50 Years of Title IX: How a Pasadena swimmer changed the game of water polo

Jacobsen-Huse is an athletic director at PHS.

She additionally swam at her alma mater, and in 1970, needed to commerce the backwards and forwards for one thing a bit of extra dynamic: water polo.

The one downside was that women water polo wasn’t quite common. Pasadena Excessive definitely did not have a group.

So on the similar pool the place she has since coached and led, Jacobsen-Huse and her associates began one.

“They gave us pool time, they gave us water polo balls, and a few of the different highschool college students who have been boys coached us,” stated Jacobsen-Huse.

They performed after swim season and on their very own time.

Two years later, she went to the College of California – Santa Barbara and began yet again, making a group, coached by the boys, with no main trophy to chase.

It caught on.

“The primary 12 months, we every hosted a match: Santa Barbara, San Diego and Chico State,” stated Jacobsen-Huse. “It was nice, we have been undefeated!”

All of them shared an even bigger win.

It was the primary 12 months of Title IX, which protects individuals from discrimination primarily based on intercourse in training or actions that obtain federal monetary help.

It meant women might play.

“We have been celebrating that this handed, however we had no thought how lengthy it might take for it to really go into impact,” stated Jacobsen-Huse.

By her senior 12 months, she traveled out of state for competitions.

However she would spend a long time extra pushing for official illustration inside the California Interscholastic Federation, the NCAA, and the Olympics.

These efforts would later get her inducted into the Water Polo Corridor of Fame.

Which, in fact, means she and her teammates have been profitable … ultimately.

CIF acknowledged woman’s water polo in 1998, and it grew to become an Olympic sport in 2000. The NCAA did so in 2001.

Jacobsen-Huse by no means noticed her efforts turn into a actuality as a participant, however she certain did see it via.

“It makes me nearly a bit of emotional actually,” stated Kara-Leigh Huse, who has at all times had her function mannequin by her facet. “Not solely did she pave the way in which in water polo for us, and for me, however she’s additionally my mother.”

By the point she began taking part in competitively, women had alternatives at each degree. At the moment, the NCAA has 65 colleges with ladies’s water polo.

Kara-Leigh Huse earned a scholarship to the College of Southern California. Her mother bought to listen to her daughter’s title introduced from the stands.

And in 2010, 40 years after Jacobsen-Huse’s first group led the way in which, Kara-Leigh Huse and her Trojans gained the nationwide championship, etching their very own place in historical past.