To her students, Vaune Kadlubek is a tough, but trusted, adviser. To the rest of the university, she’s a dedicated employee who’s called the UNLV campus home since 1976. In the world of water polo, however, Kadlubek is known as something else: a legend.
On Jan. 14, Kadlubek was inducted into the U.S. Water Polo Hall of Fame. The honor came after a career that saw her become the first female to play on a high school boys water polo team and to referee an international match. She also spent a 10- year stint as a member of the U.S. national team, which she later went on to coach.
Secret Weapon
Kadlubek’s career in the sport began at the YMCA in Santa Barbara, Calif. “I didn’t even know what water polo was until I got into high school,” she says. “Swimming was always my sport, but once I found out that there was a ball involved in water polo, I knew right away it was for me.”
It didn’t take Kadlubek long to master the basics, and that ignited her competitive spirit. Since there wasn’t a girl’s team at Santa Barbara High School, she tried out for the boy’s team and earned a starting spot. “I was like a secret weapon at first, because nobody knew how to guard me,” she says.
Though she came of age as the feminist movement broke new ground in women’s sports, Kadlubek says her little-known sport always provided plenty of opportunities. “For me, I’d always played water polo with guys, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. In fact, when I started playing with the club team in Merced (Calif.) after high school, it was the first time I played against other women.”
The water polo community just saw her as someone who could play. “I was fortunate to have the skills necessary to compete with the guys,” she says. “One of the only things that made me different as a player back then was that they had to open up another locker room for me when the team traveled.”
While playing for a California club team after high school, she decided to come to UNLV on an academic scholarship. “My parents loved Las Vegas,” she says. “So we piled in our Suburban and made the trip from Santa Barbara. My parents dropped me off on Maryland Parkway, told me to find out what I could about the university, and said they’d be back later to pick me up.”
Wes Mock, then head coach of UNLV’s swim team, saw her in the university’s pool one day swimming for fun and recruited her for the Lady Rebels swim team. She spent her breaks in Southern California practicing as a member of the burgeoning women’s national water polo team.
“As pioneers, we were always pushing the sport of women’s water polo — in Holland, Australia, Canada, and here in the United States,” says Kadlubek. Their goal, as is true in most sports, was the Olympics, a dream that would finally come true in the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney.
“It took a lot of hard work from many dedicated people to get us there,” she says. “From our first game as a national team against Australia in 1976 to our exhibition match prior to the 1984 games in Los Angeles, we wanted to spark an interest and show that women’s water polo was for real.”
Tough-Love Adviser
When Kadlubek wasn’t busy promoting the sport at the Olympic level, she completed her undergraduate degree and went on to earn her master’s degree from UNLV in 1983. She then joined UNLV as a women’s swimming coach, a position she held prior to being named head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Water Polo Team.
“When I became the national team coach, I realized I couldn’t coach in both places, I needed an 8-to-5 job,” she says.
So Kadlubek interned with UNLV’s athletic academic advising department for a year before landing a job as an academic adviser, a position she’s held for the past 10 years.
“I love athletic academic advising because I get to stay with the students from the recruiting trip, through four or five years of school, and finally get to see them walk at graduation. It’s an amazing experience,” she says.
Known as a tough-love adviser, Kadlubek tries to instill in her students the privilege of being a scholarship athlete at a major NCAA university.
“Sometimes scholarship athletes don’t truly realize and appreciate the educational opportunities given to them,” she says, noting that less than 1 percent of student athletes go on to become professional athletes. “Once they get a little older, however, they begin to understand how lucky they are to have received a degree without having to pay back student loans.
“I’m personally grateful for the opportunities I’ve been provided with at UNLV. I’ve seen programs develop, buildings rise out of the desert, and the student population more than quadruple in size since I arrived.”
When asked if her students knew of her legendary status in water polo, she chuckled. “Word gets around,” she says. “At first, students don’t really know, but as they get older, juniors and seniors, they hear from the coaches, and I’ll get a few comments.”
