Priscilla Orozco, former UCLA water polo player, now acts as assistant coach for Cal Baptist
After four years of playing attacker for UCLA, Priscilla Orozco is starting a new career with Cal Baptist as an assistant coach. Orozco, who won MPSF Player of the Week three consecutive times in her final season, has a younger sister on the team, senior attacker Sarah Orozco.
By Andrew Erickson
March 8, 2012 7:55 a.m.
Senior attacker Sarah Orozco played three seasons for UCLA with her sister Priscilla, who graduated last year.
When Priscilla Orozco arrived at water polo practice for the first time this year, there was a noticeable difference in her surroundings. The pristine Spieker Aquatics Center was replaced by the decade-old Lancer Aquatic Center.
And she now wore a navy blue polo shirt and a whistle instead of her trusty No. 6 powder blue water polo cap.
After a four-year career in the pool for UCLA, she was starting a new career with Cal Baptist ““ but this time on the pool deck.
Orozco played in 123 matches as an attacker in Westwood, scoring 165 total goals and helping her team to consecutive national championships in her first two years. She was also selected as Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Week three consecutive times during her senior year, a feat that has never been duplicated in conference history.
Now in her first year as an assistant coach after earning her history degree last June, Orozco both recognizes and embraces the changes her life has undergone.
“It does feel different, but it’s better in a way. I mean, I was pretty much spoiled being at UCLA ““ all the gear we got, all the hospitality we’d get ““ it’s not the same here at CBU, but you learn to appreciate what you have better,” Orozco said.
Aside from the ability to gain her first experience as a coach, Cal Baptist has afforded Orozco an opportunity to further her education.
“I do want to get my teaching credentials,” Orozco said. “I want to teach. Further than that, I’m not sure yet. I haven’t decided.”
Her desire to teach and coach go hand-in-hand and both are not surprising, considering the reputation she established for herself as both a leader and a tireless worker at UCLA.
“Priscilla has the heart of a lion. She was a joy to coach and a joy to be around. She’s a wonderful water polo player and citizen,” UCLA coach Brandon Brooks said.
As a goalkeeper for UCLA from 1999 to 2002, Brooks led his team to two national titles before going on to play in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games and later becoming a coach for the Bruins.
Having gone through the player-to-coach transition himself, he can relate to Orozco’s experience.
“There are so many different facets to being a good coach, but I think she has a lot of them, with her work ethic, her demeanor as a person and that she is very approachable,” Brooks said.
“Those are (the) kinds of things that a lot of people feed off of and are drawn towards. She has great experience, she has a great resume water polo-wise, so I think that as long as she wants to be a good coach, she will be a very good coach.”
Among the teammates Orozco said goodbye to following her graduation was her sister, senior attacker Sarah Orozco. The two played together for three seasons at UCLA, winning a national title in 2009.
Despite their final season together being cut short by an NCAA Tournament semifinal loss to California last May, the two were able to extend their playing time together, training with and representing Team Mexico in the Pan American Games in Guadalajara in October.
“This summer, water polo was the experience of a lifetime for both of us,” Sarah Orozco said. “Being with (Priscilla) and experiencing that culture and playing the sport we love was awesome and unforgettable.”
Following the Pan American Games, the Orozco sisters were once again reunited, as Priscilla’s Cal Baptist Lancers took on Sarah’s UCLA Bruins at Spieker Aquatics Center in early February.
The game ended in an 11-5 UCLA victory, but the experience went beyond just the scoreboard for Cal Baptist’s new assistant coach, who received a warm welcome from former teammates and coaches and was able to share a bit of her past with her current players.
“I definitely was excited to go back. None of the girls on my team had ever played at UCLA, so it was a new experience for them and I was just happy to show them around. We even ate dinner in Westwood after the game. It was nice to show them where I came from,” Orozco said.
Her younger sister, who plans to play professionally in Europe following her graduation in June, admits that playing without her life-long teammate this season was difficult at first but has since become easier.
“At the beginning, I felt it more because she wasn’t around anymore, and we just did a lot of things together, but now I’m better. I know she’s doing her own thing, and I know I’m doing my own thing. I definitely miss her, and I think she misses me, too,” Sarah Orozco said.
Priscilla Orozco may now be comfortable with her new role as a whistle-wielding sculptor of collegiate water polo players, but isn’t ready to hang up the cap just yet.
“If I felt like I was done playing, that would be it for me; I wouldn’t be trying to pursue it. But I still have a feeling inside me that I am not done playing,” she said.
“As a player, I always wanted to try to be on the USA national team. It’s a lot of work to get there, so it’s just something that I have to be dedicated to. As a coach in the future, I’d like to coach at UCLA at some point. That would be nice.”
Regardless of where her career soon takes her, a powder blue polo could be waiting on the other end.
