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Irvine, CA –March 30, 2026 – USA Water Polo is proud to announce its 42nd class of inductees into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame.  This year's four honorees represent athletic and coaching excellence from the collegiate and club ranks up to the world stage at the Olympic Games.

The 2026 class includes the 2012 Olympic gold medalist Annika Dries who, in London, helped the US women's team win its first Olympic title, and the 2008 Olympic silver medalist Peter Hudnut who, in Beijing, helped the US men's team end its 20-year medal drought at the Games. In addition, the class features women's water polo coaching legend Carin Crawford, the all-time winningest coach in San Diego State University history, and Chris Judge, who turned his stellar athletic career at Fordham into decades of success playing and coaching at the New York Athletic Club.
  
The Hall of Fame induction luncheon will be held June 19 at 11 a.m. pacific at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Brea North Orange County in Brea, California. To purchase individual tickets, tables, or program ads click here. To learn more about the Hall of Fame, including a look at all the past inductees, click here.

Congratulations to all the inductees!

More on the 2026 USA Water Polo Hall of Fame induction class:

Annika Dries
Annika Dries was one of the most formidable centers in US women's water polo history. From 2009 to 2014, the native of Laguna Beach, California, claimed a CIF Southern Section title, a FINA World Cup gold medal, a Pan American Games gold medal, two NCAA Championship titles at Stanford University, and – at age 20 – helped the US capture its first women's Olympic water polo gold medal in history at the 2012 Games in London. It's a staggering championship haul.

Her journey began in Orange County where Dries joined a junior lifeguard program in Laguna Beach. From there, she competed at the club level for SET Water Polo while starring at Laguna Beach High School in both swimming and water polo. While she was playing for the Breakers, one of the smallest high schools in Orange County became the dominant program in the area. Around the same time, she made her international debut at the 2006 Junior Pan Ams in Montreal. After she graduated from high school, she excelled as a member of the women's senior national team, earning 2010 World Cup gold in New Zealand, 2011 Pan American Games gold in Mexico, and finally the 2012 Olympic crown in London.

All that was wrapped into a legendary run at Stanford, where she served as team captain, won two NCAA Championships, was twice named NCAA MVP, and twice earned the Peter J. Cutino Award as the nation's best collegiate player. In 2024, she was inducted into the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame. After her playing days, Dries, now 34, transferred her drive to the medical field. She earned her M.D. from Stanford and is currently a resident in internal medicine at UCLA Health. Beyond clinical practice, Dries has conducted extensive research in sports cardiology and cardiovascular genetics. She also mentors student-athletes as well as students interested in medicine, and serves as an Olympic ambassador for Swim Across America which hosts open-water swims across the San Francisco Bay to raise funds for cancer research. 
 
Peter Hudnut
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.

Carin Crawford
Carin Crawford was an athlete before she became the most accomplished women's water polo coach in San Diego history.  She was the first woman to play on the Santa Rosa Junior College men's water polo team and later co-captained the women's team at UC San Diego where was named All-America. On the US women's senior national team, Crawford competed in tournaments in The Netherlands, Hungary and the UK. She also suited up for Tasmania at the 1990 Australian National Championships. Crawford also played domestically for Sunset San Diego and won multiple summer and winter national championship titles.  Today, she competes at the Masters level and recently earned a silver medal at the 2025 World Aquatics Masters World Championships in Singapore.

Crawford's coaching career began in 1990 with the San Luis Obispo High School boys' junior varsity program. In 1996, she led the girls' programs at San Diego Mesa College and Sunset San Diego to four Junior Olympic medals. In 1998, she was named head coach of women's water polo at San Diego State University where she began a legendary 24-year run. Crawford built the Aztecs into a perennial contender, and led the team to a program-record 475 wins. Under her guidance, the Aztecs reached the NCAA tournament three times and never finished outside of the top 25 in the country. 

Crawford's teams also produced 52 All-Americans and 122 All-Academic conference selections. As a result, she was named 2016 GCC Coach of the Year and, in 2024, received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC). Crawford remains heavily involved in the sport. From 2003 to 2007, she served on the NCAA Women's Water Polo Committee. She co-founded WOWPAC to advance women's coaching, and was an ACWPC vice president from 2018 to 2022. More recently, she transitioned to officiating for high schools and colleges and serves as a referee evaluator at the college varsity level. 

Chris Judge
Chris Judge has excelled on so many levels – as both a player and coach – that he has become synonymous with New York City water polo. He first started attending practices with his father, Francis X. Judge (a USAWP Hall of Famer) before age-group water polo even existed in New York City.

In 1976, Chris joined the Fordham Rams where his water polo career truly began to take off. He is considered one of the greatest Rams to ever cap up and was a 1996 inductee into the Fordham Athletics Hall of Fame for both swimming and water polo. He earned All-East honors as both a field player and in goal and served as team captain. At the same time, he was a mainstay at the New York Athletic Club starting in 1976. As a player and coach, Judge helped NYAC win 14 National Championships. He also recruited and built rosters that featured some of the most dynamic players in USA Water Polo history. In 2011, he was inducted into the NYAC Hall of Fame.

Not long after his undergraduate days, he was head coach at Fordham from 1982 to 1989 and led the team to five Metropolitan titles and one Mid-Atlantic conference championship.

As a coach, he also guided the Army men's club team to five New York division titles plus appearances at the club nationals each year. Judge was also named Coach of the Year each year for his efforts.  In addition, Judge coached several age group programs at Greenwich Aquatics (CT) and Hudson Valley Water Polo (NY).

Judge is also an active participant in Masters water polo. He won two gold medals at the 2014 & 2017 FINA World Masters Championship with Santa Barbara and several USA Water Polo Masters National titles. Today, he is President of the Hudson Valley WP Club, and a former Chairman of Water Polo at the New York Athletic Club.
 
About USA Water Polo
USA Water Polo, Inc., is the national governing body for water polo in America, overseeing our United States Olympic program as well as 20 championship events annually, such as Junior Olympics and Masters National Championships. With more than 45,000 members, USAWP also is the sanctioning authority for more than 500 member clubs and more than 400 tournaments nationwide. USAWP is committed to the development of the sport throughout the U.S., fostering grass-roots expansion while providing a national system of affiliated clubs, certified coaches, and officials. For more information, visit www.usawaterpolo.org