JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Tomorrow, the U.S. women's water polo team plays its first game against Greece. And for the team's star goalkeeper, Ashleigh Johnson, this is something of a reunion. She has played professionally on Greek teams, and she'll be facing off against some of her former teammates.
ASHLEIGH JOHNSON: It's definitely like catching up with old friends. When we're in the game, it's all edge. But they still get the jump on me, and so do I, like, for them.
SUMMERS: The U.S. women beat the Greek team 14-10 in an exhibition game earlier this year.
ADAM KRIKORIAN: Go on to spot them (ph), and you guys can circle pattern unless you guys want to split.
SUMMERS: And when we caught up with Johnson last month at the U.S. women's training pool in Long Beach, Calif., Johnson was feeling good because the U.S. team had just beat Italy in another exhibition game the day before. Score? - 14-5 - and head coach Adam Krikorian wanted to review some video footage of the game.
JOHNSON: Coach is going to only show us the bad plays (laughter). We're not going to see the good, but it's good.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE TWEETING)
SUMMERS: Inside the team room, Coach Krikorian tabbed through play after play after play.
KRIKORIAN: Oh, we muffed this one. Look at it. That was - this is a good...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, too excited.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I need to hold X2 as well, though.
KRIKORIAN: Yeah. Yeah. You might have had six goals, but I'm only going to remember this one.
SUMMERS: The stakes are high in Paris for the U.S. women's water polo team. They have medaled at every single Olympics since women's water polo was admitted to the games in 2000. And ever since Krikorian started coaching the team in 2009, they've taken home gold three times in a row - at London, Rio and Tokyo. So the pressure is on, and Krikorian is clear-eyed about their prospects this summer.
KRIKORIAN: I've said it before publicly, and I'm not afraid to say it. We're not as talented as we've been in the past. But this team is incredibly tight, and it has been one of the most enjoyable teams that I've had the opportunity to coach.
SUMMERS: Then again, maybe he's just setting the bar low because the team has won every single one of its 18 games this year, except one against Hungary earlier this month. Part of that success is no doubt due to Ashleigh Johnson, who's now headed to her third Olympic Games. She is the first Black woman to play on the U.S. women's water polo team, and she is widely considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world. She made 80 saves at the Tokyo Olympics - more than any other goalkeeper in the women's and men's tournaments.
KRIKORIAN: She's an incredible athlete. She's got great hand-eye coordination, great reflexes and reactions. And then she's fiercely competitive - fiercely. And you would never know it by her demeanor or by the huge smile on her face. But to us, on the inside, we know how driven she is to be one of the best ever to do it.
JOHNSON: I've always felt at home if I was competing. Just because I have a big family, it was always, like, a race to finish what was on your plate, a race to get to, like, the best seat in the house on the couch watching TV first. It was like - we were always competing, always having fun that way. So when we started swimming, it was like, OK, who's going to get this stroke best first? Who's going to be able to, like, hold that streamline rocket ship across the pool and go the furthest? So I wouldn't say I feel most at home in the water, but I feel the most at home when I'm competing.
SUMMERS: You became a competitive swimmer and were a state champion in Florida in freestyle swimming, but I understand that your mom has said that she used to have to drag you to practice. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and your feelings towards competitive swimming at that time?
JOHNSON: Yeah, I did not like swimming. Swimming was not my thing. Swimming was kind of what you had to do, and water polo was the reward. We'd go to school - actually, elementary school - walk across the park, and then we'd go from swim practice to water polo practice. So it was just our endless cycle, day to day - school, park, swimming, water polo. And I fell in love with the sport.
SUMMERS: Almost every member of the USA women's water polo team grew up in California and went to college in the state as well. And I know that you took a different path. You grew up in Florida, as we were talking about, and you went to Princeton. I'm curious, initially - what was it like fitting in in that environment? Was it a natural fit from the go? Was it more challenging?
JOHNSON: Coming to this team from my background growing up in Miami and playing water polo and then choosing to go to Princeton to play water polo and for my academics was definitely an uncomfortable transition. I didn't really have a dream to be here because I just didn't see a pathway to be here. I didn't see, like, anyone who looked like me here, anyone with my background here, and it just seemed like a world away.
SUMMERS: And we should just put a finer point on it. You're the only Black woman on the team, so there's a level of representation there, too. You're not just dealing with differences of vocabulary and the way you talk about the game. There's the difference of yourself. How did you deal with that part of it?
JOHNSON: Yeah, I think that was one of the bigger things that I had to deal with, transitioning onto the team. I really had to lean into what I was sure about and what I was certain about that the other people on the team could understand - like my work ethic, my commitment to the game, my commitment to this team. Once I gained that respect as a professional, then, like, trickling in my background and personality and why - like, my individuality. So like, kind of conforming in a way and then creating space to be myself.
SUMMERS: In 2016, you became the first Black woman to make a U.S. Olympic water polo team. Can you just think back on that milestone? What did it mean to you to be named to the team and to hold that space?
JOHNSON: Being named to the team was incredible, to me, just personally, because I set that goal for myself. And when I came into this team, everyone was telling me how important it was to be here - not my teammates, but, like, media. My coach, especially, like, really wanted me to step into this role of, like, role model. And I didn't understand it. You know, I was like, I'm here to play water polo. Like, I really need to get better at blocking.
And it really took me understanding the bigger context of not only our sport, but access to aquatics, the historical exclusion of people of color from aquatics spaces, and it took all of that to start writing a new history, start writing a new story, start opening up that pathway for the people who will follow me - the girls and boys who look like me - to gain that confidence that maybe I didn't have, that dream that I didn't have because I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me in this space.
SUMMERS: For little kids out there who might look up to you and admire you and who maybe compete in your sport and want to be like you when they grow up, I'm curious - what do you tell them when you talk to them? What kind of advice do you give them about how they should approach it, how they can get to the same level that you're at?
JOHNSON: A lesson that I wish I had heard when I was young was that your difference is the thing that's going to add to the team. It's going to set you apart, and it's going to make your team better. Like, I play this game differently. I look differently than most people in my sport. I tell a lot of kids who, like, tell me that they don't feel like they fit into their team - and I'm like, you keep being you. Your difference makes you great. Your uniqueness is an add, and it takes all types.
SUMMERS: Ashleigh Johnson, thank you so much.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
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