General News. The Fighting Flamingos: Ready To Play For 40 Years

Oct. 11, 2016

By Michael Randazzo (@randazzma)In an Olympic year when all eyes were on Rio and the U.S. Women’s National team in its successful quest for a second consecutive Gold medal, 14 women long past their athletic primes provided an inspirational tale of friendship, endurance, and a seemingly boundless love for the sport of water polo. The Fighting Flamingos—hailing from California to Florida, from New Hampshire to Washington, from Arizona to Maryland—make up a 55+ age group that in June captured its third-straight Women’s Masters National Championship last in Irvine, CA. And their collective success is all the more remarkable considering they almost never practice together. The team has dominated its age group at USA Water Polo Masters Tournaments for a decade. But the foundation for their success was established long before the club began in 2006. That’s when Congress passed the Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX, which stipulate that any institution of higher learning that accepts federal funds has to provide equal opportunity to both gender for all educational benefits, including athletics.Title IX—Catalyst for Change Chris Bloese, Debbie Cavanaugh, Lisa Dahl, Tracy Grilli, Lynn Kachmarik, and Cindra Mirales are cornerstone players for the Flamingos—so named because the team is registered in Fort Lauderdale, where Cavanaugh, the team’s player-coach, resides. Filling out this year’s roster were Rosana Andrade, Michele Canale, Dion Gray, Marsha Godoy, Jennie Jacobsen-Huse, Vaune Kadlubek, Patricia Shillington, and Ilene Tucker. All the Flamingos, between 55 and 59 years old, are members of the original Title IX generation, the cohort of female athletes first provided broad opportunities for high school and college athletic competition. “My freshman year in high school, Title IX happened, and there were a number of girls—older sisters to friends of mine—who found out that because there was no girls track team, we could be on the boys team,” said Grilli, the Flamingos’ founder, in a phone interview from her home in Londonderry, NH. “There were 13 of us on the boys track team; that’s how Title IX affected us.” For Cavanaugh, freshman year was also a watershed moment, when Title IX resulted in the girls at Ransom Everglades High School in Miami got sports of their own. Cavanaugh participated in cross-country, field hockey, softball, basketball, and water polo, though her primary sport was swimming. She earned a partial scholarship to the University of Miami where Title IX helped transform the Hurricanes into a swimming powerhouse. “[Title IX] brought other girls [to Miami], and we were an awesome team—better than the football team,” she said from her home in Florida. “It put women’s sports on the map.” For Kachmarik, Title IX opened the door to a long, successful athletic career, first in high school in Neshaminy, PA, then as a swimmer and water polo player at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania under the renowned Dr. Richard “Doc” Hunkler. In addition to stints as a player and assistant coach with the U.S. Women’s National team, Kachmarik was head coach for a variety of sports at Bucknell University for 19 years, including men’s and women’s swimming, diving, and water polo. “Title IX did open doors, as it should have,” she said by phone from her home in Mishawaka, IN. “Given the opportunity, girls want to play, and there’s so much research out there about girls and young women, and the success of leaders [that] can be attributed back to their experiences in sports.” Kachmarik was emphatic that Title IX provides a necessary leveling between U.S. women’s athletics programs and that of their male counterparts. “In the end, the right thing to do is to provide equal opportunities [to compete] and equal pay for coaches,” said Kachmarik, who in 1986 became the first woman to coach a men’s varsity water polo team, when she succeeded Dick Russell at Bucknell. “Women deserve the same locker room space, the same …

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