An athlete selected to play on the U.S. Men’s Water Polo Team at this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has a Santa Barbara area connection.
Center Ben Hallock is the son of Santa Ynez High Hall of Fame athlete Tom Hallock and the nephew of Carpinteria High football coach Ben Hallock.
The young Ben Hallock is one of nine newcomers and the youngest player on Team USA, ranked No. 6 in the world. The 18 year old just graduated from Harvard Westlake High and is headed to Stanford.
“It’s really exciting,” said his uncle Ben by telephone from Eugene, Ore., where he is attending the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.
Despite his young age, Ben Hallock impressed U.S. coach Dejan Udovivic. At the FINA World League Super Final, he scored two goals in a 10-8 group play loss to Serbia and tallied a goal in a 10-6 setback against Serbia in the championship game.
The center position in water polo is usually played by big, physical guys. “And he’s one of them,” said Ben Hallock, the uncle, of his nephew.
The young Hallock is 6-5, 210 pounds. In his senior season of high school, he scored 97 goals and had 86 assists and was named the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 Player of the Year. He led Harvard Westlake to back-to-back CIF-SS Division 1 titles in 2013-14. The team was runner-up in 2015.
Hallock comes from an athletic family. His father, Tom, was a standout offensive guard for USC (1983-85) and his mother, Allison, played basketball at Cal State Northridge. His older sister, Morgan, is a standout water polo player at Princeton.
Uncle Ben Hallock said his nephew and niece grew up in Westlake Village playing different sports but took to swimming and water polo.
“They caught on to that early,” he said.
Uncle Ben Hallock said he won’t be going to Brazil, but his daughter, Anne, is in the process of making arrangements to be there to watch her cousin play.
The U.S. will open the Olympics on Aug. 6 against defending Olympic champion Croatia. The other Group B matches are against Spain, France, Montenegro and Hungary. The medal round begins Aug. 20.