BRIDGEPORT, Pa. – The Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) announced that three athletes and a pair of coaches will join the ranks of the CWPA Hall of Fame this Fall during the 2024 Northeast Water Polo Conference and Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference Championships. Former Navy water polo standout Aaron Recko ('08) is one of the five honorees to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
 
Recko joins fellow athletes Peter Sabbatini (Princeton) and Igor Mladenovic (St. Francis Brooklyn) and former Johns Hopkins head coach Ted Bresnahan and former St. Francis Brooklyn head coach Carl Quigley with the highest honor bestowed by the organization.
 
Recko and Bresnahan will be inducted during the MAWPC Championship at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on Friday-Sunday, November 22-24. A Hall of Fame reception is scheduled for O'Brien's Oyster Bar & Seafood Tavern (113 Main Street, Annapolis, MD 21401) on Saturday, November 23, from 7:30-9:30 p.m. The cost for attendance at the Hall of Fame reception is $70.
 
The trio of Quigley, Mladenovic and Sabbatini will join the CWPA Hall of Fame at the 2024 Northeast Water Polo Conference Championship hosted by Princeton (Friday-Sunday, November 22-24).
 
The quintet raises the number of CWPA Hall of Fame members to 44 as Bresnahan, Quigley, Sabbatini, Recko, and Mladenovic join Richard Hunkler (Slippery Rock / Coach, 2002), Dick Russell (Bucknell / Coach, 2002), Lynn Kachmarik (Slippery Rock / Athlete; Bucknell / Coach, 2003), Ed Reed (Brown / Coach, 2003), John Barrett (Maryland / Athlete, 2004), Paul Barren (West Chester / Referee, 2004), Sue Kolczak (Slippery Rock / Athlete, 2005), George Gross (Yale / Athlete, 2005), Robbie Bova (Slippery Rock / Athlete, 2006), Scott Schulte (Bucknell / Athlete, 2006), Katie Grogan (UMass / Athlete, 2007), Russ Yarworth (UMass / Coach, 2007), Betsey Armstrong (Michigan / Athlete, 2008), Tom Popp (Navy / Athlete, 2008), Diane Stein Swigart (Slippery Rock / Athlete, 2009), Lars Enstrom (Brown / Athlete, 2009), Leslie Entwistle (Slippery Rock / Athlete, 2010), Chris Judge (Fordham / Athlete, 2010), Carrie Basye-Becker (Slippery Rock, Maryland / Athlete, 2011), John Benedick (MIT / Coach, Administrator, 2011), Kristin Stanford (Indiana / Athlete, 2012), Mark Gensheimer (Bucknell / Athlete, 2012), Adele McCarthy-Beauvais (Princeton / Athlete, 2013), Simon Gould (UALR / Athlete, 2013), Tom Tracey (Villanova / Director of Officials, 2014), Mike Schofield (Navy / Coach, 2014), Goga Vukmirovic (Princeton / Athlete, 2015), Rich Russey (Brown / Athlete, 2015), Shana Welch (Michigan / Athlete, 2016), Tony Paxton (Bucknell / Athlete, 2016), Krista Peterson Polvi (Indiana / Athlete, 2017), Jeff Hilk (Bucknell / Athlete, 2017), Patricia Ann "Trish" McGuire (Slippery Rock / Athlete, 2018), Steve Ennis (Brown / Athlete, 2018), Elyse Colgan (Princeton / Athlete, 2019), Garrin Kapecki (Bucknell / Athlete, 2019), Julie Hyrne (Michigan / Athlete, 2020), Luis Nicolao (Navy / Athlete, 2020), and Dan Sharadin (West Virginia, Villanova, CWPA / Coach, Administrator, 2023).
 
The CWPA did not induct individuals during the Spring 2021, Fall 2021 and Fall 2022 seasons in a precautionary decision due to the COVID-19 pandemic prior to not conducting inductions during Fall 2023 and Spring 2024.
 
The Hall of Fame class is historic as Bresnahan, Quigley, and Mladenovic become the inaugural inductees from Johns Hopkins and St. Francis Brooklyn. Further, Bresnahan and Quigley join Hunkler, Russell, Kachmarik, Reed, Yarworth, Benedick, Schofield, Nicolao, and Sharadin as current / present NCAA head coaches to make the Hall of Fame.
 
Recko joins Popp and Nicolao among Navy athletes who earned spots in the Hall of Fame.
 
Aaron Recko ('08) Bio Information
Among a litany of outstanding players who have played at the United States Naval Academy, Aaron Recko becomes the third former Midshipmen to join the fleet of CWPA Hall of Fame members.
 
Recko – who joins fellow graduates Tom Popp ('89) and Luis Nicolao ('92) along with former Navy head coach Mike Schofield in the Hall of Fame – concluded his career with 172 goals and 43 assists for 215 points in helping Navy achieve a 95-32 record, three CWPA Eastern Championship title game appearances (2005, '06, '07) and pairs of CWPA Eastern titles and NCAA Championship berths (2006, '07).
 
His career did not set out on a Hall of Fame trajectory as Recko managed one goal in two games during his freshman year in 2004 when Navy finished 19-12 with a third-place finish at the CWPA Eastern Championship hosted by Bucknell.
 
Navy's fortunes turned on the tides of Recko and his classmates' performance over the next three years as the Blue & Gold accounted for 76-20 record from 2005-to-2007 to rate with St. Francis Brooklyn as the dominant force on the East Coast.
 
As a sophomore in 2005, he accounted for 25 goals, 10 assists, 35 points, 24 steals and 25 ejections drawn in 29 games as the Midshipmen accounted for a 22-7 season. The Southern Division champion thanks to defeats of Mercyhurst (W, 14-3), Bucknell (W, 9-8), and host Princeton (W, 10-8), Navy placed second at the CWPA Eastern Championship hosted by Harvard, as the Mids managed Iona (W, 9-5) and Bucknell (W, 8-7) before falling to St. Francis Brooklyn (L, 10-9).
 
The second-place finish and Recko's performance over the next two seasons helped lay the foundation for a three-year run of dominance by Navy that saw the team reel off a 54-13 mark with the team's lone losses to a team outside of California coming against rival St. Francis Brooklyn.
 
Recko came into his own to fuel the charge for Navy in 2006 as the junior led the team with 70 goals, 19 assists, 89 points, 38 steals and 40 ejections drawn in 31 games as the Midshipmen finished 24-7, including a 20-1 record against East Coast institutions, to win the Southern Division and CWPA Eastern Championships.
 
Following defeats of George Washington (W, 10-5), host Bucknell (W, 12-9), and Princeton (W, 11-10) to win the program's second Southern Division crown in as many years, the Midshipmen dominated the CWPA Championship by defeating MIT (W, 13-7), Bucknell (W, 11-8), and host Princeton (W, 9-6) to reclaim the league title and earn a berth to the NCAA Championship for the first time since 2003.
 
At the NCAA Championship hosted by Stanford, Navy claimed fourth place after facing then top-ranked the USC (L, 14-9) and Loyola Marymount (L, 11-4).
 
For his performance, Recko was lauded with Southern Division Most Valuable Player, All-Southern Division First Team, Eastern Championship Most Valuable Player, Eastern Championship All-Tournament First Team and Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America Third Team honors.
 
However, his best single season offensive performance was saved for the 2007 campaign as the senior struck for 76 goals, 14 assists and 90 points as Navy compiled a 30-6 record – including a 24-1 mark against East Coast schools – to repeat as both Southern Division and CWPA Eastern Champions.
 
In the wake of victories over Salem (W, 8-6), Gannon (W, 16-8), Princeton (W, 11-5), and Johns Hopkins (W, 11-7) at home in Annapolis to retain the Southern Division title, the Midshipmen repeated as Eastern Champions and the league's NCAA Championship representative by sinking Iona (W, 12-3), George Washington (W, 15-3), and St. Francis Brooklyn (W, 11-7) at Harvard behind another MVP performance by Recko. In the title game, Recko tallied four goals as the Midshipmen rallied back from a 3-1 deficit in the first quarter to defeat the Terriers.
 
At the NCAA Championship hosted by Stanford, Recko helped Navy against the Cal (L, 8-5) and Loyola Marymount (W, 7-6) as Navy claimed third place to equal the highest finish ever recorded by an East Coast institution at the event.
 
He capped off his intercollegiate career with a bevy of awards as he repeated as an All-Southern Division First Team selection to accompany Eastern Championship MVP and All-Tournament First Team status.  Recko added All-NCAA Championship Second Team notice – becoming the first of two Navy players to achieve the feat (Mike Mulvey – 2007, 2008 All-NCAA Championship Second Team) – prior to joining Mulvey (Honorable Mention) on the 2007 ACWPC All-America team with a Second Team nod. The All-America award placed Recko in rare air as he stood with Sean Foster (2000, Second Team) as the only Navy men's water polo athletes to earn All-America Second Team recognition to that point in program history (Isaac Salinas earned Second Team All-American honors in 2020).
 
One of three Navy water polo players to earn back-to-back Eastern Championship MVP laurels – joining fellow Hall of Fame members Popp (1987, '88) and Nicolao (1990, '91), Recko finished his career with 215 points. His performance came during a reign of dominance by Navy as the Midshipmen notched a school record tying 19-game (October 6, 2007-to-November 18, 2007) and a 14-game streak (September 27, 2006-to-November 14, 2006) winning streak during his time in Annapolis.
 
A 2008 graduate of the Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering, the Vice President of Special Projects for Guido Companies, a privately held Commercial Construction and Building Materials firm in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas, is the husband of Bella and the father of a daughter Cameron and a son Mark.