On The Record with Ulmis Iordache, Greenwich Water Polo Coach [Part 1]

This is the first of a two-part interview with Ulmis Iordache, head coach for the Greenwich Aquatics age group water polo program. Part Two is featured at Totalwaterpolo.com

Often bombastic, occasionally reserved, and never dull. These are some of the ways to describe Greenwich Aquatics Head Coach Ulmis Iordache, who has steered his club to the top of America’s water polo age group heap. At the Futures Water Polo League tournament to Salt Lake City, where his club competed against the best that California has to offer, Iordache’s charges produced unprecedented results for an East Coast club: a first place finish for his 14U boys, second place finishes in 14U girls and 16U boys and a third place finish for 16U girls.

Oh, and MVP awards in four different ages: Olivia Hopper (14U girls); Connor Ohl (14U boys); Chase Wilson (16U boys) and JP Ohl (18U boys).

It’s an accomplishment that any club in America would envy, and changes the dynamic in the East, where every other club now appears light years behind. Not that Iordache is all that concerned about any potential rivals; as he declares, his club does what they do—others are welcome to follow.

In the first part of an expansive interview, Iordache, now in his 14th year leading the program, talks about the club’s success in Salt Lake City, the uphill fight to stay in the water despite COVID-19 and how Greenwich parents, players and coaches have coalesced into one of the country’s strongest water polo clubs.

- How were your players able to continue practicing during the pandemic?

We follow the school system in Connecticut, which follows CDC regulations. Michael Kelly, our CEO was very good about that, following every single rule. Every time something opened [up] we took advantage of it. That’s how we got through COVID—the schools were very good, testing every week.

In the beginning it was Zoom and then it was dryland with everyone spread out. A lot of these kids have their own pools so they swam the whole time.

We had very few cases and few cancellations. Everything that was organized by our CEO and by the headmasters from the schools these kids belong to, which really helped.

The parents wanted to keep the kids safe but also to keep them sane. So it was a balance.

Some of the older kids were swimming in the Long Island Sound— Luke Apostolides, Ivy Gehring, Gavin Molloy, JP and Ryan Ohl, Gavin West—that’s how we got started.

When Connecticut said you could go back in the pool, each kid had their own lane. We had 30 minute practices, about eight practices a day in groups of four. We had coaches staying on the pool deck all day.

I want to mention the coaches who saw us through all this: Jamie Wolf, Gabriel Maldonado, Paul Constantin. It wasn’t easy to have four kids at practice and you run four, four, four and get to every single kid in the club. Kim Tierney Wang was able to make a remarkable schedule that reached every single kid comfortable enough to practice.

People started getting vaccinated and everyone was more confident and we started better practices.

You mentioned great results at the 2021 Futures Tournament in Salt Lake City. How did this opportunity come about?

We tried to get in Futures’ before [but] in the past it was spread out over a few weekends. So that meant we had to fly a couple of weekends to play in the tournament—which was impossible.

This year was different. It was hosted in Utah over two weekends. One weekend for the older age groups and another for the younger. That made it possible for us to participate.

- It’s an invitational tournament and not like the Champions Cup where you qualify from your zone. Who makes the decision about which teams go?

Dusty Litvak, the coach from Princeton, is the director of the tournament. He’s a great guy and was instrumental in Greenwich being accepted for this tournament.

Fun fact: I was in a plane going to a tournament in Las Vegas. I was texting back and forth with Kim about finding more opportunities for these kids to play. I’m on the flight and all of a sudden I get an email from Dusty: “Hey Ulmis, would your club like to participate in the Futures in these age groups?”

I don’t think it took more than 30 seconds for me to reply “Yes” to all these groups.

It was nice for him to reach out and I hope we didn’t disappoint.

- To travel to Salt Lake City with seven boys’ and girls’ squads is a considerable expense as well as a logistical challenge.

Our coaches, our parents and our kids are phenomenal regarding this. This year was different because [it] came in the last minute… so travel arrangements were [more expensive] and you can’t find good opportunities to get there and back.

The kids were super excited. Luckily our kids practiced during COVID—Connecticut was in better shape [than many states]. So we were ready.

Finally, our coaches are very competitive and they couldn’t wait for the time that we could get back to having games.

- How was the experience traveling out West?

In my experience this was one of the best tournaments I’ve been to. They hired top referees… there was a lot of knowledge invested in this tournament. They knew they wanted to offer a high-quality tournament and that’s what they delivered.

The pools were great—most of them were indoors—with regulation depth and lane lines. Everything was how it should be, and you could see there was a lot of respect for the athletes. Starting from the officials and going down.

They have amazing facilities so I hope in the future Utah will be more of a partner for organizing national tournaments. We can’t do that here—we don’t have that many pools.

- Given that it was your first time, do you feel that your Greenwich teams went into the Futures Tournament with a chip on its collective shoulders?

Anywhere we go—any tournament we play in—we are representing the East Coast. That’s our mission. Our parents, our kids… we’re proud about our community and the other clubs around us. On our bathing suits, the biggest thing besides “Greenwich” is “East Coast.”

I would like to see more teams from outside of California. It’s a tough environment when there’s only one state dominating. You have a little pocket in Greenwich and in other parts of the country, like South Florida for example, and hopefully we’re going to see the number increasing. It looks like Texas will be another hub for water polo.

It would be nice to see more teams outside of California playing in these types of tournaments.

- In another level of recognition for your club, Ian Davidson, head coach for USAWP’s boys’ development team spoke admiringly about how Greenwich athletes are as competitive as California players when he looks for talent at the youth level.

As a water polo coach I see different styles—our style, the Greenwich style, and California style. They have their own style which works for them and that’s great.

Where I’m from, because I grew up in a different place, you have the ex-Yugoslavian countries all together, Hungary and Russia and Italy and Spain. And everyone has a different style.

When you have a really good athlete who can absorb all these styles—shooting from Serbia, learns how to play defense from Hungary, he learns the passing game from Spain and how to grind for a victory from Italy.

That athlete becomes a phenomenal player.

Greenwich, going to Futures, JOs or any of these tournaments, it comes with a different style. We’re learning from the Californian athletes and coaches, but we also learn from the Europeans, Canadians, etc. It’s important to see the different styles. I try to take our players to Europe—I know the Californian teams do that too—Spain offers amazing programs, Croatia, Hungary and Romania.

- Does exposure at the Futures tournament give your athletes “escalator up” exposure to some of the best colleges in the country?

Absolutely. I understand where the MPSF (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) schools are coming from. They’re trying to get the best athletes because they want to win championships. Some of our kids have that same mindset: they want to win a national championship. If those coaches think our athletes are a good fit for them, I really hope that’s going to work out.

We’re trying to achieve the best we can. That’s our path. We’re trying to improve the program every year—but we have a lot of room to grow; that’s our mindset.

- What helps is that Litvak, founder of the Futures tournament, leads Princeton men’s water polo.

Regarding the East Coast water polo environment. There’s no doubt it’s getting better—you can see the improvement—all of the college programs. The coaches are trying more and more to be competitive with California.

The Ivies have rules; they cannot practice as much as USC, for example. But you can see the strength of their rosters, which are getting stronger every year. The coaches want to win—look just now, with Dusty being involved with Futures and all these camps. Navy’s running camps again and they look stronger and stronger every year; and Harvard and Brown are starting to recruit more competitive athletes, including international.

I think we’re going in the right way on the collegiate level.

Regarding age group, we have a lot of work to do.

Overall the results were amazing. It really made everyone from our club proud. What our athletes were able to achieve after this unprecedented year shows their character and resilience. We only know what we are doing in practice, and that’s how we run our program, and when we get out and compete, that’s when we have to face whether or not we’re doing a good job. This time around the results showed that our kids were ready.

Greenwich Aquatics Results from Futures WPL Tournament in Salt Lake City
12U Girls placed 5th
12U Boys placed 5th
14U Girls placed 2nd - Olivia Hopper MVP
14U Boys placed 1st - Connor Ohl MVP
16U Girls placed 3rd
16U Boys placed 2nd - Chase Wilson MVP
18U Boys placed 7th - JP Ohl MVP