Seems to me that most everybody is simply reacting to the circumstances of the times, rather than anticipating the outcomes of the future. No new news here on roster limitations, deficit budgets, program elimination, athletes-as-employees, international infiltrators, and diminished recruiting opportunities for freshmen… facts are: the good old days are simply no longer possible.
Perhaps a simple solution is staring us right in the face … to almost all these problems?Perhaps the problem is that we so desperately want to hold onto the broken and dysfunctional NCAA as the only bona fide route to a national championship… and consequently suffer from bias or old-think?
The future model for college Water Polo is probably close to resembling the current Cal Berkeley rugby team… an affiliated part of the athletic department (with some of the admissions and services perks) but basically plays club rugby. In fact, National Collegiate Rugby, along with US Rugby Foundation sponsors the national collegiate championship (not the NCAA)… and teams KILL for the opportunity to win this championship.
Imagine a world where the number of collegiate Water Polo teams jumped nationally from ~ 40 participating to over ~150, where international athletes are free to roam and congregate, where rosters are not artificially limited by decree, where kids go to the school that best fits their person, rather than their ego, and where we truly become a national sport… with college teams (and coaches and sponsors) in almost every state. Did I mention we now sport a 24-team ‘National Collegiate Water Polo Championship’ tournament?
If I were a business leader and faced with all the negative trend lines in the NCAA model, AND, I was able to achieve the potential for 3x growth if I simply changed ‘who’ actually sponsors the national championship, then I’d be putting together a task force to take pro-active control of our destiney, not continue to lament about all the problems we face. Hello USA Water Polo leadership???