Newport Beach’s Kaleigh Gilchrist, Maddie Musselman enjoyed sharing the road to Paris
Kaleigh Gilchrist is excellent at both water polo and surfing and is also blessed with an engaging personality that flows as naturally as her curly blond hair.
“She has a good balance of water polo and life outside of water polo,” said Maddie Musselman, Gilchrist’s teammate on the United States Olympic women’s water polo team. “I think people admire that about her. She has so many friends. It’s actually insane how many friends she has.”
Musselman needs only to look in the mirror to find one of Gilchrist’s best friends.
The duo from Newport Beach have traveled similar paths to the Paris Olympics, where they’ll be in search of their third straight gold medal and the fourth straight for Team USA overall. That’s true literally as well as figuratively, as they typically would carpool to practice every day.
Gilchrist, a big fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and late star Kobe Bryant, is getting married to Tom Gehret on Aug. 24 — Kobe Bryant Day — a couple of weeks after the Olympics. Musselman, whom Gilchrist calls a forever friend, will be one of her bridesmaids.
“She’s clearly one of the best polo players ever, but she’s just an all-time human,” Gilchrist said. “That makes it easy to get along with her. It’s fortunate that the sport brought us together. Even though we only live 10 minutes away form each other, if it wasn’t for water polo, we probably never would have been as close as we are now.
“She’s stuck with me, unfortunately for her, but fortunately for me,” Gilchrist added with a laugh.
Team USA opens its title defense on Saturday against Greece, at 6:35 a.m. Pacific time. The following match is against Spain on Monday, in the same time slot.
The Americans play Italy on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. Pacific before closing out Group B against host France on Friday, also at 9:30 a.m. Pacific.
Gilchrist, a former Newport Harbor High and USC star, is the oldest player on the United States roster at 32. She never played against Musselman, the former CdM and UCLA standout who is seven years her junior, growing up.
Yet the two have formed a deep bond. They actually debuted for Team USA on the same travel trip to the Canada Cup in December 2013, more than a decade ago.
“Our time and beginning on this team was exactly the same, so we’ve kind of done this entire journey together,” Gilchrist said.
Between the triumphs of winning gold in Brazil in 2016 and Japan in 2021, there were challenges.
Musselman had shoulder surgery in July 2018. A year to the day later, Gilchrist was injured when a nightclub balcony collapsed following a win at the FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, killing two people.
“We’ve been through a lot of personal injuries where we’ve kind of been the hype person for each other,” Musselman said. “It’s glued us together, the adversities we’ve been through.”
Musselman, who earned Olympic MVP honors in Tokyo, is widely regarded as one of the best women’s water polo players in the world — maybe even of all time.
“She’s inspiring others to be better,” United States coach Adam Krikorian said. “That’s what the great ones do in any sport.”
Gilchrist does it too, in her own way. Musselman called her probably the most professional player on the team, willing to do whatever is required for success.
Yet, challenges have continued. Musselman got married last fall to Pat Woepse, who was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer around the same time. She said Gilchrist has been her go-to teammate to confide in things outside of water polo.
Both have strong family pedigrees in athletics. Gilchrist’s father Sandy and recently deceased uncle Allen were both two-time Olympians for Canada in swimming. Musselman’s father, Jeff, is a former Major League Baseball pitcher and her mother, Karen, played soccer at Rutgers.
“We’re just in phases of our life that are similar, and we’ve been through a lot that’s been similar,” Maddie Musselman said. “I’m just very thankful for Kaleigh. I definitely wouldn’t be able to keep playing without her love and support, especially given all of the things outside of water polo that are going on. I feel like she allows me to just keep playing water polo and also remember why I do it.”
Newport Harbor High water polo coach Ross Sinclair coached Musselman for two years at CdM and also has a good friendship with Gilchrist, who shares of his love of the Lakers and Bryant.
The “Mamba Mentality” that Bryant championed is something that Gilchrist feels has also strengthened her during challenging times.
“How cool is that, to have two of the best players in the world coming from Newport Beach, one from Newport Harbor and one from CdM?” Sinclair said. “It’s inspiring stuff. They’re both just incredible role models. It’s really cool to see them both do their thing and have the success that they’re having.
“I think the friendship that they have is nothing but beautiful.”
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