Kocur leads USA Water Polo to Silver Medal

Oaks Christian Water Polo Coach Jack Kocur was discussing his recent run of success when his son, Camden Kocur, Class of 2025, walked into the water polo team room just outside of the Sotelo Aquatic Center on campus.  

Kocur guided the Oaks Christian girls’ water polo program to a CIF-SS Open Division championship in February and led the boys’ water polo program to a CIF-SS Open Division semifinal appearance in November 2024. During the summer of 2024, he was a part of the coaching staff that led USA Water Polo’s Men’s senior team to a bronze medal at the Olympics in Paris.  

This summer, Kocur traveled to Croatia, where he coached USA Water Polo’s Junior Men’s National Team to a silver medal at the World Aquatics Men’s U20 Water Polo Championships. It’s the best finish the United States has had at this tournament. 

“Not a bad run,” said Camden as his dad was asked about the recent string of coaching success.  

“God has given me a lot of these blessings in the last three years, and it’s been pretty crazy,” Kocur said.  

Kocur has been spearheading the USA Water Polo Men’s Junior National Team for the past four cycles, beginning in 2019. In 2023, Kocur led the program to its first bronze, its best finish at the time. This year, he bested that when his team qualified for the championship game against Spain on June 21.  

Qualification began when USA Water Polo assembled its roster weeks before the tournament. Kocur and his staff had roughly 10 days to prepare a game plan to fight for a medal heading into the tournament in Croatia.  

“As coaches, we need to understand how to get the best out of our athletes and how to use their gifts to benefit the team culture in a matter of weeks,” Kocur said. “A different approach that I tried during this cycle was to lean more on the knowledge of our athletes.” 

His roster included Ryder Dodd. Dodd won an Olympic bronze medal, a 2025 NCAA water polo championship at UCLA, and was named the 2025 recipient of the Cutino Award.  

“When you have a player like Ryder on your team, you feel like you always have a chance,” Kocur said.  

USA Water Polo opened pool play against Croatia on June 14.  

“Playing against the host nation in our opener was probably the best thing for us,” Kocur admitted after dropping their first game 19-10. “We got an opportunity to feel the intensity and really understand what the tournament is going to look like.”  

USA would drop their next contest to Hungary 13-12. Even though the result was disappointing, the Lions skipper was able to focus on the positive as his team continued to come together on the fly.  

“The loss gave us the empowerment to make some changes that paid off in the long run,” Kocur said. “If we had beaten Hungary, maybe we don’t, maybe we don’t have the conviction to make some of those changes.”  

USA Water Polo would rebound and beat Montenegro 16-10 before beating Iran 23-5. They would knock off Serbia 19-18 in a penalty shootout to advance to the semifinals and secure a rematch against Hungary. The Americans haven’t defeated Serbia at any level of international water polo since beating them for a bronze medal during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. 

Hungary had won the 2023 edition of the U20 World Championships. So, when Kocur and company came back in the second half to beat Hungary 18-16, it felt familiar to the OCS girls’ water polo team coming back from a four-goal deficit at Mater Dei to secure their spot in the CIF-SS Open Division final.  

The run would ultimately end for the USA when they fell to Spain 14-11 in the finals on June 21. After the game, Kocur had to slow down the podium festivities and have a team meeting when he recognized his team was struggling with defeat.  

“I’d be disappointed if we weren’t disappointed that we lost the final game we played,” Kocur said. “How do you make the emotional switch in 10 minutes? I gathered our team and told them to embrace this moment and allow yourself to celebrate the fact that we just went further than any other program in USA history had before us. So, forget the pain while we take photos and enjoy this moment as silver medalists.” 

Although Kocur led his team through that moment, it wasn’t until he got home that he allowed himself to think about the bigger picture.  

“When I can surround myself with the best, it only magnifies what we’re trying to accomplish here at Oaks Christian,” Kocur said. “That’s what I mean, that God has given me the opportunity to experience this. I need to lean on Him more and thank Him for that.”  

Photos courtesy of Word Aquatics