Sports
Forged in triumph and tragedy, UCLA's Adam Krikorian keeps Olympic loss in perspective
All things being equal, Adam Krikorian would rather win than lose.
“It is much easier,” he said.
And Krikorian would know since he’s won a lot, capturing 15 national championships as a water polo player and coach at UCLA and 24 world and Olympic titles as coach of the U.S. women’s team.
But if winning is easier, losing, Krikorian believes, is more revealing.
“Adversity is a test of character more than anything,” he said. “It’s easy to be the person you aspire to be when you’re winning and when you’re having success. Trying to be that person when you’re not at the top of the mountain is a much more difficult thing to do.
“Much more honorable as well.”
That philosophy was put to the test on the biggest stage and under some of the cruelest circumstances of Krikorian’s career last month at the Paris Olympics. The U.S. women, heavily favored to win an unprecedented fourth consecutive gold medal, lost their last two games despite trailing for just one second of those final 64 minutes.
In the blink of an eye, the team had gone from a spot on the medal podium to leaving the Summer Games empty-handed for the first time. Years of sacrifice, dedication and training had gone unrewarded.
“A lot of tears,” Krikorian said of the moment. “The feelings and emotions are endless. There’s anger, there’s frustration, there’s a ton of sadness.”
U.S. women’s water polo coach walks past his players during a preliminary match against Spain on July 29.
(Luca Bruno / Associated Press)
“One of my goals when I started coaching was to inspire people, to be someone that could bring the best out of others.”
— Adam Krikorian
But there was also opportunity because Krikorian has never seen himself as just a coach. He’s also a leader. And that’s exactly what the 13 sobbing women gathered around him on the pool deck needed.
So they closed ranks, took responsibility and, through the tears, saluted the women who beat them. Winning isn’t always about the final score; sometimes it’s how you react to that result.
“This is what life is; the reality of life,” he said then. “You don’t stand on top of the podium every single time. We lost to a better team. In these heartbreaking moments, you’ve got to learn from it. You’ve got to put it in perspective.”
Krikorian’s approach has become rare. That makes the lessons he’s teaching of grace, sportsmanship and humility even more important, said Richard Lapchick, president of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
“In an era when ethics and values are often forgotten in the pursuit of victory, Coach Krikorian told his team that they had an opportunity to show greatness in defeat. He told him to show their character and the players followed their coach. He told them that they could rise above the loss and show that it was OK to lose as long as you play hard and show class in defeat,” Lapchick said. “Hopefully, all of his players will remember that lesson as they go through life after sports.”
Like the fictional soccer coach Ted Lasso, Krikorian speaks in inspirational aphorisms as often as he does in complete sentences and many of those maxims come from John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach and Krikorian’s mentor, who also put character above victory.
“He’s got this great quote,” Krikorian begins before reciting one of Wooden’s favorite lessons.
No written word nor spoken plea can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves. It’s what the teachers are themselves.
“One of my goals when I started coaching was to inspire people, to be someone that could bring the best out of others,” Krikorian continued. “And I have a set of values that I try to follow. When you have those things that are your guiding light, it makes it pretty easy.”
Goalie Ashleigh Johnson, a three-time Olympian, said the U.S. team has long fed off Krikorian’s convictions.
“Adam’s leadership shines through,” said Johnson, a two-time gold medalist and winner of multiple world championships.
“We have a lot of discussions about perspective, about what we want, where we want to go. And a lot of that isn’t just how we want to be seen as athletes, how we want to be as people and who we represent. Just realizing we’re getting to have fun for our career, not many people get to do that. So even the disappointing moments are things that you face with perspective and joy.”
Krikorian learned about perspective the hard way. The coach saw his brother, Blake, die of a heart attack at 48, just before the start of the 2016 Rio Games, and his father, Gary, at 81, two months before the Tokyo Olympics. He also lost four of his college teammates and one of his UCLA players at young ages.
Jim Toring was 23 when he was hit by a bus in Paris on a national team trip. Brett Stern was 31 when he was killed in a car accident in Irvine. Brian Bent died of sleep apnea at 29 and Terry Baker of cancer at 43. Marco Santos, whom Krikorian coached to a national team, died of ALS three weeks shy of his 29th birthday.
If anyone had reason to be bitter about fate it was Krikorian. But he channeled that grief in a different direction.
“It just made me — I can’t explain why — appreciate my life even more,” said Krikorian, who keeps a journal and talks regularly with Peter Haberl, the team’s sports psychologist. “I’m grateful for all that I have and the health and the life I’ve been able to live.”
U.S. women’s water polo coach Adam Krikorian celebrates with his players after the team’s gold-medal win over Spain at the Tokyo Olympic Games in August 2021.
(Gary Ambrose / For the Times)
His players have had their perspective tested as well. In the lead-up to this summer’s Olympics, team leader Maddie Musselman learned her husband, Patrick Woepse, had stage 4 lung cancer. Then days before the opening ceremony, Lulu Conner, the sister-in-law of U.S. captain Maggie Steffens, suffered a fatal medical emergency in Paris.
Before that three players survived a deadly shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas, another narrowly escaped a terrorist bombing in a Belgian train station and two more were injured in a balcony collapse at a hotel in South Korea.
Given those real-life tragedies, it was easy for Krikorian and his players to look at what happened in the pool in Paris — where the U.S. lost its semifinal to Australia in a penalty shootout, then fell to the Netherlands in the bronze-medal match on a goal in the final second — as just games.
And in every game, there’s a winner and a loser.
A couple of weeks after returning from Paris, over a late breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon at a cafe near his South Bay home, Krikorian acknowledged the two losses still haunt him. But he continues to embrace the lessons of those losses.
“Success in life is usually defined by not how you respond to the wins but how you respond to the losses and how you deal with adversity,” he said.
“I would love, as we all would, not to have to deal with adversity. But it’s a reminder that it’s just part of life. There’s an acronym, FEAR, that I heard once. It’s either Fear Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise. That’s my choice.”
Krikorian didn’t learn that from Wooden. That perspective, he said, came from life experiences as well as from his father, who played football at Occidental with future NFL coach Jim Mora and future AFL champion quarterback Jack Kemp.
“I’m 50 years old, so I’d like to think I’ve matured,” Krikorian said. “I don’t know if I had the same perspective when I was 20. I’m a product of my parents, understanding kind of where this whole thing fits in life. And I think about my father quite a bit.
“The one thing that he was always instilling in us as children was just to be able to handle defeat in a classy way. So for me, in some ways, it’s about honoring my father.”
Krikorian’s two children — Annabel, a 15-year-old track athlete at Mira Costa High and Jack, an 18-year-old swimmer — have also adopted their grandfather’s philosophy about sportsmanship.
“I’m always impressed with how encouraging and respectful my son is, complimenting even his biggest rivals,” Krikorian said. “Always shaking hands and wishing them luck. I think it catches some kids off guard at times.”
With the L.A. Games four years away, Krikorian’s future with the U.S. team remains uncertain. He nearly stepped down after winning a third straight gold medal in Tokyo but now acknowledges he’s excited about the possibility of coaching in the Olympics in his adopted hometown.
It’s unclear if Adam Krikorian will be coaching the U.S. women’s water polo team at the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games in 2028.
(Luca Bruno / Associated Press)
The decision, however, may not be his. Jamie Davis, the CEO of USA volleyball the past eight years, will assume a similar role with USA Water Polo on Oct. 1, replacing Christopher Ramsey, the man who first hired Krikorian out of UCLA in 2009.
Given the tragic history that has surrounded Krikorian’s teams, however, the coach said he’s questioned the wisdom of returning.
“This sounds ridiculous, but it’s like I don’t want to coach in 2028 because I’m fearful of someone else dying,” he said. “It’s an irrational thought to have but it’s a thought that’s come up.”
Johnson, who became the only Black woman to play on a U.S. Olympic water polo team when Krikorian named her to the roster in 2016, said the program would be different without him.
“I love playing under Adam,” said Johnson, the most decorated goalkeeper in women’s water polo history.
“The attitude that you see and the wins, the successes that we’ve had, the development that you’ve seen, is a reflection of Adam’s influence on us. I’m sure he’s influenced a lot of people. The empathy, the leadership, he’s definitely transformed this program for the better.”
And those last things, not the wins and the titles, are what Krikorian wants to be remembered for.
“A lot of people, when they introduce me to friends, they introduce me as, ‘Oh this guy is a three-time gold medalist and he won 15 national championships at UCLA’,” Krikorian said. “Although it makes me feel good as I appreciate it, there’s always been a part of that that’s been slightly annoying. I don’t want anything that has to do with water polo on my tombstone. That’s not how I wanted to be remembered.
“Ultimately, you’re judged on who you are as a person.”
Sports
Ed Orgeron on who should be out of College Football Playoff, Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU and his coaching plans
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The College Football Playoff begins Friday, and emotions are running high for several fan bases.
Notre Dame was ranked 10th in the penultimate CFP rankings but missed the playoffs to both Alabama, which lost a third game, and Miami, which were ranked lower going into championship weekend but beat Notre Dame during the season, which apparently took precedence.
Ed Orgeron did not have to worry about his playoff status while he was coaching LSU to a title amid a perfect season in 2019, but he has an idea of who should be in and out this year.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron runs off the field with his team before an NCAA college football game against Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Clubb)
“I don’t think a team with three losses ought to be playing for the national championship. Notre Dame should have got in ahead of Alabama,” Orgeron told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
Bama getting in prompted calls of bias and/or collusion, considering the playoff is broadcast on ESPN and ABC, the same network that the SEC has a major media rights deal with.
“The SEC was dominant. But now, the Big Ten, Big 12 are catching up. They’ve had the national champ a couple of years now. I don’t know what’s happened with the SEC and bias, all that stuff. Is there a chance that they have it? I’m not going to get into that. But I do know this — they’re very strong,” Orgeron added.
The SEC figures to remain strong, as Lane Kiffin went from Ole Miss to Orgeron’s former LSU in a controversial move. Orgeron, though, said Kiffin, his former colleague at Tennessee and USC, made the right move, given he hardly had a choice.
Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin (left) and LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron (right) shake hands after a game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. (Petre Thomas/USA TODAY Sports)
ED ORGERON GIVES ADVICE TO SHERRONE MOORE AFTER SAGA THAT LEFT HIM FIRED, ARRESTED
“Look, the timing of it, when he did it, that’s his choice. But he had to do it at that time to get the job he wanted. The calendar is wrong in college football. I wish they had the rule like the NFL, that you cannot talk to a coach until their season is over,” Orgeron said.
As for advice to get LSU back to the promised land?
“Keep on doing what you’re doing. He knows what he’s doing. Recruit, evaluate like he’s doing. He’s the king of the transfer portal. He’ll be able to dominate the SEC like he’s been doing. Keep on doing what you’re doing.”
Orgeron last coached in 2021, but his career is certainly not over. In fact, he expects to be somewhere soon, potentially even facing Kiffin.
Then-LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron talks with quarterback Joe Burrow after a victory against the Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff national championship game at Mercedes-Benz Superdome. (Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports)
“We’ve been in touch with people. I would take a head coaching job, doesn’t have to be a head coaching job. I’ll take a D-line coach or a recruiting coordinator, but the right situation hasn’t been coming up. I’m in a good position where I could take a job, I don’t have to take a job, but if the right situation comes up, I’m definitely taking it and going to coach. I do believe within the next month something may open, and I’ll be coaching again.”
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SEATTLE — In a matter of minutes, the home of the Seattle Seahawks went from a painfully quiet Lumen “Library” to a rollicking madhouse that sent seismologists scrambling for their ground-motion sensors.
Call it the Sheesh-Quake Game.
In a historic comeback, the Seahawks dug their way out of a 16-point, fourth-quarter ditch to beat the Rams in overtime, 38-37.
Oh, the visitors will agonize over some of the bizarre calls, some deserving of further explanation from the NFL. An ineligible-man-downfield call that wiped out a Rams touchdown when they were a yard away from the end zone? That had people scratching their heads. Then there was that do-or-die two-point conversion that seemingly fell incomplete… but later was reversed. More on that in a moment.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went wrong for the Rams in their 38-37 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on Thursday night.
When the Rams wincingly rewind the video of the collapse, they’ll be peering through the cracks in their fingers.
You’ve heard of a no-look pass? This was a no-look finish.
As soothing wins go, this was a warm bubble bath for the Seahawks, who secured a playoff berth and assumed the driver’s seat in the race for the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
“You hear people late in the year have losses, and you hear people come up here and say, like, ‘Man, this is going to be a good thing for us,’” said Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp, a onetime Rams hero. “It’s much better to be up here right now saying this is going to be a good thing for us.”
Kupp atoned for his first-half fumble with a successful two-point conversion in the fourth quarter — the first of three in a row for the Seahawks — and a 21-yard reception on the winning drive in overtime.
“If you find a way to get a win when you do turn the ball over three times, you do end up down 16 points, or whatever it was, in the fourth quarter, just finding ways to win games when the odds are against you and things aren’t going right — finding a way to fight back — it’s going to be a good thing for us,” Kupp said. “A good thing for us to draw on.”
The Rams are sifting through the debris of a different lesson. It was a reminder that this charmed season, with Matthew Stafford in line to win his first Most Valuable Player honor, can come crashing down at any moment. There’s no more smooth glide path to Santa Clara for the Super Bowl.
As good as it was for most of the game, picking off Sam Darnold twice and sacking him four times, the Rams defense failed to hold up when it counted most. Shades of the three-point loss at Carolina.
Darnold will have a story to tell. He exorcised a lot of demons. The Rams sacked him nine times in the playoffs last season when Darnold was playing for Minnesota, and intercepted six of his passes in two games this season.
“It’s not great when you have interceptions and turnovers, you want to limit that,” said Darnold, the former USC star. “But all you can do is fight back. For us, I was just going to continue to plug away.”
Darnold came through when it counted, completing five passes on the winning drive, then finding the obscure tight end Eric Saubert — his fourth option — wide open in the end zone on the triumphant conversion.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold looks to pass against the Rams in the first half Thursday.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
The second of the three conversions was the game’s most controversial moment. The Seahawks needed it to forge a 30-30 tie with a little more than six minutes remaining in regulation.
Darnold fired a quick screen pass to his left, trying to get the ball to Zach Charbonnet. Rams defender Jared Verse jumped the route and knocked down the pass. Everyone thought the play was dead, including Charbonnet, who casually jogged across the goal line and picked up the ball as it lay in the end zone.
That proved critical because officials — after what seemed like an eternity — ruled that Darnold had thrown a backward pass and the ball was live when Charbonnet picked it up. Therefore, a fumble recovery and successful conversion, tying the game.
Asked later if it felt like a backward pass, Darnold had a half-smile and said, “Um, yeah. It felt like I threw it kind of right on the side. I’m glad Charbs picked it up, and that turned out to be a game-changing play.”
Was that designed to be a backward pass?
“It just happened to be backwards,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily talked about. We were just trying to get it in down there on the goal line.”
The Seahawks were lined up to kick off when officials announced that, upon review, the previous play was successful. Suddenly, the most improbable of come-from-victories was within reach.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, when the home team was trailing, 30-14, the Amazon Prime crew had to do some vamping to keep viewers engaged. Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit told some Kurt Warner stories from the “Greatest Show on Turf” days. Hey, it had to be more interesting than this game.
Michaels delivered an obscure stat: When leading by 15 points or more in the fourth quarter, the Rams were 323-1.
Informed of that, Seahawks running back Cam Akers — once shown the door by the Rams — had a wry response.
“Now, they’ve lost two,” he said.
Celebration in one locker room. Silence in another.
Do you believe in meltdowns?
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Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was released about a week after the former Michigan Wolverines football coach was fired from his job and arrested on several charges.
Fox News Digital obtained the booking photo of Moore on Thursday. The picture showed a red-eyed Moore appearing downcast in the Washtenaw County Jail in Michigan.
Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was obtained by Fox News Digital on Dec. 18, 2025. (Washtenaw County Jail)
The photo’s release came as new details emerged in the Moore scandal, including allegations that he “had a long history of domestic violence” against the staffer with whom he allegedly maintained an inappropriate, yearslong relationship.
Court documents obtained by Fox News Digital revealed allegations made by the staffer’s attorney, Heidi Sharp, on the day that Moore allegedly entered her home without permission, which later resulted in his arrest.
Moore appeared in a Washtenaw County court on Friday, where his bond was set at $25,000 and included several conditions, including no contact with the alleged victim in the case. A not guilty plea was entered for him.
Prosecutors detailed the alleged events that led up to Moore’s arrest, including that Moore had engaged in an “intimate relationship” with the Michigan staffer for “a number of years” and that the woman had broken up with him two days before his arrest.
Former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore appears via video in court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Dec. 12, 2025. (Ryan Sun/AP Photo)
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL RECRUITS DE-COMMIT FROM PROGRAM AMID SHERRONE MOORE SCANDAL
Prosecutors accused Moore of contacting the staffer via phone calls and texts after the breakup, prompting the victim to contact the University of Michigan and cooperate in its investigation. Moore was subsequently fired from his position as head football coach, which prosecutors said prompted him to show up at the woman’s home.
Moore then allegedly “barged” his way into the residence, grabbed a butter knife and a pair of scissors and then began threatening his own life. According to prosecutors, Moore allegedly told the staffer, “My blood is on your hands” and “You ruined my life.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Moore’s attorney for comment.
Moore faces a felony charge of home invasion in the third degree and two misdemeanor charges of stalking and breaking and entering without the owner’s permission. He was released on bond and is due back in court on Jan. 22.
Sherrone Moore, then-of the Michigan Wolverines, looks on during the second half against the Maryland Terrapins at SECU Stadium on November 22, 2025 in College Park, Maryland. (Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
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Moore took over as head coach for Jim Harbaugh when he left to take the Los Angeles Chargers’ job.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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