{"id":629422,"date":"2025-12-17T17:40:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=629422"},"modified":"2025-12-17T17:40:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:40:32","slug":"u-s-womens-water-polo-celebrates-25-years-of-olympic-inclusion-plus-where-are-they-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/u-s-womens-water-polo-celebrates-25-years-of-olympic-inclusion-plus-where-are-they-now\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Women’s Water Polo Celebrates 25 Years of Olympic Inclusion (Plus: Where Are They Now?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Women’s Water Polo Celebrates 25 Years of Olympic Inclusion (Plus: Where Are They Now?)<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Aimee Berg<\/p>\n

In 2000, women\u2019s water polo finally made its official Olympic debut \u2013 a century after the men\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought for sure (the International Olympic Committee) would add it to the Olympics in \u201988, and they didn\u2019t. In \u201892, they didn\u2019t. And in 1996, they didn\u2019t. I retired in \u201994 because I didn\u2019t think it was ever gonna be added,\u201d said Maureen O\u2019Toole, who was widely regarded as the greatest female water polo player of all time.<\/p>\n

Yet on October 29, 1997, O\u2019Toole was reading The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> in her kitchen and recalled seeing \u201ca one-sentence thing in the paper\u201d that women\u2019s water polo would finally be contested at the 2000 Sydney Games. When O\u2019Toole arrived at her office at Cal-Berkeley, where she was the head women\u2019s coach, her old coach Sandy Nitta called.<\/p>\n

\u201cMo, did you hear? Do you want to come out of retirement?\u201d Nitta asked.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Toole, then 36, said: \u201cI remember thinking for a hot second, \u2018Oh man, I got a 5-year-old daughter. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the news reached USC goalie Bernice Orwig, she immediately thought: \u201cOh, this is amazing! But I still hadn\u2019t made the U.S. National Team. I was on the B team, so I\u2019m like: \u2018Oh well. There\u2019s already other goalies ahead of me. I\u2019ll just continue with college and maybe one day, it\u2019d be really cool if I could get there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Brenda Villa was training with the U.S. National Team on weekends to prepare for the 1998 World Championships in Perth. But October 29 was a Wednesday and she was in high school. Cell phones were rare, and only 18 percent of U.S. homes had internet access. \u201cMaybe someone called my house line?\u201d she guessed.<\/p>\n

Eventually, all three women made that inaugural U.S. Olympic team that had been the second-to-last nation to qualify for the tournament, finished eighth at the previous World Championship and, somehow, in Game One in Sydney, defeated powerhouse Netherlands, 6-4. Next, it tied Canada, 8-8, to earn a crucial point in the round-robin tally and, five days later, went on to defeat the Netherlands again in the semifinal, 6-5, to earn a berth in the gold-medal game against host nation Australia.<\/p>\n

U.S. driver Julie Swail remembered walking into an arena filled with the largest crowd ever to watch a women\u2019s water polo game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so loud, you could feel it in your chest cavity,\u201d Swail said. \u201cOf the 17,000 in attendance, I\u2019d say 16,000 were cheering for Australia. You could be two feet away from your teammate, shouting at the top of your lungs, and they could not hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan was to stay calm and \u201cjust play Los Al style,\u201d Orwig said, as if they were at practice at Los Alamitos, the team\u2019s training base in California.<\/p>\n

Villa recalled assistant coach Chris Duplanty telling the US team to \u201clisten for the silence. If we\u2019re doing well, scoring, making big saves, the place will be quiet. Aim for that quiet \u2013 and be okay in that quiet (because) it means we\u2019re doing a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final turned into a remarkably low scoring game, tied 2-2 at the end of the third period. Australia broke the tie with 1:50 to go. In the final 13 seconds, Villa tied it, 3-3, and overtime seemed inevitable \u2013 until the final second when the Australian lefty Yvette Higgins caught the ball, cranked her shoulder, and fired. The ball whizzed past U.S. goalie Orwig\u2019s outstretched arm and slammed into the upper left corner of the net.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still remember how it went off my hand,\u201d said Orwig. \u201cBut there was so much confusion on the play. All of a sudden, the game was over. Like, \u2018What? What just happened? We lost? Are you sure we lost?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. coach Guy Baker disputed the call, but it was done.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was shock, just absolute shock that that’s how it ended,\u201d said defender Heather Moody. \u201cWe all came to the side (of the pool), almost blank.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the crowd was rapturous.<\/p>\n

\u201cAussie-Aussie-Aussie Oi-Oi-Oi haunted me for decades,\u201d Villa said.<\/p>\n

Moments later, while the ecstatic champions from Australia accepted their gold medals, Team Russia stood on the far right of the podium, jubilant after defeating the Netherlands, 4-3, earlier that night to claim the bronze. On the far left was the only team that had lost that day, the U.S., draped in the inaugural silvers.<\/p>\n

Orwig blew past the press and was later summoned to do a gutting post-match press conference with the gleeful Aussies. A full year later, the final point was still on her mind. In 2001, she met with coach Baker and broke down crying, telling him: \u201cAny time there\u2019s a player at that position, all I see is that moment in the gold-medal game,\u201d Orwig said. \u201cI ended up retiring in 2003 because I just\u2026 I was never able to get back to that level of play.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, Orwig had already completed her college career, but younger players like Villa, 19-year-old Ericka Lorenz, and 21-year-old Ellen Estes returned from the Olympics to face another new opportunity. Women\u2019s water polo suddenly had NCAA championship status. The NCAA had decided even before Sydney to hold the first NCAA women\u2019s water polo championship in 2001.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Olympic and NCAA inclusion, participation grew, as did funding, but perhaps the greatest and longest-lasting impact of the 2000 silver medal was the development pipeline.<\/p>\n

After Sydney, coach Baker left UCLA to work full-time for USA Water Polo. \u201cThat\u2019s where the P.A.C.E. clinic started, all the education, under-20 teams, under-18s, all that,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n

Future Olympians like \u201cMaddie Musselman, Rachel Fattal \u2013 all those kids were identified while we were running that stuff,\u201d said Baker, who would coach two more U.S. women\u2019s Olympic teams. In 2004 in Athens, he guided the squad to bronze (with seven Sydney veterans on the team). In 2008 in Beijing, the U.S. earned another silver.<\/p>\n

The development push didn\u2019t only affect youth, however. Baker had infused it into the culture of the 2000 Olympic team \u2013 partly out of necessity (to raise money), but by emphasizing its importance. Nearly every single member of that team later became a coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we were an Olympic sport, we used to run camps and clinics as a way to fundraise for the women’s national team,\u201d recalled Rachel (Scott) Ruano, the 2000 Olympic alternate. \u201cThe coaching staff would do coaching seminars and we (players) would travel around the country doing clinics for kids. We did a whole Eastern tour. I think I went to one in like Louisiana, Chicago, all over, as well as in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuy felt it was really, really important to give back,\u201d Moody added. \u201cSo the 2000 team was actively taking the lead in teaching younger athletes our skills, and in the 2000 to 2004 window we were really<\/em> active. We made videos so kids and coaches could see: here’s what the national team does.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Moody said: \u201cI had to learn to use my words to teach kids what I did, so now when I’m coaching, I have an idea of how to break down passing, shooting, center work, defense. It helped me develop as a coach. It gave us the groundwork and the platform to grow into who I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where Are The Now?<\/strong><\/p>\n