It took a coach from Eastern Europe to teach Maple Ridge's Kevin Mitchell a winning formula for success—and he learned his lesson well.
"Give 100 per cent to everything and always believe in yourself."
Water polo has taken Kevin around the world and finally to the 2008 Beijing Olympics—the first time Canada qualified for a spot in a game dominated by Europeans.
From a young age, his father Robert signed him up for multiple sports: he played baseball with Ridge Meadows Minor Baseball and soccer with Maple Ridge Soccer—but water was his natural element.
He and his two older brothers swam with the Haney Neptunes. His brothers Justin and Ian also played water polo, and at the age of six, Kevin decided he wanted to follow in his big brothers' footsteps.
Playing water polo soon was an integral part of his life and by the time he was in high school, he was playing elite-level water polo with Pacific Storm. His coach Michel Roy with Pacific Storm gave him a "nudge" in the right direction and got him dreaming about competing internationally and at the Olympics.
By that time the Haney Neptunes had started a water polo team and at the age of 17 Kevin started coaching in his home pool.
"I love coaching," Kevin said. "It’s a good feeling when you teach someone something."
Playing with Pacific Storm and coaching started to cut into Kevin's school work and he ended up graduating from the adult education department in Maple Ridge, after starting high school at Maple Ridge Secondary and continuing at Thomas Haney. But he kept playing on national teams and getting accolades for his aquatic prowess. In 2002, he was MVP at the senior men's championships. In 2006/07 he played in a semi-pro league on the Sydney University Lions in Australia.
Canada had never had a water polo team qualify for the Olympics—the three times they played, they got in by default.
But in 2008, the national team was ready to take on the Europeans under their coach Dragan Jova-novic, who gave them the mental and technical training to take them from being the underdogs at the world championships in Romania this year to, for the first time, qualifying for a spot at the Olympics.
Kevin has signed a one-year contract to play on Ethnikos, the Greek water polo team and hopes to continue playing on elite European teams.