Hannes Daube grew up in Long Beach, California, in a family that valued hard work and saw sports as one way to channel that work ethic. He played water polo at Orange County Lutheran High School, earning First Team All-CIF honors twice and winning the CIF Division 1 Championship with his team in 2016.

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He had coaches along the way who believed in him and pushed him further than he thought he could go. But Hannes understood early on that mental toughness had to come from within, from the moment he first picked up a water polo ball, he imagined becoming an Olympian, and he trained with that vision in mind for years before it ever became real.

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That drive carried him through USC, where he played from 2018 to 2022 and earned All-American honors in three seasons, including First Team recognition in 2021, and into the U.S. National Team, where he represented his country at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics, helping Team USA capture bronze, the program's first Olympic medal since 2008.

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He has gone on to compete at World Championships, win gold at the Pan American Games, and play professionally across Europe and Australia. But Hannes has always believed being a great athlete isn't only about what happens in the pool. It's also about what you give back to the sport once you've been given so much by it.

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That's what led him to create Clutch Water Polo Camp. Coaching the next generation brings him real joy, the chance to compete, encourage, and guide players the same way he was guided, while helping them build the same mental toughness and self-belief that carried him to the Olympics.