The year was 1994. Jill Carroll was just a junior at Huron High School in Ann Arbor, Mich. It was before UMass, before the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, before the Wall Street Journal, before the Jordan Times and before the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor. It was before Iraq. Jill Carroll’s mind was consumed with a simple thought – her high school water polo team’s tournament in Chicago.

“We just got absolutely pummeled,” then-coach Candice Russell says of the tournament. “We probably lost every game 20-0 while we were in Chicago.”

The team was distraught, but a shot of optimism came from Carroll. A few comments here and there, and suddenly the first-year team forgot about its losses. It was the type of confidence that Carroll possessed, and perhaps the kind of positive outlook that kept her going during 82 days as a detainee.

“Jill was one of those kids that came away from that experience in good spirits, and thinking, ‘You know, we just got pummeled, but that was a lot of fun,'” Russell says. “She just had a way of looking at more of the bright side of things.”

It was in 1993, when the Huron High School athletic department decided to start a water polo team – the first ever in the state of Michigan – that Carroll first shared that optimism with teammates.

Carroll was a swimmer on the high school team during her freshman year, and when Russell, the assistant coach of that swim team, spearheaded the new polo team, Carroll wanted in. As one of the fastest swimmers on the team, she would eventually take her water polo career all the way to UMass.

The team at Huron High was novice to say the least, and most of the players had never even played water polo before. But they were enthusiastic, and having competed as individuals on the swimming team, wanted to work together as a team. It was a risk for Carroll and her teammates, something that may not have gone right, but as the world would later learn, Carroll was prone to taking risks.

“She was the kind of kid that was willing to take chances,” Russell says. “She was always willing to go after what she wanted to do.”

Carroll and her teammates wanted to mesh as a group, and, most of all, they wanted to have fun. In a sense, the girls were guinea pigs – volunteers on a new team, eager to compete with nothing to lose. Carroll was a member of this team from 1993 to 1995, and it was during those years that the Huron High School women’s water polo team nabbed three straight state championships.

When Jill Carroll graduated from Huron High and ended her career on the team, she left with 17 career goals, six knockouts and seven assists – numbers that drew attention from current UMass women’s swimming coach and then-women’s water polo coach Bob Newcomb.

“She worked really hard. She was a kid who really tried to maximize what she had and take advantage of those opportunities that she had,” Newcomb says. “I really brought her in as a water polo player and she swam also.”

The trip from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Amherst, Mass., to attend UMass was a move that Carroll wanted to make. She would swim and stay on as a member of the polo team until her never-dying passion, which today has her in the spotlight, eventually took over.

Two years on the swim and polo teams were complete, and then it was time for Carroll to put her athletic career in the past and focus on journalism. Life over the next decade would consist of interviews, investigating and a never-ending search for the truth.

Candice Russell was watching the news on Jan. 7, 2006 when Carroll’s picture popped up on the screen. It had been over six years since Russell last saw her in person at the Huron High pool, when Carroll had visited during Russell’s last year as the water polo coach.

“I was watching the news and I saw her picture and they didn’t say what her name was, but they had her picture on the screen. I looked at her and I thought, ‘You know, she looks familiar,'” Russell says.

Then the name showed up on the television screen and the pieces fell together for the former water polo coach. Russell was upset, but never gave up hope for the girl who always put a positive spin on things.

“Deep down I always felt that she was going to come out of it. I had a feeling of confidence,” Russell says.

As the 82 days of captivity finally ceased yesterday morning, Russell shared the reaction and sensation with people all over the world.

“When I heard the news this morning I was absolutely thrilled,” Russell says. “She’s a tough kid.”

It was early in the morning yesterday and Bob Newcomb returned to his office after another early swim practice that Carroll once took part in. Newcomb checked his e-mail, and then the day’s news.

“I have joy for her family. I’m really happy for them that they are going to have a chance to be with her again,” Newcomb says. “My heart goes out to her family for everything they had to go through. I can’t even imagine as a parent going through what they went through for the last 82 days.”

It was a long time coming for Carroll and her family, and it will certainly be a long time before the world settles down. Of course there was a time before the high spirits and the exhilaration – before Carroll was dropped off by her abductors at the branch office of the Iraqi Islamic party, before she wrote for the Monitor and the Jordan Times, a time when steals and knockouts, swimming pools and tournaments were the hot topics in Carroll’s life.