Brenda Villa

Brenda Villa
Villa (2nd from left) along with Jessica Steffens, Marlen Esparza and Leonel Manzano at the 2012 ALMA Awards
Personal information
Nationality	American
Born	(1980-04-18) April 18, 1980 (age 37) Los Angeles, California
Height	5 ft 4 in (163 cm)
Weight	174 lb (79 kg)
Medal record Women's water polo Representing the  United States Olympic Games 2012 London Team competition 2000 Sydney Team competition 2008 Beijing Team competition 2004 Athens Team competition World Championships 2003 Barcelona Team competition 2007 Melbourne Team competition 2009 Rome Team competition 2005 Montreal Team competition Pan American Games 2003 Sto Domingo Team competition 2007 Rio Team competition 2011 Guadalajara Team competition FINA World Cup 2010 Christchurch Team competition FINA World League 2004 Long Beach Team competition 2006 Cosenza Team competition 2007 Montreal Team competition 2009 Kirishi Team competition 2010 La Jolla Team competition 2011 Tianjin Team competition 2012 Changshu Team competition 2008 Santa Cruz Team competition

Brenda Villa (born April 18, 1980) is an accomplished American water polo player. She is the most decorated athlete in the world of women’s water polo. Villa was named Female Water Polo Player of the Decade for 2000-2009 by the FINA Aquatics World Magazine.

Villa started swimming with a club team, Commerce Aquatics, at the age of six, and followed her brother into water polo at eight years old. She made the girls Junior Olympic Team while in high school. At Bell Gardens High School, Villa played with the boys' water polo team because her school did not have a girls' team, and went on to become a 4-time 1st team All-League, 4-time 1st team All-C.I.F. and 4-time All-American.

Villa came to Stanford in 1998 as the program’s most heralded recruit. Redshirted in 1999 and 2000 to train for the Olympics, she scored 69 goals her freshman year (2001) and was named the NCAA Women’s Water Polo Player of the Year. In the three seasons Villa played for Stanford University, she scored 172 goals. In 2002 she led her Stanford team with 60 goals to win the NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship; they had finished second the previous season, the first year the competition was held. Villa was awarded the 2002 Peter J. Cutino Award as the top female college water polo player in the United States.

Villa has been on Team USA since 1998. Although the shortest player on the US national women's water polo team at 5'4", Villa has been a prolific scorer at the international level. She scored 10 goals for Team USA at the 2003 Pan American Games, which qualified the team for the 2004 Summer Olympics. As a 20-year-old, she led the US team with nine goals at the Sydney Olympics, where the Americans took the silver medal. She had a team-high 13 goals to lead the US to gold at the 2003 FINA Water Polo World Championship. In June 2004, Villa scored the first goal in overtime, her third of the game, and another in a penalty shootout, to propel the US team past Hungary and win the gold medal at the Women's Water Polo World League Super Finals. She was the US women's team top scorer with 7 goals in 5 games at the 2004 Athens Olympics, earning a bronze medal. Villa was team captain of the 2005 US national team coached by two-time Olympian Heather Moody, winning a silver medal at the FINA World Championship in Montreal.