Jenna Green
•High school/college & grad years?
Menlo High School – graduated in 2003
University of Michigan – graduated in 2007
• Favorite memory of the club?
I have a couple…
+ Road trip from the Bay Area to JO’s in Southern California. All the girls and the coaches in a 14-passenger van eating lots of fast food and blasting Dr. Dre.
+ Practicing and playing with the Japanese and Russian national teams when they came to the USA
• Do you still play water polo?
I wish! Unfortunately water polo pick-up games aren’t easy to come by.
• What did you major in at college?
Communications
• Did you play water polo in college? What was that like?
Yes – I played my first year at Michigan.Â
Being a D1 college athlete is awesome. At Michigan the athlete community is called the ‘M-Club’ (a special club that every varisty player belongs to) – and it starts with a separate orientation for the athletes, complete with special guest speakers, t-shirts, Michigan athletics branded luggage and a chance to register for classes a month before other freshmen.
But there’s a reason for all this - 6am weight room, 12-3pm pool practice, and during the season, I could only take classes Tuesday-Thursday, as I was at tournaments every Friday-Monday. At any given meal I ate enough food to feed a small army, and was in bed before 11 on Friday’s to get up for 7am ‘Capitains Practices’ on Saturday morning.
Being a college athlete for me was like going to a school inside of a school.
In 2003, we won the Big-10 Championship and almost made it to the Final Four which are experiences unlike anything I could ever describe.Â
After that, I decided that I that I felt a stronger pull to experience more of college than I did to keep playing, so I decided to part ways with the team.
• What team was your rival when you played for Stanford?
Commerce – they were the best. Hands down. Respect.
• Where do you live now?
Santa Monica, CA
 • Any life milestones you’d like to share?
I am getting married this coming November.
• Do you keep in touch with club teammates?
Definitely on Facebook, and occasionally (when I’ve been lucky) in real life.Â
The nice thing is that it doesn’t matter how long it’s been, whenever I run into them it’s like we never missed a beat.
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• Do you remember any advice from a club coach?
“On time is late” – Coach Craig
• What hobbies do you enjoy?
I paint, do photography, watch terrible reality TV and sweat a lot at the gym.
• Will you be attending the reunion June 26-27???
Yes – very excited! Are you going to be there?
• How does your time playing water polo affect you in your daily life now?
I show up early — to everything. Honestly am one of the first 2 people in the office every day.
I face challenges with strength and conviction. If I could make it through a punishment practice of straight sprint liners and jumps – there’s really nothing that I can’t do.
• What advice do you have for a younger member of the club?
 Don’t live in your mistakes. Everyone misses four meter shots. Everyone gets beat on a breakaway at some point. We all have days where if you could hit the top bar, you’d consider yourself lucky. Get over it to get past it.