Golden Girls

Today we all had the chance to have one of those "once in a lifetime" moments - we were able to hold an Olympic Gold Medal.

Jessica and Maggie Steffens, two of the gold medal winning USA Women's Water Polo team members, are Danville natives with a great story. The excerpt below is borrowed from Yahoo Sports - for the full article click here:

Before Maggie Steffens could help the U.S. women's water polo team to its greatest Olympic victory, she had to experience one of its most crushing defeats.

In the 2008 Beijing games, the Americans lost the gold-medal match to the Netherlands by one goal. Steffens was 15 and sitting next to her father, witnessing her older sister Jessica, a defender, look devastated after the defeat.

Carlos Steffens, her father and a former water polo player at Cal, turned to Steffens as the Americans cleared the pool, and conveyed a simple message to his young daughter:

"Now it's your turn. Let's get the gold."

Four years later, Steffens, now 19, fulfilled the request: She scored five goals in the London Olympics women's water polo gold-medal match, leading the U.S. to an 8-5 victory over Spain and their first gold medal in the event — having earned a medal in each year since the event debuted in Sydney.

Maggie was gracious enough to appear today at the gym where she trains and share her medal and her story with her local friends, family and fans. And luckily that included us! She couldn't have been more friendly, letting kids actually wear the medal for photos. Anna opted to just hold it.  She's headed to Stanford in the fall and will of course continue to play there. We hope to watch her again in 4 years! Thanks so much to her for sharing!

P.S. For the record Andrew was there but was more interested in sleeping that in what was going on! Maggie did comment on how cute his shirt was (a flag in the shape of the USA) and he just turned away to snuggle on my shoulder. Oh well.