Women’s Water Polo Team Bringing Olympics to O.C.

As the grand dame of the U.S. women’s national water polo team, Maureen O’Toole is feeling especially patriotic this Fourth of July.

Despite being a trailblazer in her sport, she has toiled in obscurity for years as a second-class citizen in a watery world where Olympic glory usually goes to swimmers and divers, or countrymen on the much-ballyhooed men’s water polo team.

But a feeling of vindication--and fireworks, of course--will accompany O’Toole, 39, and her younger teammates tonight when they play arch-rival Canada in the opening round of the 2000 Holiday Cup in Los Alamitos.

“This is a big tournament,” said U.S. team captain Julie Swail of Placentia. “It’s the Olympics brought to our home town.”

Hometown, indeed. Orange County athletes have a long history of making a great splash in water polo, from dominating high school playoffs year in and year out, to stocking the rosters of college powerhouses and U.S. national teams.

Three years ago, there was a combined total of 30 high school and club girls’ water polo teams in Orange County, according to Bruce Wigo, executive director of USA Water Polo. Today, there are more than 200.

“That’s more than any state in the union,” Wigo said. “By far.”

Los Alamitos Complex Is Team’s Home Base

Nearly all of the 13 women on the current U.S. women’s team are either Orange County natives or have strong local ties.

All consider the U.S. Water Polo National Aquatic Complex at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center their second home, so it’s only fitting that the humble fixer-upper is the setting for the prestigious tournament that begins today and runs through Sunday. It will serve as a warmup for Sydney, where women will make history by playing water polo for the first time in the Olympics.

And while they are fairly bursting with anticipation over their chance to compete in Australia, they also have eagerly counted down the days until today, when they will play in a festive holiday atmosphere before bleachers filled by relatives, friends and water polo fans who have steadfastly supported them.

The feeling that women’s water polo is finally getting the attention it deserves, coupled with a chance to compete on their own turf has given veterans and young guns alike a boost they need heading into the Olympic games.

“Hopefully, we’ll follow in the footsteps of the U.S. women’s softball, soccer and ice hockey teams,” O’Toole said. “They won gold medals in their first Olympic experiences in 1996 and we want to do that in 2000.”

With no seat over $12 compared to the $75-$200 ticket prices in Australia, the Los Alamitos tournament is being billed by organizers as the best holiday bargain in town. All six Olympic qualifiers--Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Russia and the United States--are here to compete, giving the public a chance to watch a replica of the Olympic event at a fraction of the cost.

A sellout of about 2,000 fans is expected to see the game against Canada at 7 tonight. As many as 25,000 additional spectators are expected to enter the base at game’s end for a fireworks display.

While the sport has yet to achieve widespread popularity, it enjoys a die-hard following.

According to U.S. team leader Michelle Pickering, by the time the tournament concludes, the competing teams will have the potential to be exposed in person to more people here in Orange County than at most of the worldwide Olympic women’s water polo qualifying events combined.

O’Toole compares the tournament to the U.S. Open of tennis, and her teammates agree.

“This tournament will bring more recognition to the sport than anything has in the past,” said U.S. goaltender Bernice Orwig of Anaheim.

The refurbished outdoor facility at Los Alamitos has hosted several attempts to showcase the women’s team with mid-December competitions in 1998 and 1999, but they met with little success: They were held during the peak holiday shopping season and at a time when sports fans usually focus on the NFL playoffs, major college football bowl games and high school events other than water polo.

“We didn’t get a lot of recognition,” Wigo said. “It was great for training but not for spectators. The attendance was poor and the weather was lousy.”

In the Past, Players Scrimped to Save Cash

Those types of second-rate spectacles--and the heartaches that went with them--were the norm for decades.

Funding for the women’s national team was almost nonexistent, and players were forced to be hardy.

“I can tell you stories about how we stayed in bunk beds and had eight in a room when we traveled because we had to pay our own way,” said Swail, who attended Valencia High and is women’s water polo coach at UC Irvine.

“We slept on pool tables and on the floors of someone’s apartment just to have a roof over our heads at tournaments,” O’Toole said.

“Back then, you did it because you loved it. We still do it because we love it, but we’re better off today than ever before,” said O’Toole, who swam in her first international water polo event in 1978 and is calling it quits after Sydney.

Similar in its nonstop style to soccer, water polo is a rigorous sport requiring players to tread water at all times.

Women’s water polo in the United States traces its roots to the City of New York in 1911, when the first league was formed by a city-sponsored life-saving club, according to USA Water Polo.

Fifteen years later in Los Angeles, the Amateur Athletic Union sponsored the first national competition, but it was dropped in 1931 because the game was considered too rough for women.

It wasn’t until 1964 that the AAU restored national competition at the urging of several Midwestern college club teams.

But it took 35 hard-fought years after that to be sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.

This is the first summertime Holiday Cup. In two major international tournaments held this year, the United States finished second. UCLA standout Robin Beauregard, 21, who prepped at Marina High in Huntington Beach, said things have changed dramatically in recent years.

“Several years ago you could be at a tournament and see that the men’s team was fully outfitted in gear,” she said. “[While] we had to buy our own T-shirts and shorts and pay all of our expenses.”

Women now get all the perks that men do, including health insurance, gear and expense-paid travel.

This week’s Holiday Cup is “a big test” that affords the U.S. a chance to demonstrate how far the women’s game has come, said Wigo, the USA Water Polo executive director.

“The men have played in world tournaments in front of 50,000 people with all the media attention,” Wigo said. “We’ve had a lot of attention on the women this week and there will lots of people in the stands. The women have never experienced that before.”

The pressure is indeed on, O’Toole said. But it’s all part of the game, and the women’s team must learn to handle it if they are to be taken seriously.

“Good athletes know how to respond to that,” she said, adding that she and her teammates are eager to prove themselves tonight--and in Sydney. “This is a great prelude to the Olympics, in front of our home crowd and we’d like to win that gold.”

* HOLIDAY CUP: The players, tournament details. D9