USA Water Polo Goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson Finds Joy in Her Trailblazing Journey

PARIS — These Olympics may very well be described because the Games of ladies’s empowerment, especially the empowerment of black women. There’s the historic dominance of the U.S. women’s basketball team, the seismic impact of gymnast Simone Biles and sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson’s quest to win the gold medal she felt was denied her in 2020.

Then there’s Ashleigh Johnson, a two-time Olympic champion who is taken into account top-of-the-line goalkeepers in women’s water polo — In 2021, she saved 80 shots on the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, greater than another goalkeeper in either the lads’s or women’s tournamentsJohnson is a pillar of the dominant U.S. women’s Olympic water polo team, which is searching for its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal.

Johnson helped lead Team USA to gold on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games. Her team opened its title defense Saturday with a dominant 15-6 victory over Greece. Johnson recorded 10 saves in three or more quarters. Team USA lost 13-11 to Spain in pool play on Monday.

Johnson, who played water polo for 4 years at Princeton, made her first Olympic team at age 21. Now, at 29, Johnson has grow to be a sage, a keeper of the flame, and has warned the Olympic team that it must write its own history.

“The legacy of this team is so strong — the U.S. women’s water polo team has won three consecutive gold medals, and this is an opportunity to win a fourth,” she said. “But this particular team, this group of women, hasn’t done anything yet. We haven’t won a gold medal, we haven’t been to the Olympics. This is our first opportunity to prove ourselves. We’re making our own way and writing our own stories.”

That’s how Johnson described her journey, from swimming lessons to winning three consecutive Florida state championships at Miami High School to playing intercollegiate water polo at an Ivy League school to becoming a dominant force in a sport where there have been no black players.

In 2016, Johnson became the primary African-American woman to affix the U.S. Olympic women’s water polo team. For all of the talk of progress and the misguided backlash against diversity, Johnson is proof of the effectiveness of diversity and the ability of inclusivity.

Just ask the opposition. Johnson played 4 years at Princeton and have become the all-time saves leader. Johnson’s journey was a difficult and lonely learning experience that gave her a brand new perspective on what other trailblazers endured to interrupt through previously segregated sports.

The biggest challenge was an internal one, testing her self-confidence. The first was selecting a university.

“I played the sport in high school, and deciding to go to college to play water polo wasn’t easy,” she said. “I chose Princeton, which was a very unusual path for a water polo player, but I was going to play water polo there, which I did for four years.”

After her sophomore 12 months, Johnson made the difficult decision to depart college and train to make the U.S. Women’s Olympic Water Polo Team. “That decision was tough because I never saw anyone on that team that looked like me. I never imagined that I could do that. I always wanted to balance my life with my sport, and I felt like the decision to move from New Jersey to California was a huge decision to give up that balance and take it out of my life.”

She had to beat her doubts, but eventually she found the positive energy of family and friends who encouraged her to take the leap. “I thought, ‘OK, here are all these people who believe in me, who believe I can do this. Let me take a chance and believe I can do it, believe in myself and just do it.’ So I did. I worked hard for two years and eventually made my first Olympic team.”

In some ways, Johnson’s journey defines the journey of any athlete who makes the Olympic team in any sport. She was stretched and pushed in ways she could never have imagined. Even the isolation of being a trailblazer became empowering.

“We trained twice a day, lifted weights four times a week. It was a lot more than I’ve ever done,” Johnson said. “I’m glad I took the risk, but it was weird.”

As an East Coast transplant to the West Coast, Johnson was a fish out of water. “Water polo is West Coast-based, so coming from the East Coast and taking what I knew about water polo, how I played, to the national team was a very difficult transition. And then, being the only person who looked like me, I thought, ‘OK, how do I fit in when nobody looks like me, nobody has my background, and what do I want to take from them? What do I want to give? How open, how vulnerable am I going to be on this team?’”

What if she did all this, sacrificed herself, opened herself up, and still didn’t achieve the specified result?

Johnson discovered that letting go of fear brings freedom.

“It was a tough journey,” she said. “But I used to be ultimately capable of make the team and recover from my fear of failure, which is difficult when you’ve such an enormous goal.

“That’s something that a lot of people don’t realize about the Olympic journey. The more you hold on to the fear of not achieving your goal, the more it hurts when you don’t achieve it, and the less you actually experience the journey along the way, which is the best thing you get out of it.”

Three Olympics later, Johnson has grow to be the leader and star of Team USA. Her mission now, in addition to helping the team win its fourth consecutive gold medal, is to open the door and convey more young women who appear like her into the game.

In July, she felt invigorated when 65-year-old rapper Flavor Flav signed a five-year sponsorship deal to support the lads’s and ladies’s national water polo teams.

“I’ve met a lot of young black girls in my sport. A lot of them reach out to me through Instagram through USA Water Polo,” Johnson said. “Just sharing stories, encouraging and being a fan of people who find themselves coming into our sport, being a voice that guides them, telling them they’re on the precise path, they’re doing the precise thing, there’s a spot for you here.

“I think telling a new story is something I’m trying to do, saying we belong here, we stand out here, and then mentoring. That’s really important to me.”

When she was 21 and walking the trail of a pioneer alone, Johnson struggled hard to seek out joy in her journey. Today, she said, her joy is immense.

“I think finding joy in what you do is asking yourself why you do it,” she said. “I play because it brings me joy even when it’s hard. Like, jumping in a pool is one of the hardest things I do all day, but I think about it as my job, I get to play a game with my friends, and it’s the same game I’ve been playing since I was a kid. The game hasn’t changed, I’ve just gotten better at it, so I play the game I’m really good at with my friends every day.”

There is more joy at these Games than on the Tokyo Games, when the world was in the grips of a pandemic.

Johnson said 2021 lacked a way of lightness and joy.

“One of the biggest differences between the Tokyo Olympics and these games is that the pandemic is behind us, and that has affected a lot of athletes,” she said. “Loads of people have been grieving, lots of people have been wondering how one can take care of the financial losses, the social losses, and a lot distance.

“We didn’t have any interaction with other athletes (in Tokyo). The Olympic spirit was there, but it was muted. So going into these Games, that Olympic spirit was revived. As excited as I am to play, people are excited to go and be part of the Olympic spirit. We all felt a surge of energy.”

Winning a fourth gold medal will bring her joy, but it would also make her discipline more diverse, and the outcomes her team achieves will give her peace of mind.

Joy has grow to be multifaceted.

“The pandemic has put things in perspective for us,” Johnson said. “OK, I play water polo and I’m an athlete, but what else am I? — understanding that you’re more than just an athlete, more than what you do at your job. I need to go for a walk every day, or I like to cook, I like to read. Connecting with things that make you happy.”