The Rams rose to a tie for No. 1 in the nation—higher than any Fordham team ever—after winning their fourth straight Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference title. “We’re in the strongest position we’ve ever been in as a program,” said head coach Brian Bacharach, a former national champion at UC Berkeley who recently completed his 12th season at Fordham.

A big reason for the team’s historic success? Members who are as tightly knit as they are talented.

“What I like the most about playing water polo is the energy [of] being part of a team,” said Jacopo Parrella, a senior from Italy. He and his teammates are a worldly group, with players from as close as Brooklyn and as far as South Africa. First-year student Andras Toth, pictured in action above, is one of four players from Hungary.

After winning the conference title, the Rams earned the No. 3 seed at the NCAA Championship, held at Stanford University. They beat Long Beach State 16-11 on December 6, but their incredible undefeated season—and their quest to become the first East Coast water polo team to win a national title—ended in the semifinals, where they lost to USC in overtime.

Still, the Rams finished with a 32-1 record, their finest season ever, and advanced farther than any Fordham team in an NCAA Championship tournament.

[W]hen a reader told me to take a peek at the recent NCAA men’s water polo rankings, I saw a lot of sunny California schools I expected to see:

UCLA, USC, Stanford, Berkeley (aka the water polo “Big Four,” I’m told), the University of the Pacific (inland, but sounds nice), Pepperdine (idyllic), UC San Diego (sure) and UC Santa Barbara (of course)…you know, the sort of schools that sound like fabulous places to chuck a ball around a pool. 

And then I saw a school I didn’t expect to see at all:

Fordham.

As in Fordham University, in the Bronx–the New York City Jesuit school with distinguished academics, famous alumni (Denzel Washington, Vince Lombardi) and plentiful public transit access—but not exactly anyone’s idea of a beachside water polo Xanadu.

This past Sunday in Baltimore, I watched Fordham’s men’s water polo team swamp Johns Hopkins 28-12, improving their record to a perfect 24-0. It was a dominant display, sort of like watching the Globetrotters work over the Generals, but in water. (How’s that for some water polo analysis?)

Fordham has been lights out all season long. They’ve had big wins over proven East Coast rivals like Princeton (a ranked program and an NCAA tournament semi-finalist last year) and Harvard (no idea; apparently a school near MIT and Tufts.). Fordham even tore through a recent swing of California teams (including Pacific, UC-Santa Barbara, and San Jose State) that got the sport buzzing.

It’s to the point that the Rams shot to fifth in the country in the most recent NCAA RPI poll–and they’ve been as high as No. 2 in the weekly coaches poll. 

That’s not just milestone territory for Fordham water polo–it’s a historic performance for any Fordham team in any sport, ever.

“It’s absolutely thrilling,” says Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow.

Read more here: Is This Undefeated Team the Best Story in College Sports?

Without them, the “the program was at risk,” said Richard Sweeney Jr., GABELLI ’88, an alumnus of the water polo program.

Sweeney and another water polo alumnus—Nicholas “Kola” Romano, GABELLI ’89, a Fordham trustee fellow—appealed to alumni, seeking funds for the improvements, and received a strong response, to the tune of more than $75,000. “We realized we had a really strong alumni base, and there was a lot of interest” in supporting the program, Sweeney said.

NCAA Championship Contenders

Other fundraising campaigns followed. The program built an endowment as alumni support grew and progressed. More funding also came from the University, friends of the program, and student-athletes’ parents. And the program was strengthened and revitalized under the leadership of head coaches Bill Harris and Brian Bacharach, who has served in the role since 2020.

All of this brought results, helping Fordham water polo boost its national rankings and advance to the NCAA championship twice in recent years. The program has raised its profile in faraway markets—in California and Europe in particular. Now, Romano and Sweeney are co-leading a new fundraising push for Fordham water polo—a three-year, $300,000 campaign to help the program reach new heights in the NCAA and bring new visibility to the University, both across the U.S. and abroad.

Competing for the World’s Top Players

This effort dovetails with the larger University campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, which seeks to raise $350 million to enhance the entire student experience, including athletics.

Romano and Sweeney got the idea for the water polo campaign last fall. The team had won the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference championship for the second year running. It had achieved top-15 rankings in Collegiate Water Polo Association polls that are typically dominated by universities on the West Coast, where the sport is more popular.

And the program has been attracting more interest from prospective students abroad, especially Europe, where water polo is more of a fixture than in the United States. Today, half the team’s student-athletes come from other countries. “We’re a viable alternative now for the top players in the world,” Romano said.

The new fundraising campaign is off to a strong start, boosted by a Fordham Giving Day campaign that netted more than $115,000, exceeding its goal. Campaign funds will create new possibilities for recruitment, scholarships, competitions on the West Coast or overseas, and other things that build the program and raise its profile. The campaign is paired with efforts to engage alumni in mentoring student-athletes and providing them with networking opportunities.

Romano and Sweeney are optimistic, given past successes.

“If you invest in [the program], if you get the right people in charge, and there’s a strategic vision for the future, a lot of greatness can come from that,” Romano said. “We took a team that was almost at a club level 20 years ago and is now a top 15 program in the country.”

To ask about contributing to Fordham Water Polo or another athletics program, contact Kara Field, director of athletic development and assistant athletic director, at 973-223-2157 or [email protected].