World Aquatics' Women in Water Polo Leadership Programme, in cooperation with Official Match Ball Supplier KAP7, brings together female coaches and technical officials from across the globe to support their professional development. In the fourth of a series profiling the participants of this initiative, we speak to Molly Cahill, an assistant coach with the United States women's national team whose introduction to water polo sparked a career defined by dedication, mentorship and an unwavering belief in what female coaches can achieve.
Molly Cahill’s career in sport began when she grew up in Colorado as a committed soccer player with no background in aquatic sport.
She moved to England and then California while continuing to play soccer, but an unfortunate ankle injury set her on an entirely different path. On her father’s suggestion she began a career in water polo that has ultimately taken her from UCLA to the United States national team, and shaped her into one of the most experienced female coaches in the country.
“I started pretty late – I was 13, 14 – and it kind of just quickly took off,” Cahill said.
At UCLA, Cahill won national championships and was coached by Adam Krikorian, who serves as head coach of the US women's national team and she has now been reunited with as assistant coach.
Cahill represented the US at youth and junior national team level as a player, and her coaching career began in her fifth year at UCLA. She stayed on as an assistant, and coaching quickly became a genuine vocation.
“When I first started coaching right out of college, out of UCLA, it was just something to do and it was an easy transition for me,” she said.
“Maybe three or four years into my time at UCLA, I really started to realise that I had a passion for coaching, a passion for being on a team, working with like-minded people and just being in sport.”
What has made Cahill's development as a coach particularly rich is the range of levels at which she has worked. Alongside her role at UCLA, she simultaneously coached club and age-group teams, and she views that breadth of experience as key to who she has become as a coach.
"I've had to really put in time at all the different age levels, which I think has allowed me to become the coach I am, because I've had to tailor all of my coaching to such different age ranges,” she explained.
“You can't coach someone aged 10 and under the same way that you can coach a senior team level player. So it's really allowed me to grow and to expand my coaching skill set.”
The network of female coaches who surrounded her throughout her career has also shaped Cahill into the coach she is today. Mentors and role models during her years at UCLA include Coralie Simmons, Natalie Golda Benson and Nicole Payne – all Olympians and coaches of distinction – while she continues to be influenced by colleagues she works alongside today such as Adam Krikorian, Brenda Villa, Alys Moore and Melissa Seidemann.
“I've been surrounded by amazing coaches and I've been able to learn from them and be influenced by them. They [Simmons, Golda Benson and Payne] really paved the way for me and showed me what a female coach can accomplish. I still look up to them. I'm very close with them. They inspire me all the time,” she said.
Cahill learned of the Women in Water Polo Leadership Programme through her federation, and was thrilled to have been chosen from a field of more than 90 applicants.
“I feel so grateful to be connected to all of these women in our sport. It is a male-dominated sport – it's starting to change, which is really nice – but to just be able to have a space to communicate with each other, share ideas and realise that we have a lot of the same experiences is really special.”
Two themes have stood out to Cahill so far. The first is the international networking dimension – the opportunity to build relationships with female coaches and officials from across the world, and to bring knowledge from those exchanges back to programmes in the US. The second has been: the professional development elements of the programme, covering areas that life on a pool deck can sometimes push to the margins.
“You're blowing a whistle and you can kind of forget about how to use certain digital tools, how to create really professional presentations, these types of things. So I think just a holistic approach to being a professional is really important and something that I really haven't had to do, because I have just been coaching and living this life on a pool deck for my whole professional career.”
On the wider question of how female coaches can be better supported and given the leadership opportunities they deserve, Cahill returns to the importance of women lifting each other up.
“I hope that I can empower the younger coaching generation and show them that they can be strong coaches and they can also be moms and they can do all these other things. Hopefully I can just provide that example.”
It is a message that Cahill believes extends well beyond her own career and speaks to the purpose of the programme itself.
About the Women in Water Polo Leadership Programme
The Women in Water Polo Leadership Programme is a joint initiative of KAP7 and World Aquatics aimed at increasing the representation and visibility of female professionals in the sport. Through structured education, leadership training, mentorship and international exposure, the programme supports women in developing their skills, advancing their careers and taking on leadership roles within coaching and officiating. It also fosters confidence and professional networks, while helping to inspire future generations of female leaders in Water Polo.
Further information can be found here.