News Detail
Rachael Jaffe '16 and Harry Miller '16
April 18 is a big day on the Sage Hill campus with the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Aquatics Center at Sage Hill, followed by our first-ever home swim meet against Oxford Academy. In honor of this exciting milestone, this month’s profile recognizes the commitment and talent of our alumni swimmers and water polo players, who relied upon off-campus pools at odd-ball hours for practices and competition. Even without a pool, Sage Hill has groomed some highly successful student-athletes, among them Rachael Jaffe and Harry Miller. The 2016 graduates both earned first-team All-Academy League honors their senior year and are now playing water polo in college.
When Rachael was choosing a high school, she said academics came first. But as a talented water polo and soccer player, she also considered athletic opportunities. Not only did Sage Hill lack a pool at the time, it didn’t even have a girls’ water polo team.
“Coming to Sage was definitely a big decision, but it was worth it because of the community aspect and the school,” Rachel said. “The academics are stellar.”
Now a freshman water polo player at University of Toronto, Jaffe turned an obstacle into an opportunity at Sage Hill by joining the boys’ water polo team and becoming the starting goalie. One of the highlights of that experience, she said, “was when teams underestimated me and then finally realized, ‘Oh, we should probably shoot harder. Just because she’s a girl doesn’t matter.’”
For Jaffe, the more significant obstacle was the absence of a campus pool. “The difficulty was getting everybody to practice because it was off campus, it was at a late time, and it wasn’t opportune,” she said, anticipating growing enrollment on our swim and water polo teams with the new Aquatics Center. “More people will want to come out and play because it’s right on campus,” she predicted.
Harry, who transferred to Sage Hill from Corona del Mar High School (CdM), found greater opportunities to develop as a player on the Lightning squad. Now a freshman at Claremont McKenna College, the attacker is the third Sage Hill alumnus tapped for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team, along with Arya Nakhjavani (‘14) and Ryan Sung (‘14).
“At CdM, I wasn’t getting a lot of playing time, and I was kind of just left behind,” Harry said, “but at Sage, I came in getting a lot of playing time. That helped me develop a lot.” His success carried over into swim season, where he set school records in the 50 freestyle and 200 individual medley relay and was named co-MVP at the league meet his senior year. The only aspect of the CdM experience he missed was the crowds.
“Having your own pool is absolutely amazing,” Harry said. “Then you can choose your practice times, you can actually host tournaments and games and have a home crowd. It was just a great feeling (at CdM) having your home crowd cheering for you.”
The transition from high school to college student-athlete has been smooth for both Harry and Rachael, and they credit Sage Hill for preparing them for success.
“I’m ahead in a lot of math and science courses,” said Harry, who is majoring in computer science after being inspired by Derek Carlson’s AP Computer Science class last year.
“I’m a student, and then an athlete,” Rachael said. “I’m still trying to find the balance here, but I do think the foundation I was given at Sage helps a lot.” Currently in University of Toronto’s life science program, she is interested in global health and public policy.
Rachael also reflects fondly on the friendships she made on the Lightning girls’ soccer team, where she twice earned first-team All-Academy League honors. “The connections I made on and off the field with the team were invaluable,” she said with enthusiasm. “It was crazy! It was amazing! The soccer team was really what propelled me to want to play a sport in college, because you really become better friends with people you compete with.” While she didn’t have the same kind of team bonding as a girl on the boys’ water polo team, she found more collegiate opportunities in the pool. Now, she hopes the Aquatics Center might eventually spark enough participation for a Lightning girls’ water polo team. “I’d be ecstatic,” she said, “I’d come back and help. I definitely want to return the favor to Tom (Norton, the Lightning coach), and it’s a pool in Southern California. You can’t get much better than that.”
Sage Hill School
Sage Hill School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. The School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship programs, and athletic and other School administered programs.