Matt Kubeck

Matt Kubeck enters his second season with UCLA women’s water polo in 2026, joining James Robinson-O’Brien’s initial staff as an assistant coach. Kubeck was most recently co-interim head coach of the team in 2026 and also held an assistant spot for UCLA men’s water polo in 2024 and 2025.

The 2026 Bruins registered a 21-5 record with Kubeck sharing the helm. UCLA was the nation’s only program with three first-team Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America selections in Anna Pearson, Taylor Smith and Lauren Steele. Six Bruins in all were recognized from a group that reached the National Collegiate Championship semifinals. A busy 2026 also saw Kubeck serve as video coach for the USA Water Polo Women’s Senior National Team, which won gold at the World Aquatics World Cup in Sydney.

He helped the UCLA men’s program collect back-to-back NCAA championships under head coach Adam Wright in 2024 and 2025. The Bruins logged a combined record of 53-4. The 2025 group set a program record with 497 goals. Leading the way was Ryder Dodd, who repeated as the Peter J. Cutino Award winner and the ACWPC Player of the Year after totaling 200 goals across his first two seasons.

Kubeck spent the spring of 2024 with LMU women’s water polo, which turned in a 27-3 record that included a 7-0 mark in Golden Coast Conference games. His return home to Los Angeles came after two years as an assistant coach at Stanford, where he coached the goalies while handling video and analytics.

Prior to his current collegiate tenure, Kubeck coached on the high school and club levels for 10 years. From 2016-2022, he coached boys and girls at Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City, Calif. This stretch included a stint from 2019-2021 during which Kubeck was the girls’ head coach. In 2018, He joined the USA Water Polo men’s youth national team as an assistant and was on staff as the 2019 Summer Universiade team won gold in Naples, Italy. Kubeck also held head and assistant coaching roles on multiple levels for LA Premier Water Polo, one of the nation’s top club programs, and was goalie director and an assistant coach for SET Water Polo Club.

He got his coaching start as an assistant for the boys’ and girls’ water polo teams at Mission Viejo High School in 2012-13 before assuming the same positions at El Toro High School (Lake Forest, Calif.) in 2013-14. Kubeck then took on the head job for the Trabuco Hills HS (Mission Viejo, Calif.) boys’ water polo and swimming teams in 2014-15.

A native of El Segundo, Calif. and four-time All-CIF and All-Ocean League performer at El Segundo High School, he spent 2008-2011 at Long Beach State and was a two-year starter in the cage. Kubeck earned a bachelor’s degree in communication studies from The Beach in 2012.