Full Name
Maggie Steffens
Job Title
Captain, 3x Olympic Champion, and 5x World Aquatics World Champion
Company
US Women's Water Polo
Speaker Bio
A native of Danville, California, Maggie Steffens comes from a family legacy of Water Polo players hailing originally from Puerto Rico. Maggie’s father Carlos and her uncle Peter played NCAA at Cal and internationally for their native island at the Pan American Games while Peter was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team at the boycotted Moscow Games. The family tree of Water Polo was passed along to her older sisters Jessica (Stanford), Teresa (Cal) and her brother Charlie (Cal).
While a senior in high school, Maggie was able to reach her first Olympic Games (London 2012) for Team USA at the same time, Jessica was on the U.S. Women’s National Team as well which led to a surreal experience where they both brought home the United States’ first Olympic Gold medal in the sport for women or men. Maggie was named MVP of the Tournament.
Maggie following her Jessica’s footsteps and attended Stanford University where success soon followed winning 3 NCAA Championships and playing in the NCAA National Championship Final all 4 years at school, being named the NCAA Tournament MVP twice, being on the All-NCAA Tournament First Team 3 times as well as 4x First Team All-American. During her Stanford career, while earning her degree in Science, Technology and Society in 2017 & Masters in Management, Science & Engineering in 2018, Maggie made it a point to not just be a great student-athlete but to organize local children’s hospital visits and began an initiative to increase awareness around pool safety for children.
Her dedication out-of-the water has been seen multiple times after Stanford making an impact as a Founding Member with Council for a Strong America (national organization of athletes and coaches who come together to make sure that every child can compete in life), Ambassador, USOPC Team for Tomorrow (humanitarian program that helps Team USA athletes connect with their communities in a meaningful way), Raised over $20,000 for Hurricane relief in Puerto Rico (Money raised went to the Impact Fund for the Boys & Girls Club of P.R.) and donations to fellow Team USA athlete Nathan Adrian’s (“AthletesRelief.org" cause for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy COVID-19 Response Fund).
She additionally has spread the sport to under-developed Water Polo nations without the sport’s tradition globally and non-traditional U.S. markets inspire young girls and women to try and play the game.
As a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team, Maggie was named Team Captain in (2014) replacing her London 2012 teammate & U.S. Water Polo Hall of Fame member Brenda Villa who retired and has held this title ever since.
In the Maggie era, tremendous team success has followed for the U.S. with the squad setting the bar for all of those in the future to try and achieve winning EVERY MAJOR TITLE (but two - 2013 FINA Worlds & 2023 World Aquatics Championship, where the team finished 5th) in the sport since London. That is the 2024 World Aquatics Championship, 2015, 2017, 2019 & 2022 FINA World Championship, the 2016 & 2020ne Summer Olympic Gold medals, the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2021 FINA World League Super Final & the 2015, 2019, 2023 Pan American Games Gold medals. Under her leadership, the U.S. Women’s National Team has created a DECADE OF DOMINANCE that has never happened by a single nation in the men’s or women’s game.
On the road to PARiS 2024, Maggie put out a social media post in the Spring about the lack of community and corporate awareness about her team success and that between herself and her teammates that many had to work multiple jobs to sustain their career forward and represent the United States. This social media post caught the eye of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Flavor Flav (Public Enemy) and he decided to do something about it and sponsor the team and USA Water Polo. In the ensuing months, Flavor Flav not only brought more awareness to the sport, getting in the pool with the girls and attending their matches, he also helped lead corporate America to the team as well using his platforms. He will be a partner of the sport through the LA 2028 Olympic Games.
At the 2024 PARiS Summer Olympics, Maggie had to balance leading her team and having tragedy strike in Paris as her sister in-law (Lulu) suddenly passed away on the ground on the eve of the Opening Ceremony. The Team USA squad was playing at a transitional time with many rookies in their first Games while being the favorites, sometimes sports has some twists and turns that are not expected. The U.S. made it to the semifinals and were upset and in the Bronze medal game in a similar manner to the semifinal the squad lost a multi goal lead in the 4th quarter. At the end of this Olympics, the competition was not as meaningful for what was lost in real life and that was that the loss of Lulu Conner.
Noting that she and the Conner family are “still processing” Lulu’s death, Maggie said at the time, “With Lulu’s passing, we just want to honor her—her spirit, her light, her joy she brought the world and the little sister that I never got to have.” But amid their collective heartbreak, Maggie has found the silver lining in her grief journey, sharing, “We’re really lucky that we’re still here and we get to feel her every day and honor her and be together with family.”
After PARiS, Maggie said “I’ve been very, very fortunate to have previously come home having accomplished our goals,” she wrote in a Sept. 1 Instagram post, “whereas this Olympics has been a very new experience, for various reasons, and I’m trying to let myself just be present with these feelings/thoughts. With the weight & heaviness Paris presented personally, I suppressed a lot of grief, sadness, & guilt during the Olympics so I could do what I had dreamed to do with our team, but now that we’re home and I’ve stopped moving a bit - the door is wide open. For now, I’m giving myself space to reflect, grow, and take advantage of the time to be with my husband, family, teammates, and friends! ENJOYING THE GIFT OF LIFE! One thing is for sure, there is an overwhelming amount of GRATITUDE & LOVE and I hope to exude that back to you all every single day.”
In her athletic career for Team USA, she is the ALL-TIME LEADING SCORER at the Olympic, World Aquatics/FINA World Championship and Pan American Games in women’s water polo history.
From a professional water polo standpoint, Maggie has had great success here as well winning multiple national championships in Hungary - UVSE (2018) and Spain - Club Natacio Sabadell (2019, 2022, 2023) as well as capturing a LEN European Championship (2018, 2019, 2023) which is competed upon by all of Europe’s professional national champions.
Following the 2022 FINA World Championship, Maggie and her long time boyfriend Bobby, got engaged in Long Beach, CA, they got married in Maggie’s ancestral home of Puerto Rico in Fall 2023. Maggie and Bobby moved back to the Bay Area in Summer 2025.
Out of the pool, Maggie is a co-founder & co-owner of a sports technology data company called 6-8 Sports with fellow Stanford & Team USA alum, Tony Azevedo who wore cap #8. Maggie wears cap #6 thus how the name came together. Maggie also is a member of the WORLD AQUATICS Athletes Commission a role that she was elected to in 2022 and extended in 2025. Additionally, she has a role as the Team USA Athletes’ Commission representative for Water Polo.
Accolades earned in her career include being the FINA (now World Aquatics) Women’s Water Polo Athlete of the Year in 2021, 2014 & 2012, Women’s Sports Foundation - Team Sportswoman of the Year in 2022 and with her teammates earned the Team USA Awards Olympic Team of the Month in July 2017, June 2016, March 2016 & June 2015. She has been nominated for the WSF Team Sportswoman of the Year, six times in her career (2023, 2022, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2012).
6-8 Sports is a youth athlete performance analytics company and while they are currently using their technology in water polo, the system will cross-over into additional sports in the future. 6-8 Sports has a data-driven approach to evaluating athlete strengths & weaknesses as they develop over time. Data is captured from multiple sources including official combine (6-8 Challenge) assessments, individual game statistics tracking, observations and surveys.
Maggie is bilingual in English and conversational in Spanish.
While a senior in high school, Maggie was able to reach her first Olympic Games (London 2012) for Team USA at the same time, Jessica was on the U.S. Women’s National Team as well which led to a surreal experience where they both brought home the United States’ first Olympic Gold medal in the sport for women or men. Maggie was named MVP of the Tournament.
Maggie following her Jessica’s footsteps and attended Stanford University where success soon followed winning 3 NCAA Championships and playing in the NCAA National Championship Final all 4 years at school, being named the NCAA Tournament MVP twice, being on the All-NCAA Tournament First Team 3 times as well as 4x First Team All-American. During her Stanford career, while earning her degree in Science, Technology and Society in 2017 & Masters in Management, Science & Engineering in 2018, Maggie made it a point to not just be a great student-athlete but to organize local children’s hospital visits and began an initiative to increase awareness around pool safety for children.
Her dedication out-of-the water has been seen multiple times after Stanford making an impact as a Founding Member with Council for a Strong America (national organization of athletes and coaches who come together to make sure that every child can compete in life), Ambassador, USOPC Team for Tomorrow (humanitarian program that helps Team USA athletes connect with their communities in a meaningful way), Raised over $20,000 for Hurricane relief in Puerto Rico (Money raised went to the Impact Fund for the Boys & Girls Club of P.R.) and donations to fellow Team USA athlete Nathan Adrian’s (“AthletesRelief.org" cause for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy COVID-19 Response Fund).
She additionally has spread the sport to under-developed Water Polo nations without the sport’s tradition globally and non-traditional U.S. markets inspire young girls and women to try and play the game.
As a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team, Maggie was named Team Captain in (2014) replacing her London 2012 teammate & U.S. Water Polo Hall of Fame member Brenda Villa who retired and has held this title ever since.
In the Maggie era, tremendous team success has followed for the U.S. with the squad setting the bar for all of those in the future to try and achieve winning EVERY MAJOR TITLE (but two - 2013 FINA Worlds & 2023 World Aquatics Championship, where the team finished 5th) in the sport since London. That is the 2024 World Aquatics Championship, 2015, 2017, 2019 & 2022 FINA World Championship, the 2016 & 2020ne Summer Olympic Gold medals, the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2021 FINA World League Super Final & the 2015, 2019, 2023 Pan American Games Gold medals. Under her leadership, the U.S. Women’s National Team has created a DECADE OF DOMINANCE that has never happened by a single nation in the men’s or women’s game.
On the road to PARiS 2024, Maggie put out a social media post in the Spring about the lack of community and corporate awareness about her team success and that between herself and her teammates that many had to work multiple jobs to sustain their career forward and represent the United States. This social media post caught the eye of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Flavor Flav (Public Enemy) and he decided to do something about it and sponsor the team and USA Water Polo. In the ensuing months, Flavor Flav not only brought more awareness to the sport, getting in the pool with the girls and attending their matches, he also helped lead corporate America to the team as well using his platforms. He will be a partner of the sport through the LA 2028 Olympic Games.
At the 2024 PARiS Summer Olympics, Maggie had to balance leading her team and having tragedy strike in Paris as her sister in-law (Lulu) suddenly passed away on the ground on the eve of the Opening Ceremony. The Team USA squad was playing at a transitional time with many rookies in their first Games while being the favorites, sometimes sports has some twists and turns that are not expected. The U.S. made it to the semifinals and were upset and in the Bronze medal game in a similar manner to the semifinal the squad lost a multi goal lead in the 4th quarter. At the end of this Olympics, the competition was not as meaningful for what was lost in real life and that was that the loss of Lulu Conner.
Noting that she and the Conner family are “still processing” Lulu’s death, Maggie said at the time, “With Lulu’s passing, we just want to honor her—her spirit, her light, her joy she brought the world and the little sister that I never got to have.” But amid their collective heartbreak, Maggie has found the silver lining in her grief journey, sharing, “We’re really lucky that we’re still here and we get to feel her every day and honor her and be together with family.”
After PARiS, Maggie said “I’ve been very, very fortunate to have previously come home having accomplished our goals,” she wrote in a Sept. 1 Instagram post, “whereas this Olympics has been a very new experience, for various reasons, and I’m trying to let myself just be present with these feelings/thoughts. With the weight & heaviness Paris presented personally, I suppressed a lot of grief, sadness, & guilt during the Olympics so I could do what I had dreamed to do with our team, but now that we’re home and I’ve stopped moving a bit - the door is wide open. For now, I’m giving myself space to reflect, grow, and take advantage of the time to be with my husband, family, teammates, and friends! ENJOYING THE GIFT OF LIFE! One thing is for sure, there is an overwhelming amount of GRATITUDE & LOVE and I hope to exude that back to you all every single day.”
In her athletic career for Team USA, she is the ALL-TIME LEADING SCORER at the Olympic, World Aquatics/FINA World Championship and Pan American Games in women’s water polo history.
From a professional water polo standpoint, Maggie has had great success here as well winning multiple national championships in Hungary - UVSE (2018) and Spain - Club Natacio Sabadell (2019, 2022, 2023) as well as capturing a LEN European Championship (2018, 2019, 2023) which is competed upon by all of Europe’s professional national champions.
Following the 2022 FINA World Championship, Maggie and her long time boyfriend Bobby, got engaged in Long Beach, CA, they got married in Maggie’s ancestral home of Puerto Rico in Fall 2023. Maggie and Bobby moved back to the Bay Area in Summer 2025.
Out of the pool, Maggie is a co-founder & co-owner of a sports technology data company called 6-8 Sports with fellow Stanford & Team USA alum, Tony Azevedo who wore cap #8. Maggie wears cap #6 thus how the name came together. Maggie also is a member of the WORLD AQUATICS Athletes Commission a role that she was elected to in 2022 and extended in 2025. Additionally, she has a role as the Team USA Athletes’ Commission representative for Water Polo.
Accolades earned in her career include being the FINA (now World Aquatics) Women’s Water Polo Athlete of the Year in 2021, 2014 & 2012, Women’s Sports Foundation - Team Sportswoman of the Year in 2022 and with her teammates earned the Team USA Awards Olympic Team of the Month in July 2017, June 2016, March 2016 & June 2015. She has been nominated for the WSF Team Sportswoman of the Year, six times in her career (2023, 2022, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2012).
6-8 Sports is a youth athlete performance analytics company and while they are currently using their technology in water polo, the system will cross-over into additional sports in the future. 6-8 Sports has a data-driven approach to evaluating athlete strengths & weaknesses as they develop over time. Data is captured from multiple sources including official combine (6-8 Challenge) assessments, individual game statistics tracking, observations and surveys.
Maggie is bilingual in English and conversational in Spanish.
Speaking At