SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — For two freshmen on the UC Santa Barbara Women's Water Polo team, an unexpected award received in their high school careers would leave an impact far greater than they both could have imagined.
Gigi Rimlinger and Mia Sullivan, both attackers from the Newport Beach area, each received the Nick Johnson Inspiration Award from the USA Water Polo Olympic Development Program. Sullivan received the award in 2022, while Rimlinger received the award in 2024.
The USA Water Polo Nick Johnson Inspiration Award, established in February 2015, is a yearly award given to athletes who uphold the values of the ODP. It is awarded to athletes who show the "utmost respect for their opponents, officials, and the game of water polo" and who "strive to maximize their potential as athletes and as people." The award is named after the late Nick Johnson, a former Gaucho Water Polo player who passed away in March 2014 due to shallow water blackout.
The UC Santa Barbara Water Polo team also honors its players with their own Nick Johnson Inspiration Award, a team award given to the Gaucho who best exemplifies selflessness, teamwork and extraordinary work ethic in and out of the pool.
In the ODP championship tournament, players from around Orange County were selected to play together as a team for four days, under a national team coach. Sullivan said the athletes were heavily encouraged to embody ODP values and show leadership during the tournament, but were never told that there would be an award at the end of the weekend.
"I was super shocked because on the team I was on, looking back, it's all D1 top-five athletes, and I didn't play any better than most of the girls on the team," Sullivan said. "I really enjoyed that experience because [a coach] I had only known for four days saw traits of this amazing young guy that had tragically lost his life and it was just such an honor and really, really surprising, honestly."
For Rimlinger, it was important to be supportive and a good leader during the ODP tournament because she had never played with any of her teammates before, so it required her to communicate more.
"They made it a really big point that it's not about your performance during the weekend, winning the award was about your character that you showed," Rimlinger said. "When it was announced, I was super surprised and it just felt so rewarding because in water polo, there's no award like that that recognizes your character."
On the award plaque is a blurb about Nick Johnson's story and his character, and what it means to win the award, Rimlinger explained.
"When I won it, I was like, 'this is a testimony to my character,'" Rimlinger said. "I'm going to uphold my character for the rest of my water polo career and for the rest of my life. So I put the award on my desk. I'd look at it junior and senior year of high school when I had to be a leader on my team, and when I faced adversity I could look over in my room and see this award and I was like, 'that's the person I want to be.'"
Now, as Gauchos, Rimlinger, Sullivan and the entire team's suits say "NJ" on the back, which serves as a daily reminder that they are playing for something bigger than themselves.
"There's a whole legacy that we represent when we're wearing UCSB on our chest and when we have Nick Johnson on our back," Rimlinger said. "I just feel so honored to say that I not only won an award in his name but I'm going to school where he went."
Despite a slow start to the season for the young Gaucho team, Sullivan said this has been the most respectful, kind team she has ever been on, which is especially difficult to maintain when losing games. In these tough stretches, Johnson's legacy pushes the players to continue being good teammates and making a positive impact in the pool every day, rather than just focusing on the score.
"Having Nick Johnson be attached to our team and our legacy, we have to step onto pool decks different than other teams," Sullivan said. "We have to carry ourselves differently. We have this sort of air of respect for each other and for our coaches and for our program."
As the young team looks ahead to the rest of their college careers, Johnson's legacy has inspired the players to be compassionate, resilient teammates every day, and leave their own impact on the program, both in and out of the pool.
"He was so young and his fight for the game and his passion and everything, it's still all around us and it feels like he was just here," Sullivan said. "He was a college student, like we are, and we have the opportunity to make an impact on this school the way that he did."
