Adam Krikorian still remembers the day he met freshman attacker Maddie Musselman.

The Women's Senior National Team coach was at Boston Logan International Airport, on his way home from the 2013 NCAA Tournament at Harvard.

The rising water polo star went there with her family to watch her sister, then a freshman on the UCLA women's water polo team, take third place.

"The way she was looking at me as I was talking to her, I could see the focus and the concentration and the determination in that instant," Krikorian said. "I knew at that point – I didn't know she was going to be an Olympian – but I knew she'd be part of the process without a doubt, that she was a special kid."

Later that year, Musselman began to train with Krikorian and the senior national team at the age of 15, the start of a journey that has led her to become an 18-year-old Olympic gold medalist and one of the most dominant players in the NCAA in her first year.

She was named 2017 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Newcomer of the Year after she won a conference-record seven Newcomer of the Week awards, and she leads UCLA in goals by 14.

Should she still lead after this weekend's NCAA Tournament, she'll become the first freshman in program history to finish with the most goals on the year.

"(Krikorian) wanted me to dream big," Musselman said. "That's something that he always told me, and don't be afraid to fail if it comes to that."

In the beginning, there was a fair amount of those shortcomings.

It wasn't her competitiveness – Musselman had been raised in a championship culture unlike most others. She learned how to swim at 3 years old from Mike O'Brien, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the 1,500-meter freestyle, and her father was a MLB pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets.

She also babysat the kids of Keri Phebus, the most decorated women's tennis player in UCLA history, who won the singles and doubles national championships in 1995.

"I'm a super competitive person because of those people," Musselman said. "I strive for excellence because they've taught me a lot about it and how to achieve a goal and what it feels like."

It was, rather, just who she was matching up with on a daily basis.

Musselman was playing alongside women who had won Olympic gold medals in London, silver medals in Beijing, bronze medals in Athens and multiple NCAA championship awards.

The average senior national team athlete who made the United States' roster for the FINA World Championships in 2013 was more than 24 years old.

"When she came in, we always knew that there was some talent there and some potential, but she was the low person on the totem pole without a doubt," Krikorian said. "She lost her fair share of battles."

One of Musselman's closest friends throughout the process was Courtney Mathewson, the most experienced member on the 2016 roster. The UCLA alumna not only won the Peter J. Cutino Award – the Heisman Trophy for water polo – in 2008, but also won four consecutive national championships.

She wrote her younger teammate a letter when Musselman went on her first international water polo trip two years before she started training with Krikorian, but had no idea that they would be playing on the national team together such a short time thereafter.

From what she has seen, the noticeable experience difference between younger players and the veteran members on the national team is not always the main reason they tend to struggle initially.

"When you come in high school and you're playing with these older girls or women that are accomplished and experienced, you're almost a little hesitant to show what you can do," Mathewson said. "They don't want to show up an older player, or make a huge mistake and get burned by someone with more experience."

Musselman wouldn't make a roster for any tournament outside of Southern California until the Canada Cup in December 2013.

It was another six months before she played in her first FINA competition, the Intercontinental Tournament in 2014, which was hosted in Riverside.

The Americans took second place, good enough for an entry bid to the FINA World League Super Final, but despite being on the team that got them there, Musselman didn't make the final roster for that tournament, or for the World Cup in August either.

"A lot of people in her shoes would be devastated or crushed or would let it affect them so much so that they wouldn't want to come back," Krikorian said. "Or if they would come back, not with a purpose and the confidence, but she persevered."

While Mathewson and the rest of the team won a gold medal at the World Cup in Russia, Musselman went to play in Spain at the FINA Youth World Championships instead.

"I think that was the tipping point for her," Mathewson said. "She knew that she was talented enough to train and to play at our national team level, and I think she took that time at that younger tournament and she really excelled."

In the summer of 2015, Musselman finally made rosters for big-time tournaments. She scored three goals in five games at the FINA World League Super Final, and five in seven games at the FINA World Cup, but was still unsure whether or not to continue with the team in hopes of a roster spot for Rio.

To get there meant she had to go all-in, and she talked it over with her parents and with Krikorian.

Krikorian laid out his vision for her, letting Musselman know the possibilities and potential he thought she had, but also the risk and the fear that could go along with that. That part was easy, he said.

The groundwork, according to Krikorian, was mostly taken care of by her family. The training schedule for the coming months made it unreasonable for Musselman to continue going to a typical high school, but other options, if not vetted correctly, would affect Musselman's collegiate eligibility.

After debating whether or not to simply defer her senior year of high school, she decided to take online classes, which gave her a flexible academic schedule to accommodate her demanding, twice-a-day training routine.

That was a huge transition for her dedication and commitment, according to Mathewson, and it paid off.

She scored at least one goal in every game the Women's Senior National Team played from late November through the FINA Intercontinental Tournament championship game at the end of February 2016.

"From basically 2015 on through the 2016 Olympics, she was one of our most consistent players in terms of scoring and providing offense for our team," Mathewson said.

Online teachers who she had never met in person would post about their student who was winning tournaments around the world, until she finally graduated in March. That left her three months to do nothing but continue working on her case for the Olympic team.

Although she forfeited her senior year of high school, Musselman has no regrets.

"I wouldn't trade it for anything," Musselman said. "I got to represent the USA, which is a lot cooler than going to prom."

The senior national team's last tuneup before the public announcement of the Olympic roster was the FINA World League Super Final.

She scored six goals in the first game, more than any other player did in a single FINA game since she started training with the team three years before.

Less than a week after the tournament ended, Krikorian revealed the players he wanted for the Olympics on June 16, 2016 – Musselman's 18th birthday – and she made the list.

The United States never scored fewer than 11 goals in any of its six Olympic games, and held its opponents to an average of under five and a half goals per game.

When Musselman finally had her gold medal draped around her neck, she started crying, she said.

Of the 73 goals USA scored in the Olympic games, Musselman netted 12, and she was selected to the Olympic all-tournament team.

When she stepped off the plane and into the car after the flight back to the States, her mother kept looking back and staring at her from the front seat as they drove home.

"I was like, ‘What are you doing?'" Musselman said. "I got there and my whole street was covered in signs, and there was a bunch of kids running around."

There's a picture of her trapped in a flock of young children, all of them staring into the gold medal draped around her neck, some reaching out and trying to grab it.

That was the first of many post-Olympic celebrations. Since coming home, she's gotten to paint the ice for an Anaheim Ducks game with Mathewson, visit the White House and walk the red carpet at the Team USA Awards. She's been honored before rivalry high school water polo games, at the Rose Bowl and at a Los Angeles Angels game. She's practically become a minor celebrity.

Her name isn't quite as household as other Olympians' yet however, so when she went to speak at elementary schools with Krikorian and current UCLA redshirt senior attacker Rachel Fattal, or to her own elementary school by herself, she didn't want to bore the kids by just talking about her own experience too much.

She told them about how she met Michael Phelps in the elevator, and Serena Williams before giving them the same advice Krikorian had given her years ago.

"I talked about dreaming big," Musselman said.

In early August 2015, Musselman headed out to her backyard to make a phone call. Her older sister Alex watched her through their home's back window as she started talking with someone on the other end of the line.

It's an understatement, coach Brandon Brooks said, but the phone call definitely made his day.

"I'm waiting for her to ask me some questions about the process or school or any of that stuff," Brooks said. "She was kind of goofing around, and after goofing around for a little bit and just chatting, ... she just came out with it. She said, 'I want to make my decision, I've kind of always known that I want to come to UCLA, and I want to commit.'"

Musselman wants part of her legacy to be four national championships, and she could get her first crack at one depending on how things pan out at the NCAA Tournament this weekend.

In the key wins UCLA has notched in the last month, which have garnered it the tournament's No. 1 seed, Brooks has hardly taken her out of the game. He's sure she gets tired, he said, but she's developed enough fitness over the years to play at a senior level for any number of minutes.

She scored five goals against then-No. 2 USC in the conference matchup. Against then-No. 1 Stanford, Musselman split time defending her Olympic captain Maggie Steffens while still managing to net two goals on the other end.

Whatever the Newcomer of the Year's threshold is, it doesn't seem to have been reached yet.

"Other people might be surprised but not me," Krikorian said. "And people should get used to it, because she's not going anywhere for a while."