Former water polo star keeping eye on Olympic prize

By Nick Krupke

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    NEWPORT BEACH, California (KPTV) — Molly Glad is overjoyed to know the Beaver State will always be home. A competitive rock climber since she was 6, Molly is now 17 and now resides a little further south in California to train in water polo for the Olympics and prepare for her first season at the University of Southern California.

After freshman and sophomore year at St. Mary’s Academy while competing for Lakeridge High School, Glad just graduated from George Washington University, an online public school, in honors and AP courses.

Molly’s pursuit of her athletic dreams was paramount, learning to swim in life on her own, moving out of Mom and Dad’s two years ago to train with five-time water polo Olympian Tony Azevedo and current U.S. Team Captain, Maggie Steffens.

“When I came down, I had a bike, so I had to figure out how I was getting to practice and this was when Uber was still relatively new and I was 15 so it wasn’t a big thing and I knew girls on the team so every single day I would bike about seven miles each way to a friend’s house who would then take me to the pool and practice, then I would coach swim lessons and then I would practice again, have a swim practice, and then get home and ride seven miles back,” Glad said.

It doesn’t get harder than what Molly will face this fall as a freshman at USC. The Trojan plans to major in Biology and get into Pre-Med to be a pediatric neurosurgeon. Her real dream though? The Olympics.

“That’s what I’ve put the last ten years of my life into and will continue to train for,” Glad said. We just might see Molly in 2024 from Paris or 2028 in Los Angeles. For now, life is a beach.

If you know of any high school senior athletes who deserve some praise, reach out to Nick Krupke at Nick.Krupke@kptv.com or on social media via his Facebook page, Twitter or Instagram.

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