The Polo Girl Who Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer

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Greenwich Academy its celebrating 2016 NEPSAC Girls Water Polo title. Holding the trophy are Gator co-captains Avery Pierce and Megan Apostolides. Photo Courtesy: Greenwich Time

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor

It seemed so simple, so obvious to the young Avery Pierce. The eighth-grader had discovered a sport that galvanized her. It was challenging, athletic, and fun—and Avery wanted to play it at the high school level. Which presented a problem. Her school, Greenwich Academy, the oldest all-girl preparatory school in Connecticut, did not have a girls’ water polo team, despite the success and popularity of the sport in the region and the teams other girls’ prep schools fielded.

So Avery set out to rectify the situation. Bolstered by the timely arrival of fellow polo enthusiast Megan Apostolides, Pierce put her back to the wheel, as it were, and helped engineer a new program at the venerable school that has subsequently altered the landscape of girls’ polo in the Northeast.

Having now completed their freshman years at Stanford and Holy Cross, respectively, Pierce and Apostolides can look back and be justifiably proud of their success in bringing water polo to Greenwich Academy, or “GA” as they refer to it. Having won league titles the past two years, the Gators have quickly risen to the top of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC), a scant three years after the two young athletes, along with assorted GA students, administrators and parents, birthed the program.

But the Gators’ outsize success in the pool is due almost entirely to the determination and desire that Pierce, with a winning assist from Apostolides, brought to the task. Choosing during eighth grade to stay at GA for academic reasons rather than transfer to a boarding school, Pierce sought to continue her involvement with polo that had begun when she was introduced to the sport at Greenwich’s Burning Tree Country Club

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Photo Courtesy: Greenwich Sentinel

“I loved going to GA; it was the perfect school for me,” Pierce said recently by phone. “It allowed me the opportunity to do all the different things that I liked. I was really athletic and was able to play all the sports I wanted to play.”

Avery had not anticipated the resistance her polo brainstorm would encounter, though, and her efforts were very nearly derailed. Her eighth-grade proposal to petition classmates and create a varsity team did not resonate with the GA athletic director, who politely turned Pierce down; and her idea lay dormant for a year as she acclimated to the academic rigors of high school.

Persistence, Persistence, Persistence

A chance meeting with Apostolides in the summer of 2013 rekindled Pierce’s hopes. Following a semester abroad, early in 2014 Avery and Megan put their heads together and tried a new, and possibly risky, approach to win over the reluctant Gator AD: they invited her boss, Head of School Molly King, to an updated presentation.

And they brought onboard some heavy water polo hitters, including Bill Smith, a board member of USA Water Polo and founder of Greenwich Aquatics, the leading age group program in the Northeast. Not only did Smith have experience starting a water polo program from scratch, he had gotten a boys’ team up and running at the Brunswick School, GA’s all-male counterpart, only a few years earlier.

Said Avery, “We knew that Bill Smith had worked with getting a team started in Greenwich, so we reached out to him for some help.” Pierce’s and Apostolides’s parents got involved, as well as Jeannie Wahl, whose daughter Borden attended the school and was interested in joining a Greenwich Academy team.

“Creating this team was a process, it took a couple years,” Megan Apostolides said in an email from London, where she’s spending the summer. “There was a lot of talk at first, but nothing was really being done to push the team forward. Avery and I, with the help from a few crucial adults, put together a proposal, as well as a roster for the team with girls’ signatures and presented it to the head of the school, the head of the upper school, and to the athletic director.”

In contrast to the response of the GA athletic department, Head of School King was fully supportive of the proposal.

“When they asked to meet with me to propose their idea, I was immediately impressed with their seriousness of purpose and their dedication to the sport itself,” Ms. King said in an email.

Noting that it was not unique for GA students to want to start a program or a club, the headmistress said it was important to respect and honor the effort expended, while admitting she knew little about water polo despite its popularity in the Greenwich area.

“Once we sat down and I heard more about the sport, how it is thriving in our area and the rigor of their schedule, I wanted to find a way to make it work,” Ms. King wrote. “When students are totally invested in an idea, as this core group of players was, that is both an inspiration and a huge motivator for the school leadership to harness resources to support them.”

Apostolides gave credit to her classmate and eventual co-captain for their team’s success.

“Avery played a huge role in starting the GA water polo team,” she wrote. “She was persistent and worked very hard to have this team approved by the administration. We worked as a team, and together we were able to have the water polo team approved.”

…Breeds Satisfaction – and Success

Not only did they get a team started, the Gators were an instant hit in the water. Pierce and Apostolides were able to attract GA students with polo experience to their newly formed club team. And Greenwich Academy’s century-old relationship with The Brunswick School paid off in a big way: Ulmis Iordache, head coach for the boys’ team in the fall was available to coach the girls’ team in the spring.

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Ulmis Iordace, w/ Bill Smith. Photo Courtesy: Greenwich Sentinel

One of the top age-group coaches on the East Coast due to his work with Greenwich Aquatics, Iordache fielded a competitive team that very first season, despite a limited roster. “Only 11 players signed up for the first year; we often traveled with only seven players for most games,” he said.

The team was successful almost immediately; by season’s end, it was good enough to have contended for the NEPSAC title. But as a club team, GA wasn’t eligible to compete in the playoffs, which Pierce said was frustrating.

“It was bittersweet for all of us, mostly sweet,” she said. “We had gone into it knowing we were going to be a club team that year and knowing that we weren’t going to qualify for the NEPSAC playoffs. The goal was not to qualify; it was to win as many games as we could and prove ourselves—not only to our administration but to the water polo community.

“We weren’t disappointed, because we knew we had a chance the next year to prove to everyone that we were the best,” she added.

With varsity status secured, the Gators came of age in their second year. Led by a core of five seniors—including co-captains Apostolides and Pierce—and with an expanded roster, GA went on a championship run, capturing the 2016 NEPSAC girls’ water polo title.

This season, despite the absence of its founders, GA continues to excel. In the spring, the Gators achieved yet another milestone, beating local powerhouse Greenwich High School, a public school with over 2,000 students (by contrast, GA has a total student body of 800 enrolled in K-12).

According to Coach Iordache, beating Greenwich was “a solid benchmark” for his team. “If you’re able to beat them again, that means your program is doing well,” he said.

Looking back on her experience, certain things stood out for the now-graduated Apostolides.

“The moment when we heard the news that the team had been approved, and when we won the New England Championship in 2016.” she wrote. “The feeling of accomplishment after both of these moments was incredible; all of our hard work and dedication had paid off, and in addition, we were successful.”

Head of School King echoed Apostolides’s sentiments.

“Simply put, we couldn’t be prouder,” she said. “It’s remarkable what they have accomplished in such a short time. For a school whose motto is Toward the Building of Character, this sport and the dedication of the GA girls to the program certainly capture GA’s values.”

With Chip Brenner

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Swimming Pool Lovers
6 years ago

Woah.

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