Senior Hayden Riordan stared at the email in front of her. 

“Let us know if you change your mind,” the coach had responded to her after she told him she would no longer be able to play water polo at the collegiate level. She wouldn’t even be able to finish her high school season. 

The coach worded it like a choice; it still doesn’t feel like one. 

Hayden played water polo for four years through club and school practices, where she obtained six concussions. She retired at the end of the season, and said it feels like mourning. 

“[The pool] was like a second home to me,” Hayden said. “Now that I don’t go, it feels like I don’t have that home. I don’t see that second family every day like I used to. I’m missing half of my life.”

Growing up, Hayden was always involved in sports. Her family valued physical activity, and her mom encouraged her to try different sports until she found one she loved. In fourth grade, Hayden joined her first competitive swim team and fell in love with swimming.

“I would get in the pool in my backyard in the dead of winter,” Hayden said. “My family thought I was crazy. The water is just calming, [and] something about the waves makes me feel at home.”

She stayed in swim through eighth grade, but burned out. Hayden enjoyed the competitive nature of swim, so her mom pushed her to join the water polo team in high school.

“I was terrified,” Hayden said. “[Water polo] is girls roughing each other up in the water. I kept thinking: ‘Why on Earth would I want to do that?’”

After encouragement from her mom, Randi Riordan, and head water polo coach Donzie Lilly, Hayden joined the team. Despite her fears, she quickly became obsessed with the sport.

“There’s something about racing a girl to the ball [that she loves],” Randi said. “Whether you win or don’t win, it’s exhilarating. Watching her become so dedicated was all I could ask for as a mother.”

At her third practice of her freshman year, Hayden was leaning on the side of the pool by the goal, idly talking to her friends while waiting for her turn on a drill. Then, a ball was slammed into the back of her head by a teammate trying to score a goal.

“There was a weird fogginess in my head,” Hayden said. “My head didn’t feel right. I knew something was wrong.”

After seeing a doctor, her first concussion was confirmed. Hayden had to sit out for the first game of the year.

“Being out made me want to be in even more,” Hayden said. “I had lost time to make up for and I wanted to make every second count once I was in.”

The second concussion shouldn’t have happened. 

That’s what Randi will say when you ask her about her daughter’s car accident and second concussion. Hayden had been driving her 2001 Jeep Wrangler straight through an intersection, when a car began to turn toward her. The last thing she remembered clearly was honking the horn. 

Everything else was a blur: the airbags went off. A child in the other car let out a piercing scream. She thought she was dreaming. 

“It all sounded like I was underwater,” Hayden said. “Everything was hazy.” 

She got out of her car and took a photo of the license plate of the car that hit her. She had a cut on her face from the airbag but wasn’t bleeding, and tried to talk to the other driver with as clear of a head as she could manage. A teammate’s mom recognized her as she drove past, and pulled over to help her. When Hayden saw the familiar face, her faux-calmness washed away. 

“All the adrenaline left, and I broke down,” Hayden said. “I just started crying and couldn’t stop.”

Between the high school seasons, Hayden played water polo for a club team. Last June, she was hit in the head during a club practice — her third concussion. That weekend, the team was supposed to attend a tournament, and Hayden decided to play.

“I don’t remember a lot of it,” Hayden said. “I had no clue what was going on in the middle of the game. I was freaking out. I couldn’t focus on what I was supposed to be doing, and I couldn’t multitask the way I had to.”

By the end of the first game, Hayden knew she needed to go home, but convinced herself that she was fine. She played on, not stopping for the whole tournament. The day after she got home, she had another club practice. Still recovering from the third concussion, Hayden was hit by a ball again; this time it directly smashed into her face: her fourth concussion. 

She was on the verge of tears. After this many concussions, athletes aren’t supposed to continue playing their sport because they could be at risk for long-term cognitive issues. Though she doesn’t remember how it happened, she was hit in the head again a few days later: her fifth concussion. 

“Whenever I fully realized that I had that concussion, I kept thinking that it couldn’t be over,” Hayden said. “I had to keep playing.” 

When Hayden went into the game on Oct. 15, 2024, she didn’t think that it would be her last time playing a high school sport. But after getting hit on the head multiple times during the game, which stacked onto her previous concussions, she began playing sloppier. 

Near the end of the third quarter, she swam to her coach and asked to sub out of the game.

“I knew when I asked to get pulled out of the water that it would be the last time I ever played,” Hayden said. “I’d never get back into the water for water polo again.” 

Hayden sat on the sidelines with the rest of her team, but kept panicking when she thought back about what had happened. She went to the locker room and called her mom. 

“It was rough,” Hayden said. “My friends and sisters got to play what they loved in college, and I won’t be able to. It put me down a lot, and I kept spiraling when I thought about it.”

A few days and visits to the doctor later, she officially resigned from water polo. 

“We saw [Hayden’s retirement] coming,” Lilly said. “It was always kind of on the horizon. We knew there was just one more concussion, and then she’d be done for good.”

Hayden and Randi knew she had to stop playing high school athletics, but it did not stop them from wondering if things could get better. But concussions don’t show up on X-rays, CAT scans or MRI scans — there was no way of knowing when Hayden would be fully healed. 

“Is collegiate athletics worth losing your brain health over?” Randi said. “The answer is always going to be a no.”

For the rest of her senior year, Hayden has tried to find other hobbies to fill her time: reading, playing the bass or hanging out with friends. She began lifting weights every morning instead of water polo practice. Hayden said it hasn’t worked to the same extent. 

“Going from working out all the time to not at all freaked my body out,” Hayden said. “I couldn’t sleep at night because nothing could wear me out as much.”

Hayden plans to go to California for college, which was where she wanted to play collegiately, even though she can no longer play competitively. 

“When you send your kid to college, you’re just letting them go,” Randi said. “It’s easier when they have something to be a part of, because then they have a second family there. She doesn’t have that built in like she used to.”

Hayden plans to major in kinesiology or exercise science. She said she doesn’t quite know what she wants to do with the degree, but is looking into becoming an athletic trainer and potentially coaching water polo on the side. 

“A part of my love for water polo will still be with me,” Hayden said. “Even if I can’t play, I can coach. I can learn. I can do something to keep that love alive.”