘I’m fine,’ and she wanted to play,” he said. “I put her back in, and she scored on the next possession.”

Steffens spent her high school years going back and forth between Monte Vista and the national team camp in Southern California.

She was 18 when the London Olympics rolled around in 2012. She got to play on the same team as Jessica and tried her best to fit in, to be a follower, “to not make any mistakes and screw it up for anyone else,” she said.

In her first Olympic game against Hungary, she scored seven goals, tying the Olympic record for most goals in a game. The Americans won by one.

Looking back, Maggie said it would’ve never happened if she wasn’t in the stands in Beijing, experiencing the feeling of defeat with Jessica four years earlier.

“If she never made the team and showed me the Olympics were possible,” Maggie said.

Playing at Stanford after the Olympics, Steffens led the Cardinal to three NCAA championships acting not only as a star player but as a coach in the water.

“Maggie is the best at bridge-building,” said Stanford coach John Tanner. “I’d have her in meetings to say, ‘Look, I’m concerned about this teammate, she doesn’t seem like she’s really feeling it, looks like she might be having a hard week.’ Maggie will say, ‘I noticed that. I connected with her, and we had lunch yesterday.’ She’s a step ahead. And she’s doing something about it.”

Last week, Tanner pulled up Steffens’ statistics at her three Olympics to confirm a suspicion: After her record-setting 2012 Olympic games when she scored 21 goals, her goal production has gone down.

“It’s like 3.5 goals per game, then 2.9, then 2.5,” Tanner said. “But she’s giving more. She’s passing more. She’s passing the torch. That’s how she goes from being that finisher to now she’s setting everyone else up. She’s that foundation and the reason everyone else stands out.”

Others on the team are often starstruck when they first meet her but said she quickly becomes a friend and mentor.

“I’ll be next to her in the pool, and she’ll do something, and I’m like I don’t even know how you did that,” said teammate and Stanford standout Jewel Roemer. “Her knowledge of the game is insane.”

Last month, Steffens was called into Krikorian’s office for a meeting that only happens every four years. He informed her she made the Olympic team for Paris. She started crying.

“I was just as emotional, honored, excited, nervous and grateful as I was 12-15 years ago,” she said.

When she was younger, she wanted to be the best. Today, she wants to inspire the best, “to leave the sport better than when I found it.”

“I think Maggie has understood her purpose,” Carlos said. “Which is extremely important for anybody in life. To have a purpose to know where you go.”

Is she the greatest woman to ever play? Krikorian and Tanner think so. The numbers say so. But Steffens thinks that’s the wrong question to ask.

“How can you really be the best when you need others to be your best?” she said. “There are so many little details that go into a goal or a block or a win. You can’t do that alone. It’s really about who is the best team of all time? That’s what I’m striving to be a part of.”