Hall of Fame
Two-time Olympian and 2008 silver medalist Peter Hudnut seemed to have more injuries than the board game Operation – from spinal fractures and shoulder surgeries to missing teeth – but nothing would stop the center defender from becoming a Team USA mainstay for a decade. His journey is the definition of resiliency.
Born in Washington, D.C., Hudnut eventually settled in Los Angeles with his family. In third grade, he dreamed of being an Olympian, but he didn't know in which sport. Hudnut discovered water polo in seventh grade at Harvard-Westlake School, where he was coached by Rich Corso and later became a three-time All-American, CIF runner-up, and made the US junior national team as a high school senior.
At Stanford, Hudnut helped the Cardinal win two NCAA Championships (in 2001 and 2002) and earned All-American honors on three occasions. Along the way, his Olympic dream started to take shape, but a broken vertebra and back surgery in the summer of 2003 impeded his progress. Despite doing rehab at the side of the pool during every US team practice, he was named an alternate for the 2004 Athens Olympic team. Undaunted, Hudnut returned and helped the US win gold at the 2007 Pan American Games to secure the team a berth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In China, Hudnut was part of epic turnaround that saw the ninth-ranked United States squad become silver medalists in less than a year. With two sets of fresh stitches in his face, Hudnut celebrated the US men's first Olympic medal in 20 years. He briefly retired after Beijing to start graduate school but returned to the pool in 2011 and competed in his second Olympics in London in 2012.
Outside of Team USA, Hudnut, now 46, also competed professionally for Barceloneta (Spain) and Lazio (Rome) and made domestic appearances for the Los Angeles Water Polo Club and the New York Athletic Club.
