Bay Area Native Could Break Olympic Record: Reports

DANVILLE, CA — Danville native and Monte Vista High School graduate Maggie Steffens could make history next month if she wins her fourth consecutive gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

Steffens, 31, is the captain of the U.S. Olympic Women’s Water Polo Team, which won gold medals in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Olympics. If she wins a gold in Paris, she will be the first American water polo player, man or woman, to win four consecutive gold medals.
Steffens is already a recordbreaker: she is the leading scorer for Olympics women’s water polo, with a total of 56 goals. She is also the only holdover from the original 2012 team.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who has had a more accomplished career than Maggie,” Olympic coach Adam Krikorian told The San Francisco Chronicle.

Steffens’ career began in Danville, where she grew up in a water polo family. Her father, Carlos, is a former member of the Puerto Rican national team and a three-time All-American at UC Berkeley. Her three siblings Charlie, Teresa, and Jessica were all players, and Jessica won a silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Steffens helped the Monte Vista High School team win league championships in 2007, 2008, and 2009, and then went on to Stanford, where she led the team to NCAA championships in 2014, 2015, and 2017, and second-place finishes in 2013 and 2016.

“She’s physically gifted, she’s fast, strong, and has all that going on,” Monte Vista coach Scott Getty told the Bay Area News Group. “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.”

Krikorian and Stanford coach John Tanner said in the same profile they believe she is the greatest woman to ever play. But Steffens is looking toward the future.

“Going into this Olympics, gratitude is one of my biggest things,” she told KCRA. “How cool is it I get this opportunity and how can I make this torch a little brighter for the future of our sport?"