It was a showcase of some of the best teams in the country.

The Southern California men's water polo tournament brought together 11 of the top 13 teams this past weekend at USC. One other similarity between them: just one of the teams, the Naval Academy, was not from the state of California.

There is an obvious West Coast supremacy in the sport of water polo, Carl Quigley is one person trying to change that.

THE FALL LEGEND

BREAKOUT WEEK AWARDS KEEP ON COMIN': Jordan Quinn is definitely making the most of his final season. The South Carolina senior forward was named College Soccer News national player of the week this past weekend, after leading the Gamecocks to victories over New Hampshire and Washington during the Gamecock Soccer Classic. Quinn scored both game-winners, giving him five goals in six games for USC (6-0-0). Quinn was also named Offensive MVP for the second straight week, and Duke/adidas Classic MVP a week earlier for the Gamecocks, who jumped one spot to No. 4 in the NSCAA/adidas poll. STREAKING BORN TO RUN: Senior Sharon Dickie was off and running again for the Tennessee women's cross country team. She was one of five Vols runners who placed in the top 12 in the Tennessee Invitational at Lambert Acres Golf Club on Friday. Dickie, who helped coach J.J. Clark post a winning debut with the program, claimed her second straight individual title at the event. The Vols finished with 31 points, ahead of second-place Vanderbilt (60) and third-place UT-Chattanooga (64). GAME OF THE WEEK QUITE THE DOUBLE BILL: For the first time in 10 years, California will host both a field hockey match and a football game on the same day. The 16th-ranked field hockey (4-1, 1-0 NorPac) squad returns from a weeklong break to host No. 10 Iowa at noon. Then, the 3-0 Cal football team will host Air Force. The double billing has been successful for both squads. The last time to two programs shared the playing field was Oct. 31, 1992 -- the field hockey team beat Stanford, 3-1, and the football team beat UCLA, 48-12. THE NUMBER 2 That's how many goals Chrissy Dolan has allowed so far for the Villanova women's soccer team. Just two, giving the junior a .949 save percentage over six games. Oh, by the way, she also has four shutouts and 37 saves in that span for the Wildcats, who are unbeaten so far in 2002 (4-0-2). Dolan has yet to lose a game in her collegiate career (9-0-3), and she'll try to continue that streak when Villanova travels to face Pittsburgh on Friday at 7 p.m.

Quigley, the men's water polo coach at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., says California's "swimming culture" has forced his and other schools to make the best of the East's landscape. Compared to the West, there is a limited number of swimming pools and lack of interest at the youth level.

The St. Francis graduate has spent the past 25 years trying to change the curve. Quigley began the St. Francis Water Polo Club in 1981, giving kids from ages 8-18 the chance to learn and play the sport that Quigley landed on after he wasn't tall enough for basketball.

"I saw a need for it," Quigley said. "One of the things about the West Coast schools is that kids know about water polo when they're kids. If we give them the early exposure out East, it can help their confidence, help them intellectually, socially, through the sport."

One of the program's success stories is Wolf Wigo, a member of the U.S. national team and the captain for the men's U.S. Olympic team from the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney. Wigo traveled from New Jersey to play in the youth club at St. Francis while attending high school at Bronx Tech. The end result was a full scholarship to Stanford, which enabled Wigo to gain the year-round exposure he needed to further his development.

With Wigo traveling west to find an optimum opportunity, it raises the other problem for East Coast schools -- facilities. There are only five pools in the greater New York City area that have the standard 15-meter by 25-yard size for water polo. Other schools at both the high school and collegiate level have swimming pools, but they are strictly for swimming. Quigley thinks both sports would benefit in joining forces, rather than forcing young athletes into a position where they think they have to swim all year long to keep in shape.

"There's no definite separation," Quigley said. "Water polo can help swimmers keep a competitive edge during their offseason, while mixing in an unique team aspect. Instead, I see many swimmers burn out. I think it can benefit both sides to join forces."

Another force for water polo has been the Collegiate Water Polo Association, which has stepped up to bring more prominence to the sport.

Headed by commissioner Dan Sheridan, men's water polo programs have doubled in the last five years and now boasts 15 divisions at the national club level. In that same time, women's programs have more than tripled from the 12 teams four years ago, and that number is expected to grow to 100 teams by 2003.

The organization's success has literally been through word of mouth. By going out and talking to schools across the country, the CWPA has been educating athletic directors about the benefits of water polo. Despite running into Title IX complications (some schools have had to drop programs to club-level play to meet guidelines), the CWPA has gone as far to help schools with scheduling, finding referees and hotels for road matches, and yes, finding pools for players.

Now, there are seven club divisions on the East Coast -- Southeast, Florida, Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, New York, North Atlantic and New England. The NCAA does not have an official polling system for water polo, but that doesn't mean East Coast water polo programs have been lost on the national scope. As of this week, five schools are currently ranked in the Top 20 men's national collegiate poll -- No. 9 Naval Academy (5-3), No. 13 St. Francis College (6-1), No. 14 Queens College (6-2), No. 16 Harvard (3-0) and No. 17 Princeton (2-0).

There has also been a reverse trend in water polo tournaments. For the past 10 years, schools like St. Francis, the Naval Academy and Princeton have traveled west to play those storied programs in the hopes to raise their own level of talent. But there is a new trend -- and respect -- for the East, where some of the West's big-time programs like Long Beach State are traveling.

"The schools have been great," Quigley said. "They are limited (by the NCAA) in how many matches they can have on their schedule, so for them to come out here is huge for the sport. We have to support each other, we're at a point where we have to. But unless the facilities get better, it's going to be hard to get more schools to travel 3,000 miles to play here compared to what they are used to."

Quigley might get a little help next Tuesday, when the men's U.S. senior national team will face the world's best club team from Italy, Pro Recco, in an exhibition match in New York. The event will draw a sell-out crowd of just over 2,000.

Quigley, like many others on the East Coast, hope the trend keeps growing.

Joy Russo is a staff editor at ESPN.com. She can be reached at joy.e.russo@espn3.com.