Cambria Morales is a soft-spoken eighth-grader who, according to her mom, likes tea parties. Get her in the water, though, and it’s a whole different story. Morales is one of Santa Maria’s most promising up-and-coming water polo players.
Morales was selected last year to attend a water polo training clinic at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Athletes were selected by invitation only, and had to be nominated by a coach. Morales was nominated by coach Charlie Bell of One Way Water Polo in Santa Maria.
“I thought I was going to a regular camp like at UCSB,” she said.
When she realized she would be training with Olympic coaches, however, the shock set in. There were no problems once she got to the camp, though. In fact, she said the only hard part was the weather.
For someone who had never even heard of water polo two years ago, Morales has taken to the sport. The 13-year-old regularly trains with the 16-and-under group at practice. Bell calls her “a coach’s dream.”
“She’s absorbing everything you say,” he explained. “You can see it in her eyes. It’s not just in one ear and out the other.”
Morales plans on sticking with water polo, and hopes to go to St. Joseph High School in order to continue playing with Bell. The coach, happy at the prospect of getting his hands on such a gifted player early on, wholeheartedly agrees: “She’s really found her calling.”
This article appears in Feb 5-12, 2009.