Pacarro's always first one in the pool
By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer
From Honolulu to Providence, R.I., Noel Pacarro of Kailua is truly one of the pioneers of women's water polo.
At Punahou School, Pacarro was the only girl on the boys' junior varsity team as a ninth- and 10th-grader and helped recruit schoolmates to start the first all-girls team in 1996.
Coaches selected her as co-Player of the Year the first two years of Interscholastic League of Honolulu girls' varsity water polo, 1997 and '98.
In 1999, while she was a freshman at Wellesley (Mass.) College, Pacarro was invited to be part of the first recruiting class of the women's water polo program at Brown University in Rhode Island.
She transferred to Brown and joined Tori Barbata, a 1999 Punahou graduate who also is from Kailua.
"They forged this team," coach Todd Clapper said. "They were our first two dominant players. They helped take us to the next level."
Brown won its conference championship and played in the inaugural NCAA women's water polo final four in 2001.
Pacarro started all three years she was at Brown and was one of its leading scorers, but she says "my assists, kickouts (drawing fouls on which a defender is temporarily removed from the game) and defense were more important.
"I had the most assists by far on our team all three years. It meant more for me to see my teammates score than me."
Pacarro, a co-captain, scored 51 goals and drew 23 kickouts and also led the team in steals this season.
"Noel's senior season was her most spectacular," Clapper said.
She was chosen first-team All-East Coast Athletic Conference, first-team All-College Water Polo Association Northern Division, first-team All-Eastern and Brown's Most Valuable Player.
"First team All-Eastern was important to me," Pacarro said. "Our team finished sixth in the Eastern championship tournament (Michigan won) and they usually take the all-stars from the top two teams. Despite that, the coaches selected me."
She also was selected on the all-tournament team of the Rainbow Challenge in March at the University of Hawai'i, where Brown went 0-6 but had respectable losses to ninth-ranked Hawai'i and 10th-ranked Santa Barbara.
"Some of my best games have been in defeats," Pacarro said. "I tend to be a player who, when everybody is giving up, I don't."
Barbata, a junior, led Brown in scoring this year with 53 goals. She was chosen second-team all-conference, after being first team in 2001. She was selected team captain in 2001 and will be captain again next spring.
Barbata scored seven goals in the College Water Polo Association divisional final, which Brown lost to Hartwick (N.Y.), and three in the semifinal victory over Harvard.
"Noel and Tori have set a standard for all future Brown water polo players to follow," Clapper said.
Senior Cecily Chun (Punahou '97, of Pacific Heights), who did not play in high school, was a reserve for three years at Brown.
Pacarro graduated last month with honors (3.7 GPA) in anthropology. She was honored as a regional water polo Academic All-American the last two years.
"They say anthropology makes you a worldly person. Anyone can learn a business," Pacarro said. She'll begin to test that theory this fall when she goes to work for Nike at its Beaverton, Ore., headquarters.
She also will coach an age group team in nearby Tualatin. "Water polo is a huge, developing sport in this nation," Pacarro said, and she wants to be in the vanguard.She already is.
