This feature originally appeared in the 2017-18 Winter edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.



When Carla Carrega completed her journey from Imperia, Italy, to Berkeley, California, the night before practice began for the 2015 season, she showed up at the front door of "The Jungle" – the house with an unusual nickname where a group of sophomores on the Cal women's water polo team lives.
 
The Golden Bears were ready for Carrega's arrival and wanted to make her feel right at home immediately.
 
"She was dressed to the nines – she looked fabulous," former Cal attacker Molly Quinn said. "She showed up wearing an Italian leather jacket and didn't speak a word of English. I told her she could sleep in my bed for the night and I would sleep in someone else's room. She said she couldn't because she couldn't sleep by herself."
 
The beginning of Carrega's life in Berkeley was monumental not only for her, but for her country. Carrega was – and still is – the only Italian-born female to play NCAA water polo. She left a close-knit family and a spot on the Italian National Team to come to America for the combination of a world-class education and high-level water polo.
 
She was ready for it, but then again she wasn't.
 
"In Italy, usually girls want to stay home," said Carrega, now preparing for her senior season for the Golden Bears. "Most of my teammates back home are always asking me how it is. It's an amazing experience and an exciting opportunity. But it's the other side of the world. But it's very unique, and I'm very happy about it."
 
While international athletes playing collegiate water polo certainly isn't a novelty – there are typically a handful of foreigners on the top programs in both the men's and women's game – no female had ever come from Italy before Carrega made the move to Berkeley. It's an exceptional story that she both recognizes and embraces.
 
"I'm still the only one," Carrega says with a smile. "I love it. In Italy, most of the girls want to stay home. Coming here, it's making a choice. You don't play on the national team anymore. You don't do certain things you would do if you were at home. Usually, athletes stay there because they can get paid to play professionally. They can go to the World Championships or the Olympics."
 
If Carrega is unintentionally setting some kind of standard for future female Italians to play NCAA water polo, the future looks pretty bright. Carrega has not only blossomed into one of the Golden Bears' top scorers, she has won multiple all-academic honors.
 
"How well Carla has done is a testament to what an amazing person she is," Quinn said. "She is such a hard worker. I'm so proud of everything she has done. She's worked really hard for it."
 
Carrega admits her evolution into a thriving student-athlete wasn't easy, especially in the beginning. The day after she showed up in Berkeley dressed to kill, she was trying to negotiate her way through her first practice at Cal and essentially didn't understand a word anyone was saying.
 
"I had no idea what was going on in the water because I really didn't speak English," Carrega said. "I had no clue. Molly taught me the key words."
 
Carrega had to take the SAT and the TOEFL (English-speaking exam) before coming to Cal, so she knew some basics of the language. But when coaches and teammates began jabbering during fast-moving practices, Carrega felt left behind.
 
The same thing happened in her classes. Carrega took College Writing and an Italian class during her first semester, and with the help of some of her classmates, watching movies in English, reading a lot of books and just engaging in as many conversations as possible, she quickly started feeling more comfortable.
 
One thing Carrega had going for her was her naturally friendly personality. That allowed her to spend some of her free time at the on-campus Golden Bear Café, where she would simply engage others in conversation to work on her English.
 
"The thing with Carla is she is such an open and friendly person, she blended right in with the rest of the team after a week," Quinn said. "She worked so hard to learn the language. She had an app that gave her a new word every day, and she would ask me about it. I think I accidentally taught her slang for a while because it was so easy to be just so casual with her. But she learned so much."
 
Carrega says she started feeling comfortable about a month after she arrived on campus, but her connection to her family and her homeland has never waned. Now a senior, she still talks to her mom, Padrizia, for an hour each day (she says that's cut down from two hours a day when she was a freshman). She beams with pride talking about her family – her older brother, Mattia, is a former professional water polo player who is now an anesthesiologist while Padrizia is a swim coach. Carrega's father, Carlo, gave his daughter his namesake and taught her how to swim.
 
"Not seeing my family is probably the hardest part," Carrega said. "I'm really close to my family, so the first few months were horrible. But the team made me feel comfortable and I got really close with some of the girls. When I went back home, I missed my teammates."
 
Carrega can finally sleep alone now, but even that took a while. She spent her first month in Berkeley sharing a room with either Quinn or former Cal goalie Kat Menz. And when she was able to move into the dorms, her roommate wasn't around much so she ended up spending every night at The Jungle for another month. In March, two months after moving to Berkeley, she finally made herself at home at her actual home.
 
"It was like having a child," Quinn joked.
 
Carrega is pretty grown up now. She was named an All-American as a sophomore and has earned MPSF All-Academic and ACWPC All-Academic status during her career. She's on pace to earn her degree in political economy in the spring.
 
"School was really, really important in my family," Carrega said. "That's one of the reasons I came here. I love water polo, and it's the best public university in the world. So I couldn't ask for more than this."