Brenda Villa (born April 18, 1980) is a highly accomplished American water polo player, who played for Stanford and won a silver medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics, a silver medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and a gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. She is one of the most decorated athletes in the world of womenâÂÂs water polo. Villa was named Female Water Polo Player of the Decade for 2000-2009 by the FINA Aquatics World Magazine. She is one of only four female players who competed in water polo at four Olympics; and one of two female athletes who won four Olympic medals in water polo. She is a leading goalscorer in Olympic water polo history, with 31 goals. In 2018, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame.
Born April 18, 1980 in greater Los Angeles, Villa grew up in Commerce, California, where she started swimming with a club team, Commerce Aquatics , at the age of six, and followed her brother into water polo when she was eight. 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. In 1997, she was an All-Southern Section water polo player for Bell Gardens High.
Villa came to Stanford in 1998 as the programâÂÂs most heralded recruit to play for Head Women's Water Polo Coach John Tanner, who would build a nationally dominant team after taking over as Coach in 1998, though the Stanford Women's Water Polo Program had its inaugural year in 1993. By 2026, ten of Tanner's women's polo players and swimmers had won 17 Olympic gold medals, with 15 in water polo, and the Women's team had won 10 NCAA national titles. Villa redshirted from college play in 1999 and 2000 to train for the Olympics, and after scoring 69 goals her freshman year in 2001 was named the NCAA WomenâÂÂs Water Polo Player of the Year.
In the three seasons Villa played water polo for Stanford University, she scored 172 goals. Usually playing in the strong driver position, setting up on the periphery of the goal at the goal posts, she took frequent shots, moved through defensive players, and set up scoring opportunities for other players. 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. As a three-time recipient of All-American honors at Stanford, Villa graduated in 2003 with a degree in political science.
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. 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 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. In March 2007 Villa led the USA women's national water polo team in Melbourne, Australia, at the 2007 FINA World Water Polo Championships. Villa scored a total of 11 goals throughout the whole tournament helping team USA achieve first place naming them the 2007 FINA World Champions. In June 2009, Villa was named to the USA water polo women's senior national team for the 2009 FINA World Championships.
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 was the US women's team top scorer with 7 goals in 5 games at the 2004 Athens Olympics, earning a bronze medal. In the Olympics, through 2008, she was coached by Head Coach Guy Baker. At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, she and the American team lost 8-9 in the championship game to the Netherlands and took home the silver medal. At the 2012 London Summer Olympics, she and the American team won 8-5 in the championship game to Spain and took home the gold medal, the Americans' first gold in 4 Olympics water polo competitions. Villa captained the women's Olympic squad at both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Her Olympic Head coaches included UCLA Coach Guy Baker in 2004 and in 2012, Olympics UCLA Coach Adam Krikorian.
In 2005, Villa became assistant coach of the women's water polo team at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California. The Falcons ended the season with a 21-11 record, a new school record for most wins in a season. She spent five years with the Falcons and helped them to a combined 145-26 record from 2005âÂÂ09, which included the team winning their only CCCAA State Championship in school history (2008). She has played professionally for the Italian power team Geymonat Orizzonte in Catania, Sicily, which won the LEN Women's Champions' Cup in 2005 and 2006. In 2010, she became the head coach at Castilleja High School for girls' water polo in Palo Alto, California. After retiring from Water Polo in 2012, Villa took up coaching water polo and swimming at a private all-girl high school.