There’s something about Jaime

  COURTNEY STEWART Sophomore Jaime Hipp
took the unorthodox path toward becoming UCLA’s starting
goalie.

By Emily Whichard
Daily Bruin Contributor

Goalies are a breed apart. It takes a unique person to take on
the solitary role and brave the onslaught of balls barreling toward
your face.

If rarity is the defining element of a good goalie, then
sophomore Jaime Hipp certainly fits the bill. Not only does she
possess the courage it takes to serve as the women’s water
polo team’s last line of defense, she does so after
conquering her own rare set of obstacles.

Hipp has certainly paved her own path. She came from an
unconventional water polo background, laden with injury, to assume
a starting role unprecedented for a freshman. No one could
characterize her water polo career as common.

Hipp’s hometown of Fresno is not renowned for its water
polo programs. In fact, as a high school freshman she followed in
the footsteps of her two older brothers and joined the boy’s
water polo team. Her sophomore year the girls got their own team
and she began her career as a dominating goalie.

Her teammate, current UCLA junior Eleanor Murphy, played for a
rival high school in Fresno.

“She was always the goalie everyone talked about,”
Murphy said.

Hipp views her playing time against her brothers and other male
players as invaluable experience.

“I think playing with guys made me a lot better.
It’s so much more intense,” Hipp said.
“It’s fun when you get to block a shot from a guy.
They’re always so shocked.”

With her experience from the boys’ program, Hipp walked
onto the UCLA pool deck to assume the role as starting goalie, a
feat unheard of in most freshman careers.

She just happened to do so with a sling on each arm.

True to the characteristic oddity of goalies, Hipp’s
injuries are far from common. She has chronic shoulder problems
stemming from loose rotator cuffs in not one, but both arms. After
four years of pain in high school, she went through double shoulder
surgery the summer before her first year at UCLA.

Hipp sat out the preseason to recover from surgery and entered
the water in January, one month before the start of the season.

“I hadn’t blocked a ball in so long. I was really
intimidated,” Hipp said. “I didn’t feel like I
had put in the work to take on the starting role.”

Any deficit in training was more than accounted for in the
months that followed. Hipp’s teammates and coaches cite her
intense work ethic as the key to her assuming the starting role so
successfully.

“Every player has the desire to play well,” Head
Coach Adam Krikorian said. “But there is a difference between
athletes expressing desire and taking a proactive role. Jaime will
do anything to get better.”

In an attempt to successfully assume the role of starting goalie
while balancing the confusions of freshman year and the pain of
injury, Hipp once again found herself in a class all her own.

Krikorian recognizes the unique set of pressures a goalie
faces.

“When you’re the last line of defense, taking shots
off your face, your head … it’s a rough job,” he
said. “Compound that with injuries and the pressure to prove
yourself as a freshman and it’s intense.”

After a rough first few games, Hipp’s intensity in
practice day in and day out began to pay off. She finished out her
first season helping the team clinch the collegiate national title
while earning third-team All-American honors for herself.

Hipp has come into her own in her second season starting for
UCLA. True to her trend of anomalies, the standard she holds
herself to is above and beyond the call of duty.

“Whenever we’re watching game tapes, she’ll
always ask to see a repeat of shots,” Murphy said. “She
has such a tremendous drive for self-improvement.”

As a goalie, competition tends to come from within. Up against a
blur of offensive players in the water, goalies lack a clear
opponent on which to focus their aggression. Hipp chooses to focus
that displaced aggression on her own performance.

“The great thing about her is that she’ll never be
satisfied with the way she plays,” Krikorian said.

Even when balls go past her because of a defensive error from
the field, Hipp refuses to place blame on anyone but herself.

“I want to block the shots I’m not supposed to
block. It doesn’t matter if defense let it slide,” Hipp
said. “I try not to rely on that excuse.”

Holding herself to such remarkable standards has led to an
exceptional season for Hipp. In last weekend’s sudden-death
overtime against USC, Hipp notched a career-best performance. Her
blocks led UCLA to a bid for the first NCAA tournament to be held
at Stanford this weekend.

After two more games of making the effort to block every shot
that might rob UCLA of the championship, Hipp faces yet another
obstacle.

Her shoulders are ready for round two of surgery. Just a week
after her season draws to a close, Hipp will go under the knife for
intensive operations to prolong her career.

Once again, the procedure will not cure her permanently.
However, it will buy Hipp some time and hopefully ease the pain she
faces every day at workouts.

“I want to at least have the opportunity to play beyond
college,” Hipp said. “But if my body stops me, so be
it. It’s more important that one of these days I have the
ability to throw my kids in the air.”

Hipp wants to be able to finish her collegiate career with the
unprecedented success with which she began. If her past is any
indication of her future, she will not fail.