A Water Polo Olympian From The Midwest
Betsey Armstrong is one of the best water polo goalkeepers in the history of the game in America. But, she isn’t from a big water polo area of the world.
She’s a two-time Olympian from the Midwest.
Armstrong’s path to the national program was not traditional in any way. As most athletes of the sport come out of areas like California, Florida, or even Maryland, Armstrong was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Olympian picked up water polo from following in the footsteps of her older sister who was trying out the sport.
“Water polo was very new in Michigan at the time,” Armstrong recalls. “The University of Michigan had a club team, and the couple who coached the club were also really active in sort of building and developing youth water polo in the state.”
Armstrong would grow and develop in Michigan, and when her skills started to garner attention from the national team’s development program, it gave the young goalkeeper the opportunity to grow with harder competition and progress her skills in net further.
“The Olympic Development Program divides the country up into zones, and there will be clinics and camps and trials that serve to teaching skills to players all over the country,” she says. “It also serves to identify athletes like, if we have some standout kid in Michigan that we might not otherwise see.”
After growing with the youth national program and playing tournaments all over the U.S and Canada, Armstrong took her skills to her hometown college; The University of Michigan.
As a student athlete for the Wolverines from 2002–05, Armstrong helped to lead Michigan to four divisional titles, and two bids to the NCAA tournament. A four-time All-American, and a finalist for the Cutino Award; an award for the nations top water polo athlete in 2004. Armstrong also holds multiple Michigan’s records. 1,267 blocks, 3,329 minutes played, a 5.64 career goals against average, a .654 save percentage, and most saves in a season with 350. In 2008, she was inducted into the Collegiate Water Polo Association Hall of Fame.
After a spectacular career for the Wolverines, Armstrong made the decision to go pro in 2006 after being invited to try out for the national team that would eventually go to Beijing for the Olympics. The 2008 Beijing Olympics saw Team USA’s women’s water polo team return to the medal podium in over 20 years.
The Americans left with a silver medal, after a loss to The Netherlands, a team that had flown completely under the radar. A back and forth contest that saw Team USA down 4–2 before the end of the first quarter at Ying Tung Natatorium. The game ended in a close 9–8 score, with one player from the Netherlands scoring on Armstrong seven total times.
Armstrong remembers the game vividly. “You are playing for a medal, but at the end of the day, we still lost,” she recalls. “Any loss we’re always trying to learn from, but particularly in those big moments, yeah, it was devastating.”
Throughout the five matches of the 2008 Olympic tournament, Armstrong had 49 saves total. Afterwards, she had a decision to make about continuing her career.
“I joined the national team about two and half, three years before the Beijing Olympics,” she said. “So if I wanted to continue playing through London, I had a full four years to go.”
Armstrong was 25 at the time, and if she were to commit to playing professionally full time, it would put off getting professional experience outside of sports or any hopes of grad school. Still, Armstrong committed and was locked in for the next four years. Team USA won a FINA World Championship in 2009 with Armstrong in net, and a 2011 Pan American Games win that would qualify Armstrong and her teammates for London 2012.
“That was our qualification game,” Armstrong said. “We won the game in a shootout in Mexico and went into five rounds.”
Those five rounds make it the longest women’s water polo game as listed by Guinness World Records. The final score was 27–26.
“It was a serious test of mindfulness,” she said. “I would just watch the ball and tell myself ‘if I can see the ball, I can block the ball.’”
The following year saw redemption for Armstrong and her teammates. After rolling through the tournament and making it to the championship game again, one opponent stood in their way; Spain. Armstrong’s teammate Maggie Steffens scored five times in the game, cementing their victory and securing the first ever gold medal in Team USA women’s water polo history. Armstrong made eight total saves including a penalty save that came late in the fourth quarter.
“The London tournament was exactly what it needed to be for a lot of us,” Armstrong said, reflecting on those Olympics. “London was so much fun.”
Armstrong played for the national team for another two years and ultimately retired in 2014. She moved to New York in 2016 with her family when her husband became the head coach for the women’s water polo team at Marist College in Poughkeepsie.
“I certainly have my moments where I miss kind of being in the thick of it,” Armstrong says. “I miss having a well defined goal and working closely towards the same thing as the people next to you.”
Now retired, Armstrong still finds time to coach with USA water polo and do camps and clinics for youth players in and around Michigan. She has transitioned from elite athlete to an elite mother to two young children. She loves to do yoga and watch Ted Lasso and is working towards getting her master’s at Marist.
Armstrong was inducted into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame in 2019, to cap off her illustrious career for the red, white and blue.
