Heather Petri ‘s name is a byword for excellence in water polo circles as she and Brenda Villa became the first women to win four consecutive Olympic medals at London 2012. In September, Petri will join an illustrious group of water polo stars when she will be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as the only water polo athlete in the Class of 2023.
Heather Petri’s journey started in her home town of Orinda — a small town in the East Bay area of Northern California. It was a special place with a lot of aquatic foundations.
It was a hotbed for swimming, water polo and artistic swimming. It was a very small town of one street, but it had 10 little swim clubs. Swimming was only in the summer and fellow ISHOF inductee Matt Biondi was part of her swim club.
A lot of the boys played water polo, but women didn’t and Heather revelled in joining
the local jungle ball “matches” when she was nine-10, playing with older kids. “It was a version of water polo where they set up chairs at the end of pool, wrestled and enjoyed the free-for-all with no referees. I looked forward to Fridays,” she said.
At 14, she was a freshman at high school and all her male friends were playing water polo, but as there was no opportunity for girls to participate; she would watch them.
She was still competing as a swimmer and soon one of the mothers asked her if she would like to play with the boys. “I thought she was crazy, but the boys said it was OK, so I went to the high school and asked the coach of the water polo team and he said yes.”
Petri loves her town as a special place that this could happen, embracing her. She said playing with them was very positive experience. She remembers the experience fondly.
“The boys would invite me to train off hours and show me what to do. I wasn’t playing a lot of minutes, but I was playing a lot and fell in love with water polo even more.”
After that one year when she played at 15 with the boys, other girls wanted to play, as well. The parents helped the girls go to the local school board and petitioned it to create a team and a league, needing six other schools to create a competition.
So, the first year, Petri was 16 and played her first year in high school, winning the league and creating so much interest.
What is happening now in Northern California is a by-product of those early steps. Women’s water polo has grown exponentially since then.
This all happened at a very specific time with the Title 9 legislation, a law passed in 1972 giving equality to female sports in the United States of America. Title 9 was indeed a huge part of her journey with all these opportunities being created at the time she was able to participate.
“About 1994, universities started creating women’s water polo teams. Before that it was basically a club system, not organised or affiliated with any body.
“My coach, Peter Asch, played university and two Olympic Games, so he shared that there were opportunities for me to play in college even though I had only played two seasons.”
She was not recruited like athletes are today. Looking around at colleges, she met the legendary Maureen O’Toole, the first women’s coach at University of California — Berkeley. She watched the team practise against the Canadian national team and was overwhelmed by the idea of women playing against a national team.
She was introduced to this level of play at a pivotal time in the development of women’s water polo with Olympic inclusion on the horizon.
She started training with some of her heroes and said that she never thought she would be a part of the Olympic journey let alone the national team.
“In 1999, I was included in a national B team that played some matches at home and national senior coach Guy Baker spied my talent and invited me to the top team in April 2000.
“The team went on a training trip to Netherlands and my first official international was in a pre-Olympic Games Qualification Tournament in Greece before travelling to Palermo, Italy for the main event,” she said.
USA and Russia qualified for Sydney from Palermo and USA played the final against host Australia, losing in the final second. It was the start of an incredible, successful journey for Petri as she progressed to international stardom in a 12-year career that saw her, along with inductee Brenda Villa, become the first women to win medals at four Olympic Games. Throw in three World Championships gold medals and a silver; a World Cup silver; three World League titles and three Pan American Games golds and her career was indeed golden.
She also played several seasons in Italy with Florence and two seasons with Vouliagmeni in Greece, winning two LEN Champions League trophies.
Upon retiring from international sport, Petri moved back to Northern California and took some time to give back to communities she felt passionate about — giving talks to youth in schools, teaching clinics and supporting local and global charities going to Africa with Right To Play and attending Swim Across America events all over the USA in the fight against cancer.
Petri then teamed up with Olympic team-mate Nicolle Payne to create a successful small business selling swimwear for eight years before the pandemic adversity was such, the business shut down.
As the world reopened, a position at the University of California — Berkeley, working alongside another team-mate, head coach Coralie Simmons, became available. Petri has been assisting at Cal for two years after volunteering for the team the previous five years.
Petri will be inducted on Saturday, September 30 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Also being inducted are coaches Bob Bowman (USA) and Chris Carver (USA); swimmers Cesar Cielo (BRA), Kirsty Coventry (ZIM), Missy Franklin (USA), Kosuke Kitajima (JPN) and Michael Phelps (USA); artistic swimmer Natalia Ischenko (RUS); diver Wu Minxa (CHN); open water swimmer Stéphane Lecat (FRA); contributor Sam Ramsamy (RSA) and paralympic swimmer Trischa Horn (USA).
Tickets for the event can be purchased via the ISHOF website.