BEIJING (AP) U.S. men's water polo coach Terry Schroeder has watched the movie "Miracle" more times than he can remember.
He's even seen it four times in Beijing, searching scenes, memorizing lines and finding plenty of inspiration before his team's biggest matches. Schroeder has one more viewing scheduled, and it might be more appropriate now than ever before.
The United States (5-1) plays two-time defending gold medalist Hungary (5-0-1) in the gold medal match Sunday.
It's the surprising Americans, who get little national attention because water polo is so geographically confined to California, versus the most storied program in the sport's history. It's the country that hasn't been on the medal stand in two decades versus the country that has twice as many gold medals as anyone else. It's the team with nothing to lose versus the team that hasn't lost in 16 consecutive games at the Olympics.
"We know how tough they are," U.S. captain Tony Azevedo said Saturday. "But all the pressure's on them. I think they're the ones who are scared."
The Americans are brimming with confidence, the result of upsetting Italy, Croatia, Germany and Serbia to get to the final. It's also the work of Schroeder, a three-time Olympian who captained the Americans to silver medals in 1984 and '88.
Schroeder accepted the head coaching job a little more than a year ago and has done wonders to get the once-proud program turned around.
"He's made us believe in ourselves," center Ryan Bailey said. "We were talented before. We had beaten everybody at different times. But he made us believe we could get it done in the biggest tournaments."
It wasn't easy.
Schroeder became the program's fourth coach in as many years when he accepted the task of trying to get the team straightened out after finishing seventh (Atlanta), sixth (Sydney) and seventh (Athens) in the last three Olympics.
He also replaced Azevedo's father, Rick, who was fired after several poor performances, and inherited a talented team that lacked focus, direction, discipline and confidence.
"Terry came in at a hard time with our team," Tony Azevedo said. "Any coach put in that situation was going to have a hard time. But he came in positive, saying, 'Look guys, I don't want to change everything. I'm just going to tell you what I know, what I've been through and we're going to change a few little things.' That's exactly what we needed."
Schroeder's priority was getting the players to believe in each other. He figured if he could accomplish that, then the confidence part would fall into place.
So he organized several team-building activities.
The players and coaches went whitewater rafting together, camped out together, took a Navy SEAL training class together and even served ice cream together.
"We did a lot of crazy things," Bailey said. "At the time, I was like, 'Oh, my god, what are we doing?' But maybe there's a method to this madness."
They learned to depend on each other with every new challenge, and they quickly realized that no one person was more important than anyone else - a problem the team faced in 2000 and 2004.
Maybe the most telling exercise was when all 13 players had to stand on a balance beam side by side and then work together to get each person to move down the line to the end without anyone falling off. So there they were, a bunch of 200-pound guys twisting, turning, stretching, squirming, bending, balancing, hugging, helping and basically doing anything they could to get the job done.
"All that stuff really helped us in the water," Azevedo said. "We realized it's all of us together. We're going to come out and win and lose as a team. That's what it took."
The results soon followed.
A key victory came in May when the Americans beat Croatia in an exhibition match in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
The players' confidence kept growing with success in the World League Super Final in Genoa, Italy, in June. The United States advanced to the championship game before losing to Serbia. A few days later, the Americans were making more noise with a one-goal loss to Hungary in Budapest.
"To beat Hungary in Hungary is nearly impossible," Azevedo said.
Beating the Hungarians in the Olympics might be nearly as daunting a task. But Schroeder believes his team is playing well enough to do it. And he's going to watch "Miracle" one more time for inspiration.
The movie chronicles the 1980 U.S. hockey team's victory over juggernaut Russia - one of the greatest upsets in sports history - that set up the gold medal game against Finland.
Schroeder knows that no matter what happens Sunday, his team won't compare to Herb Brooks' squad in 1980. But he does see some similarities.
"I knew we had the talent, but I didn't know how far we could go," he said.
He does now.
"This team has been on an amazing run and there's a lot of really good things happening," Schroeder said. "It's almost magical to watch them out there playing. It's one game, and for that one day, who knows?"
Signin to rank content.
