Over the last four years, he has won three national championships at one of the premier public universities in Texas.

He has been on the cover of a national magazine once and is about to appear on it again when it comes out in the next few days, during which time his coach says he has a good chance to be named the collegiate national player of the year.

Steve Krueger graduated from Argyle and is undoubtedly one of the best athletes the Denton area has produced in recent years, and yet is largely unknown outside of the inner circle of his sport.

That’s because Krueger plays polo.

There was no national telecast when his Texas A&M club team upset Virginia at this season’s United States Polo Association Intercollegiate National Championships in April. And only those who pay close attention to the close-knit world of the game professionally are following where Krueger will begin his post-collegiate career.

That’s fine with the former captain of the Argyle football team.

“I like that I am pretty much anonymous,” Krueger said. “I would rather not talk about polo with people I don’t know. It’s a sport that most people don’t know a lot about. When everyone thinks of polo, they think of [the movie] Pretty Woman with girls in their sun dresses and guys who are loaded.  People joke about Prince Charles. Polo is not like that. There are a bunch of rich people who play, but they don’t act that way and the guys who play professionally are not rich. Everyone I play with is really down to earth.”

Few of those people are as good as Krueger at a game that combines riding skill, tactical expertise and the ability to use a 4-foot-long mallet to whack a ball through goal posts on either end of the field.

That’s the conclusion Mike McCleary has come to after watching Krueger every step of the way throughout his career, from his days playing in youth leagues in the Dallas area to his time at Texas A&M. McCleary played with Steve Krueger’s father Ben Krueger for nearly 30 years and is now the Aggies head coach.

McCleary nominated Krueger for national player of the year honors after he helped Texas A&M knock off heavily favored Virginia in its home area 21-17 in last season’s national title game, a performance that helped earn him a second appearance on the cover of the upcoming edition of Polo Players Edition magazine.

“Steve is quite possibly the best player in the country,” McCleary said. “He was in there during the national championship with the best players in the country and was right up there at the top. There are very few players who could compete with the guys in that match. Steve was a big part of the goals that we scored. I don’t count goals scored when I evaluate players, I look at who sets up the plays. Steve was pretty good while setting up the plays on which we scored.”

That performance helped Krueger land a spot on a U.S. national team for players under 25. He is currently traveling the country with the team that helps the top collegiate players make the transition to playing professionally for clubs around the country. He spent last week training in Sheridan, Wyo.

“A bunch of people play polo full-time and make a living doing it,” Krueger said. “You can play year-round. That’s what I want to do.”

 Growing up in the game

When Ben Krueger looks back on it now, he isn’t the least bit surprised that his son followed his path into polo.

Ben Krueger played at Culver Military Academy and didn’t give up the sport until his son left for Texas A&M a little more than four years ago. He had little choice but to pack away his mallet at that point.

Steve Krueger took the horses that had resided on the 10-acre ranch the family has owned since 1990 with him to college.

 “I played while Steve was young,” Ben Krueger said. “He would hang out at my games. He used to have a little pony he rode on the sideline. He has been around the game his whole life.”

The Dallas area proved to be the perfect spot for Steve Krueger to take up the game. He learned how to play from his father and practiced on fields in Decatur, Burleson and Little Elm, where the members of Las Colinas Country Club play.

He played on clubs from the time he was 10 until he was 16, when he started playing professionally.

Steve Krueger and his father would buy horses to train at race tracks or horse auctions.

There are two that Steve Krueger rides in matches.

On the college level, each team has three players who face off in four periods. Teams ride both their own horses and the opponents’ horses, depending on the period, negating any advantage either team might have when it comes to the quality of their horses.

Professional players ride their own horses throughout entire matches.

Steve Krueger honed his skills while playing in tournaments throughout the country,

“I knew he could play collegiately because he started playing competitively in the eighth grade and you could see he had the talent for it,” Ben Krueger said. “He can ride. There is a lot of strategy to the game, but you still have to get your horse to the ball.”

Steve Krueger’s classmates at Argyle knew he played polo. Some would even come and watch once in a while. They just didn’t quite understand the passion their friend had for the game.

“My friends thought it was weird that I played polo,” Steve Krueger said. “Some of them came and watched me play. They would ask how I got into it and laughed at it, but now while they are making minimum wage at a Mexican restaurant, I am playing professionally. It’s not a great living, but it’s what I like to do. I don’t wake up every morning not wanting to go to work.”

Finding balance in life

Krueger doesn’t have regrets about missing out on the experiences other high school students in Texas enjoy, despite playing a sport none of his friends at Argyle shared an interest in.

Even while building toward a professional career in polo, he found time to play football and basketball for the Eagles.

One of Argyle head football coach Todd Rodgers’ favorite photos hanging in his office is of his team captains at midfield for the coin toss before a playoff game at Rose Stadium in Tyler. Krueger played on the defensive line and was a captain on the 2005 team that lost to Newton in the Class 2A Division I state finals.

“Steve was one of the toughest kids I have ever coached at Argyle,” Rodgers said. “His junior year didn’t turn out the way he or the rest of his teammates wanted it to. He and a lot of his teammates made the commitment to have a great senior year, which is a big reason we made it to the state finals.”

That commitment included essentially giving up competitive polo for a year. Krueger bulked up to 240 pounds, about 50 pounds more than what he weighs while playing polo.

Krueger knew the extra weight would make it tough to maneuver his horse, so he took some time off from the game.

Krueger also played basketball and was what Rodgers described as an ideal small-school athlete who gave it all he had for his team in multiple sports before turning his attention to polo in college.

“There were all sorts of places Steve could have played polo during his senior year, but he never let it interfere with football or basketball,” said Peggy Krueger, Steve’s mother.

A remarkable run

Texas A&M’s polo team is one of the nation’s elite club programs.

The Aggies won three straight national titles from 1996-98 and finished second in 2002, but hadn’t won since then until Krueger joined the team four years ago.

Texas A&M has been on a roll ever since. The Aggies won back-to-back national titles in 2007 and 2008, finished second in 2009 and then picked up their third title in four years this past season.

“It was unbelievable to win three national titles,” Krueger said. “That last one everyone thought Virginia would win it. The feeling after we beat them and won the title was pretty cool.”

For many college athletes, winning a championship as a senior is the end of the line. Only a select few go on to play professionally in any sport.

While Krueger won’t make the type of money that athletes in the NBA or NFL command, those who know the game of polo believe he will be able to live comfortably. Focusing on playing polo fulltime will only help him improve.

“Steve will be able make a living,” McCleary said. “He played in two leagues in Houston while he was in college and was making money in both of them. You have to be tough to do that because you are playing five or six games a week.”

Krueger plans to move to Houston once he completes his time with the national developmental program so that he can begin his professional career.

When he settles in, it won’t make the splash it would if he was a professional football or basketball player, but that’s fine with Krueger.

He’s doing just what he loves to do and will get paid to do it.

“I enjoy everything about polo,” Krueger said. “I love the game, the people and the atmosphere.”

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.