SAN JOSE EXPRESS Staff

Victor Adler has been involved in water polo for over 35 years as a player or coach. He has spent the last two decades at Harker Upper both teaching math and coaching boys water polo. He aspires to inspire performance improvement. 

His name is Viktor Nagy, a former goalkeeper for the Hungarian national water polo team. He began his sports career at the age of four and switched to water polo when he was ten. In the first week, he was placed in goal and remained there until his final match, which was the bronze medal game at the Tokyo Olympics. Over his 27-year career, his achievements include:

In his youth: He won a European Youth Championship, a silver medal, and a silver medal at the World Championships. He was named the best goalkeeper at all three major youth tournaments.

In his senior career, he achieved the following results: He is a 9-time Hungarian champion and a 9-time Hungarian Cup winner. He won the Super Cup twice.

His international senior achievements:

• 2x World Champion (1 gold, 2 silver)

• European Champion (1 gold, 2 silver)

• Champions League winner

• European Cup winner

• European Super Cup winner

• Olympic bronze medalist and 2x fifth place.

Awards:

• 7x Best Goalkeeper of Hungary

• 2x Best Goalkeeper in the World

• 1x Best in Europe

• 1x Best Goalkeeper in the Champions League.

Between 2022 and 2023, he served as the goalkeeper coach for the Hungarian national teams for 15U and 17U.

Coach Yuri played water polo at West Valley College and qualified for the NorCal tournament with that team. She also swam at west valley and placed top 3 at conference in 100 free. She then played at University of La Verne where she got her bachelors of science with honors in Sociology graduating at the top of the program. She has been swim and water polo for for 15 year and has been the Cupertino girls head coach for 6. 

An Alumni of the SJSU Men’s Water Polo Program, Coach Cristian is the assistant coach for the SJSU women’s team.

His past experience comes from head coaching at local Bay Area high schools such as The Harker School, Adrian Wilcox High School, and assisting at Los Gatos High School. While coaching the girl’s team at The Harker School, the team achieved the highest program ranking during the 2022 season with a 2nd place finish in the Central Coast Section. He is involved with the Olympic Development Program (ODP) assisting the Cadet Team for the Pacific Zone.

Cristian has degree in Kinesiology focusing in exercise science as well as minoring in Nutrition for sport performance. As a student-athlete, Cristian was a two-time Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) Academic All-America award in 2018 and 2019. 

Cristian earned his master’s degree in sports psychology at San Jose State in 2022, where he served as a graduate assistant strength and conditioning coach. As a strength and conditioning coach he was leading the training protocols for the physical preparation of women’s water polo, men’s water polo, women’s swimming & diving, and track & field athletes.

Cristian is originally from Bucharest, Romania where he grew up playing for Steaua Bucharest and Rapid Bucharest.

Her name is Coach Olga, and she is a 2018 World Champion and a 2017 and 2018 European Champion with the Spanish Junior National Team. She also played DI water polo at San Jose State from 2019 to 2023 and has been coaching at San Jose Express since the summer of 2021. She loves sharing her knowledge and love for the sport when she coaches and likes to get in the water to work on technique.

He has been coaching for 2 years and is a former San Jose Express (SJX) player. In addition to his coaching experience, he also serves as the JV coach at Los Gatos High School. He enjoys coaching young athletes because he finds great satisfaction in helping them develop their skills and confidence, and he loves seeing their passion for the sport grow as they achieve their goals.

Coach Rick was a 3-yr varsity player at Saint Francis, and was the starting goalie in his last 2 years. He loves to teach all that he has learned from competing in high school and from some of the best goalies in the world.

He played this great game for almost 35 years. He started as an age-grouper, then moved to high school. He was part of two State Champions (66-0 at Golden West, All-American) and played Division 1 water polo at UCSB (PCAA champs, 5th in NCAA, 3rd team All-American). He continued to play at the Open and Masters levels for over two decades thereafter and was one of the multiple national champions. Since retiring from his real job, he has been coaching high school boys and girls, as well as club polo, for almost 10 years now. Never too old... Fun fact – his USAWP ID is only 4 digits.

He started playing water polo when he was 13 and loved it from the start. He played on some excellent high school and club teams, finishing 8th at CCS in high school and 4th at JO's. He played his first two years of college, but the program was dropped due to budget issues after his second year. He refereed high school water polo for 4 years after graduating from SJSU. His coaching experiences include coaching at Fremont, Los Gatos, and Prospect High Schools. He also coached club water polo for 2 years at West Valley Water Polo before joining San Jose Express, where he is very excited to be.

This is his tenth year coaching water polo and his fourth year coaching year-round. He is the varsity girls' coach at Willow Glen High School. He loves coaching and finds real joy in seeing players learn and improve. He believes in being a positive influence and role model in athletes' lives, and that much of the coaching done at the pool is directly applicable to everyday life.

Davor hails from one of the global hotbeds of water polo, Croatia. He grew up playing for one of the premier clubs Mladost, Zagreb. His teams won the Croatia Cup and Championship of Croatia several times as well as many European International tournaments. He was on the Youth Croatian National Team. He attended West Valley College and earned an AA degree in Liberal Arts while winning the NorCal water polo championship in 2013. He earned his BS in Computer Science from SJSU while playing on their newly brought back varsity team and being their captain in 2016. He is currently a head coach of Los Gatos HS and recently led them to the highest finish ever for a public school in CCS Open Division water polo. He also recently got his MBA in Data Analytics.

Former pro-water polo athlete and Olympian, Sasha Potulnitsky has dedicated over 35 years to the sport. As a native born Ukrainian, he is a well known, highly decorated gold, silver and bronze medalist, as well as an honored team member of the “Dynamo” Lvov Water Polo Club, Lvov, Ukraine. During his pro-water polo career, Sasha represented Ukraine at numerous international competitions and cups, and led his Ukrainian Olympic Team as Captain for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Sasha has been coaching in the United States since 2005 as a Head Coach at The European Water Polo Club and Second Coach at the Stanford Water Polo Club in Palo Alto, CA. Sasha brings an incredible depth of knowledge, experience and absolute love for the sport. His coaching philosophy is founded on building strong friendships, teamwork, and discipline as he develops in his players a passion for the sport of water polo.

Coach Peter has been playing water polo since he was 12 years old. He attended Saint Patricks High School in Chicago IL, and played varsity water polo for all four years of high school . After high school, he moved to San Jose and spent  two years attending West Valley College and playing water polo. He also played one year of varsity water polo at Chapman University in Orange, California. Peter is currently the assistant coach of Los Gatos HS varsity boys team.

Originally from Sacramento, Coach Alek played water polo at San Jose State. He started coaching in 2018 and has been with SJX since the winter of 2021. He is the head coach of the girls team at Lynbrook High School. He teaches social studies and coaches water polo at Bret Harte Middle School. Water polo has always been a big part of his life, and he wants to help the sport grow by coaching and supporting athletes to be their best and to enjoy the sport as well.

He has played water polo for 12 years, coached by Olympic champions, and had the incredible opportunity to practice and play with them from a young age. He played at San Jose State University in Division 1. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience with the next generation of champions.

He has been coaching water polo for 25 years. He is the Head Coach at Fremont High School and Cupertino High School. As a player, he was a CCS champion at Cupertino High and played on the club team at Cal Poly, which was Club National Champion 3 out of the 4 years he played.

He has been coaching at the high school level for 8 seasons and is currently coaching the girls' program at Homestead High School. He started playing water polo in high school at Archbishop Mitty and then continued playing and swimming at De Anza. Looking back at his aquatics experience, he appreciated having coaches who truly cared about him and the sport. Having those coaches growing up instilled a love of the game in him, which he hopes to pass on to as many student-athletes as he can.

She is a student-athlete at San Jose State University and enjoys spreading the joys and knowledge of water polo to young athletes. She has only been coaching for a few years, but she has been playing water polo since she was five.

He is the current varsity head coach at Presentation High School and has been a teacher, coach, and athletic director since 2001. His greatest joy is watching the journey that young people experience through playing sports. He grew up in San Jose, playing high school and club water polo, and enjoyed everything about being in the pool. He is also a former California Golden Bear water polo player and was the team captain in 2001.