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By Pauline Vu

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

When Nicolle Payne heard the news over the phone, she walked back to the dining room where her family was eating dinner, smiled at them, and started screaming.

When Robin Beauregard heard the news, she went to the nearest pay phone, called her parents, and again, there was more elated screaming.

And when Catherine von Schwarz heard the news, she ... well, von Schwarz admitted with a sheepish smile, she doesn’t remember what she did.

“She was so excited she forgot,” Beauregard said with a laugh at a press conference at the National Aquatics Center in Los Alamitos, Calif.

In October of 1997, after years of struggling, after years of watching one Olympics after another go by, women’s water polo finally became an Olympic sport.

“Every year an Olympics came around, women’s water polo got its hopes up and was disappointed,” Payne said. “But our sport has gotten so popular. They couldn’t deny us much longer.”

Not that the powers that be – the IOC and La Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA), the international governing body for water sports – didn’t try to keep it from happening.

“They said it was too small, they said the sport wasn’t developed enough. They gave every excuse,” Coralie Simmons said.

When the players heard that women’s water polo would actually be in the Olympics, it was even more uplifting because they were beginning to think the sport would never make it.

“When the Olympics were in Atlanta – in our home country – we thought it was going to happen,” von Schwarz said. “When it didn’t we were bummed. It didn’t seem like it would ever happen.”

It was rumored that FINA also didn’t like the idea of women playing a contact sport.

“They’re not used to women being so aggressive,” Simmons said.

But with the Olympics in Sydney this year, the Australian National Team, an international powerhouse, fought to get women’s water polo in the 2000 Games – and were successful. They even got the Australian Olympic Committee to build a brand new pool to host the women’s games.

This year’s Olympics will have six teams vying for the medals. Australia has an automatic berth by right of being the host nation; Kazakhstan will go as the Asian champion; the Netherlands will go as the European champion; and Canada won the spot for the American continent. Thus the final two teams, Russia and the United States, had to place in the top two at the Olympic Qualifying tournament to earn the remaining two spots.

Russia did this by beating Italy and the United States did so by beating Hungary 6-5 in the semifinals of the qualifying round.

The U.S. National team has 17 members but will cut its roster to 13 by July 3. At the moment, the team includes four Bruins – two current and two former – as well as coach Guy Baker, the head coach of both the UCLA men’s water polo and women’s water polo programs.

The graduates are 2-meter defender Catherine von Schwarz, the first female in UCLA history to graduate with four national championships, and Nicolle Payne, the national team’s starting goalie. Playmaker Coralie Simmons and 2-meter defender Robin Beauregard have, respectively, one and three years left of college eligibility. They are among the leading scorers on the U.S. Team.

As evidenced by its Olympic presence, women’s water polo has come a long way. Most of the members of the national team played on the boys’ varsity teams in high school because their schools had no girls’ teams.

“No one knew what water polo was when I was growing up,” said von Schwarz, who was raised in Maryland. “Now you have eastern high school championships. It’s amazing how fast it grew in 10 years.”

When UCLA first had a women’s water polo team in 1995, there were a total of four Division I programs. Now there are over 50, and next year the sport will be an NCAA sport.

After the sport became an Olympic competition, the national team finally began getting serious funding to help U.S. women’s water polo succeed. Before, players had to work another job while training with the team.

As soon as she heard it would be an Olympic sport, Beauregard decided to go out for the national team. Before that, joining the team hadn’t been an option.

“I was really focused on school,” she said. “I didn’t think there was anything in water polo then.”

Everyone is aware of the impact they could be making on the sport in the United States.

“It could be huge,” Baker said. “I think the U.S. making the Olympics is a big step. It’s good for the sport, but if we could medal, the growth potential is enormous.”

And with only six teams in the field, the United States has a 50 percent chance of medaling. Not only that, but the team’s potential impact on the future of women’s water polo only makes them hungrier to win.

“The team is motivated by that,” Baker said. “It’s part of their legacy to have a big impact on the sport.”

They’re motivated by that – and the fact they are simply playing in the Olympics itself.

“It’s been, obviously, a dream forever,” Simmons said with a smile. “To be able to experience it, to be able to finally go to the big event is so exciting.”

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