By Terry Schroeder, Westlake Village resident and head coach of the U.S. Men's Olympic Water Polo Team, which trained for several months in Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks.

We trained at BNU this morning and the coaches snuck into the boxing ring that our USA team is using for training. We hit the heavy bags and the speed bags and then, after we found a few pairs of gloves, Ryan and Robert went into the ring for a little sparring.

They had fun until Ryan took a blow to the head and then we decided it was time to go back to the pool and do what we do best.

Training was good this morning. We walked through some front-court plays, after-goal plays and some special situations. The guys are feeling confident. Tonight, we get to do a little sparring of our own and play a couple of quarters against China in the competition pool.

This will be good for us. It will be our first competition against another country since we played in Hungary. Over the next week, we will train against Hungary and Monte Negro and perhaps pick up one or two other teams to scrimmage against.

One week from today, we will jump into the pool for our first game of the Olympics.

Our team leader Rick McKee told me he had a dream last night that we won the gold medal. That is a great dream and one I have had many times. We will keep on dreaming for one more week.

See you at the pool!

Coach

Wayne Bean is a local supporter of the U.S. Men's Water Polo Team and has been posting blog entries for Coach Schroeder while he is in Beijing.