Water Polo and Open Water Swimming

From Ned Denison, chairperson of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame, to Adam Walker, the first British person to complete the Oceans Seven, the interconnections between water polo and open water swimming have long spanned over generations.

Other water polo players who made their mark in the open water include Tom Burgess, the second person to complete a crossing of the English Channel and a 2-sport Olympian who won a bronze medal in water polo at the 1900 Paris Olympics, Duke Kahanamoku, the 1912 and 1920 Olympic champion and water polo player from Hawaii, Johnny Weissmuller, 6-time Olympic medalist including one in water polo in 1924, and Niko Nestor, the first Macedonian and Soviet bloc swimmer to cross the English Channel and a former professional marathon swimmer.

The Remarkable Penny Dean

With the start of the NCAA women’s water polo season in the United States, I am always reminded how wide and varied were the aquatic skills and interests of Penny Lee Dean. Not only did she set overall records across the English Channel and Catalina Channel, and competed on the professional marathon swimming circuit, but the professor also coached women’s water polo for decades. Dr. Dean helped establish the women’s team as a varsity sport in 1991 – one of the first universities in America to adopt women’s water polo at the varsity level. Along the way, she coached Pomona-Pitzer to the 1993 and 1994 NCAA Division III championships, placing second in 1992.

Sarah Orozco and Gabby Juarez

SImilar to the pioneering efforts of Dr. Dean in water polo, two young women on either coast of the US are marking their marks on the sport.

In May 2023 when Biola University edged Long Island University to earn a historic berth into the quarterfinals of the 2023 NCAA Women’s Water Polo Championships, it was the first time two players from the same age group club team faced off as head coaches at this level.

What made the unprecedented rivalry between head coach Sarah Orozco of Biola and Gabby Juarez of Long Island University so unique was that the two former water polo players got their start in aquatics in the City of Commerce, California.

Commerce – a blue collar lower income community within eyesight of downtown Los Angeles – is an unlikely hotbed of women’s water polo.  Fans and players of soccer, football, and baseball have long come from the working class neighborhoods of Commerce, east of Los Angeles.   

Culturally and socioeconomically in the world of aquatics, Commerce is an anomaly.  Spanish is the first language of many of the parents of the players from Commerce.  Many of the Commerce alumni are the first in their family to go to college.  50-meter outdoor pools, where many of the best water polo players and swimmers train in California suburbia in the post-World War II era, simply do not exist in Commerce.    

Success started at Commerce in 1961 when its first natatorium was built.  A few years later, a bright, young, hyper enthusiastic coach, who would eventually be inducted in the International Swimming Hall of Fame coach, came onto the scene.  Don Gambril quickly developed a host of young teenage girls who won the 1964 USA Swimming national championships.  The team consisted of some of the best 12-15 year old swimmers in the nation, including Sharon Stouder, Jeanne Hallock, Patty Caretto, Lucy Johnson, Dolores Pfeiffer, Mary Campbell, and Sandy Nitta.  Among the team of national champions and world record holders, the 15-year-old Stouder won 3 gold medals and a silver in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games while her 15-year-old teammate Nitta competed in the 200-meter breaststroke.

Nitta played water polo in the off season to keep in shape and have fun.  Later, she went on to become decorated as a player, coach, referee, and administrator as she helped usher in the sport of women’s water polo to the Olympic Games.  In her post-Olympic career, Nitta started out working as a lifeguard and swim coach for beginner swimmers.  But she also encouraged her swimmers to play water polo in the off season as she once did.  

In 1977, Nitta hosted the first international women’s water polo event in Commerce when the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Australia competed in the historic tournament.  By 1980, Nitta had become the US national water polo team coach where she continued until 1994.

In 1990, Sarah Orozco was born.  Two years later, Gabby Juarez was born, also in Southern California.  Little did they or their parents know that their lives would intertwine at Commerce, later at UCLA, and much later at the NCAA Championships.

Orozco and Juarez started playing age group water polo at Commerce where Orozco helped lead Commerce to four hyper-competitive national Junior Olympic (JO) Club Championships while being named a four-time JO All-American and twice the national JO MVP.  Orozco was later named to the US Youth National Team in 2005 and 2007, and played at UCLA between 2009 and 2012.  Meanwhile, the younger Juarez earned honorable mention JO All-American honors in 2008 and 2009, and also played at UCLA beginning in the 2012 season. 

NCAA Championships

Orozco was a member of UCLA’s winning national championship team in 2009.  Later, in her senior year and Juarez’s freshman year, UCLA played archrival USC in the NCAA semifinals where Orozco scored three goals, but the Bruins lost to USC.

Their destiny would be intertwined 11 years later when Orozco and Juarez found themselves together on the deck of the 2023 NCAA women’s national water polo championships.  

Except this time, their roles would be dramatically different.  No longer players, they would face off as head coaches.  

The two women took their lifelong experiences in the game of water polo and have remarkably built emerging programs on opposite coasts.  

Pundits would have not pegged either Biola or Long Island University to earn their way into the NCAA championships – at least not so quickly.  

But the two personable women are used to being on winning teams and being part of the unexpected.  The two young women dream big and inspired their players to believe in themselves.

To qualify for the NCAA championships, Juarez led Long Island University over rival Wagner University to win its first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships on the East Coast.  Meanwhile on the West Coast, Biola concluded its season by beating Fresno Pacific and CSU Monterey Bay to qualify for the NCAA Championships.  Both programs are relatively new: Biola in its third season and Long Island University in its second season.

Juarez’s Long Island University had the upper hand over Orozco’s Biola for most of the game, but Biola scored three goals in the final two minutes to come from behind and win 10-8.  Biola went on to play the eventual national champion Stanford Cardinals.

2024 Season

The two coaches look forward to continuing their winning ways during the 2024 season. Biola beat nationally ranked Brown University 11-10 while Long Island kicks off this weekend playing against Indiana, Michigan, St. Francis, and Salem in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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