Champion stars for school, country

That player is sophomore utility Phoebe Champion, who has spent the past two years giving opposing teams across the country nightmares.

When Champion enrolled at Princeton, not only did she have to deal with the pressure of being the Tigers’ most highly touted water polo recruit in recent memory, but she also had to balance the pressure of being a Princeton student-athlete with her role as a member of the junior national team. As a result, Champion spent much of her freshman fall, a time when most students are struggling to become acclimated to college life, taking weekend redeye flights to California to train with the national team.

“[Training with the junior national team] is awesome because we train with the senior national team,” Champion said. “So it’s been really helpful getting the toughest competition possible. It makes me feel like I can handle anything.”

Champion’s weekend workouts with the national team paid immediate dividends her freshman year, as Champion was one of the Tigers’ leading scorers. Champion finished her freshman season with 35 goals and 20 assists while anchoring the team’s defense with 41 steals.

Throughout her freshman season, Champion and her classmates were aided by an experienced senior class that helped ease their adjustment to life as college athletes. With only one senior in the starting lineup this season, Champion and the sophomore class have been forced to assume a greater leadership role.

“Our sophomore class is pretty strong,” Champion said. “As far as being influential members on the team, we all knew that having so few upperclassmen this year, we would have to step up and play more of a leadership role and set an example for the freshmen. But I was really excited because I knew that they were all really good and really well-rounded players, so it was a smooth transition.”

As well as this transition has gone, Champion and the team’s other returning starters have played much of the season against teams boasting much more experienced starting lineups. Due to the Tigers’ relative inexperience, they have had to spend much of the season adjusting to playing with new teammates while competing against some of the top teams in the country. Champion has been more than willing to step up to the challenge.

“This year Phoebe has taken much more of a leadership role,” head coach Luis Nicolao said. “We are a very young team, and she has done a wonderful job of being more vocal in and out of the water. Phoebe is a player that everybody looks to for direction in the water.”

On their latest road trip to Southern California, Champion and the Tigers served notice to the West Coast that Princeton’s water polo team will be heard from for years to come. The Tigers went 5-3 competing against multiple ranked opponents, often with a starting lineup featuring three sophomores and three freshmen. Champion played a pivotal role during the Tigers’ successful spring break, scoring nine goals during the week.

With such a young team, Champion recognizes that her class has the ability to be a part of one of the most successful water polo teams in Princeton history.

“In one sense it’s hard not having upperclassmen, but it also means we won’t be losing people,” Champion said. “Losing [goalie] Natalie Kim [next year] is going to be tough, but she’s going to be the only starter that we lose. Our team has two whole years together. We definitely have a really promising couple years ahead of us.”

Throughout the Tigers’ rapid improvement this season, Champion and her teammates have made sure that they continue to have fun, often at the expense of the very freshmen who have played such a pivotal role in their season’s success.

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“Our team is really close,” Champion said. “We recently tricked the freshmen into believing that our coach Luis could help them into getting a better draw time for their rooms. We told them to talk to Luis, and they bought it. They just found out yesterday that he couldn’t help them.”

While the freshmen may momentarily hold a grudge against their older teammates for this practical joke, it is unlikely that they will soon forget the excellent precedent that Champion and her classmates have set for the team.