Ten Years Later, the Anger Remains : Water polo: Members of the 1980 Olympic team still believe President Carter’s decision to boycott the Moscow Games robbed them of their dream.

In 1980, members of the U.S. Water Polo team were on their way to Hungary to play in the Tunsgrum Cup--a prestigious tournament that was to serve as a pre-Olympic warm up--when they heard that they really didn’t have to bother.

President Jimmy Carter, bolstered by Congress, had made up his mind. After weeks of posturing, Carter decided that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made U.S. participation in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow untenable.

For members of that year’s squad, and for the sport, the aftermath of the decision was as significant as Carter’s move itself. That decision affected not only the 1980 team, but every U.S. national team fielded during the next decade.

Now, 10 years later, the players and coaches can look at the decision with the benefit of hindsight. Still, the mere mention of Carter’s action rekindles anger and frustration in team members. For them, the boycott always will signal a dream snatched away by politics and by uncontrollable events.

The 1980 Moscow Games would have been Terry Schroeder’s first shot at the Olympics. When he talks about it, he puts his head down, folding his 6-foot-3 frame onto his elbows and resting on his knees.

“It was a real empty feeling,” said Schroeder, of Agoura Hills. “You were being used as a pawn for what seemed like really not a very good reason.”

* Rather than retire, Schroeder chose to return to the team. He graduated magna cum laude from Pepperdine in 1981. With the help of his wife, Lori, who took notes for him while he traveled and trained, Schroeder graduated from chiropractic school in 1986. He stayed on for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

* Players like Joseph Vargas and John Siman say the boycott took away something from the members of the 1980 water polo team that can never be replaced. Vargas--like half of the 1980 team--opted to play in another Olympics. But by then, jobs, families and other influences became more pressing distractions than they were in 1980. That year, he said, the timing was right to win the gold.

* Others never had another chance. Eric Lindroth of Costa Mesa decided that he’d rather spend time with his family rather than spend 15 to 20 hours a week in the pool. He thinks about missing his moment at center stage each time Carter’s name is mentioned.

In 1980, soldiers on the Berlin Wall shot those who came too close. Inflation raced ahead. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan. And the U.S. Olympic Committee, after an intense lobbying effort, voted 1,604-797 with two absentions to boycott the games in Moscow.

Vice President Walter Mondale, one of the chief lobbyists, called the vote, “a referendum on freedom.” He added, “What is at stake is no less than the future security of the civilized world.”

Dozens of other nations agreed with the U.S. stance, and countries with as little in common as Saudi Arabia and West Germany kept their teams at home.

“You got the impression that the press would only print pro-Carter type of opinions,” said Siman, a Cal State Fullerton graduate now living in Ventura. “Everything that you read in the paper was pro-boycott.”

Now, East and West Germany are poised to unify. The deficit is a monumental economic concern. The political twists of Afghanistan have returned to the obscurity of foreign affairs journals. And a Soviet leader has perhaps become more popular abroad than he is in his own country.

“When you consider how far things have come in the other direction as they have in the last few months, I don’t think we accomplished anything with the boycott,” former U.S. coach Monte Nitzkowski of Huntington Beach said. “It certainly didn’t get the Russians out of Afghanistan.” The Russians, in fact, left Afghanistan last year, largely because the war had become too costly politically and economically for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

While the boycott may have failed to alter international policy, for a decade its reach affected the national water polo team, which primarily fills the ranks with Californians. The team trains primarily in Newport Beach.

Members of the U.S. teams traditionally had been students or those a year or two out of college, although there sometimes were a few older players on the team. In 1980, after coming off a second-place finish in a premiere tournament the year before, the United States team was considered a top medal prospect. Nitzkowski believed the team had an excellent chance to win the gold medal.

But after the boycott many of the younger players decided to stay with the team and play in the 1984 Olympics instead of retiring to pursue other careers. At the ’84 Games in Los Angeles, the U.S. tied Yugoslavia in the gold-medal game, but Yugoslavia was awarded the gold medal on goal differential. Many team members were so disappointed with the silver medal and chose to return again, this time to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. That year, they tied--who else--the Yugoslavs. But this time, because of a rule change, the gold medal could not be awarded on points. The U.S. then lost in overtime, 9-7.

Because the team failed to win a gold medal in ’84 and ‘88, the decision to boycott in 1980 was that much more painful. Siman, a member of the 1980 team who stayed on until 1984, said he was in better condition during the Los Angeles Games, but he played a better game overall in 1980.

“You’re smarter as player, but you still have to go up and down the pool,” he said. “It’s a game of strength and a game of speed.”

While perhaps slower, the team of veterans did find itself smarter and more consistent against the normally dominant Eastern European teams. Schroeder thinks it’s because they had played together for so long, making them more of a match for the older and more experienced Europeans.

“It’s a huge difference when you know other players’ moves,” he said. That familiarity helped the team win two medals in the 1980s. In 1976, the team didn’t even qualify for the Montreal summer games.

While they may have been winning in the pool, the team wasn’t translating those victories into more training funds. After the boycott, Nitzkowski said donations for Olympic teams, particularly obscure programs like water polo, all but completely dried up.

Hosting the 1981 FINA Cup, a prestigious international tournament held every two years, cost the program nearly all of its money. For the rest of that year, they were relegated to training individually and meeting at the airport before traveling to bigger tournaments, Nitzkowski said.

The national team never figured that all they had to do to raise money was say cheese. Just as Peter Ueberroth began turning around overall Olympic fund-raising efforts, the team took a group picture in swimsuits that sold at $5 each. At one point, sponsors had to set up an 800 number to take all the orders.

While the team may have been on better financial footing, the program left the players to fend for themselves. Except for a limited job placement program, there was no promise of any money in the future either. A true amateur sport, the only money that can be made in the game is abroad, and even then, there are no millionaires. For players like Drew McDonald of Orinda, who stayed on to play in 1984, part of the lure of the Olympics is simple recognition for all the training, the hours spent away from home and the hard work.

“True amateur sports like water polo and crew, you compete for yourself,” said McDonald, 34. “Walking into the Coliseum (for opening ceremonies in Los Angeles) was like walking into the sunshine.”

But the continued presence of the veterans made it difficult for the younger players to break in, and the coaches like Nitzkowski and Bill Barnett, the current U.S. coach and coach at Newport Harbor High School, tried to set up a strong “B” program for the future players.

“I’m sure to some extent it stifled the development of the younger players,” Barnett said of the boycott. “But you still have to go with the talent.”

If the team’s recent showing at the Goodwill Games in Seattle is an indication of their future, the pendulum has not yet fully returned. The team finished out of the medal round.

But the 1980 Olympics seemed far away as Barnett surveyed practice earlier this summer at Newport Harbor High. The sun on that early Saturday morning glistened in the water, making it too blue to be real--the sort of day you’d be off playing games with your chums even if you weren’t training for the Olympics.

For a moment, it seems as if the Olympics might again be dominated by the Olympians.

“You’re good at something--I mean you’re the best,” Barnett said. “They want to show that.”