No. I do not believe college coaches are ruining USA water polo.
I have a grass roots up view. I wasn’t thinking of college roster spots when I first dropped off my 7-year-old. The main thing I was going for was giving my kid a tight-knit community to build a friend group from, learning how to take instruction, an understanding of how consistent effort leads to positive results, shrugging it off when things don’t go your way, overcoming adversity as a team.
Water polo is wonderful for all of that. It is also fun to watch as a parent. Although the adversity is key, and is key to why involvement in all sports is shown to have such positive effect on kids, I agree with h20wapo that “Water Polo Tough” was awful marketing. I believe emphasizing the community is the way to go. The kids all going as a group to a restaurant where they banter face-to-face, or a movie between games is as beneficial as the games themselves.
It is the sense of community that I would emphasize, and I don’t believe inviting foreign players precludes that. If a college coach has a team made up entirely of American players, but is only focused on developing the college team, I think that coach does more harm to the sport than another college coach who has a number of foreign players and builds the community. An example of the latter is James Graham at Pacific, whose program includes postgame clinics for local kids who buy a ticket.
Kids can watch college players play, and coaches coach, then afterwards jump in with the players to do water polo things with those they just watched. The message is that if you play water polo then you belong with us. I like that. There are other ways for college coaches to foster that same concept, but I think that idea of “you belong with us” is what grows the sport.
International volleyball limits out of country kids to two, similar to international water polo.
I don’t think most parents care About improve level of play with internationals, they care about their kid playing.
When you dropped off your 7 year old you could still see spots in college for Americans. It’s changed.
And anyone on college team with internationals can tell you they tend to not integrate that much the more they have. It does change the culture.
But college coaches need to win, I wouldn’t blame them personally at all. It’ll be interesting to see if it has ripple effect. I personally would not tell my neighbors’ kids to play. I would advise them to enjoy their weekends not on a pool deck. Just play in high school for fun, friends and discipline and not do club.
Our San Diego area never got any odp love Any way.
There was a discussion in another thread involving the national team at U16 in Malta last year, and it was noted how the 2010 birthdays didn’t score much. That U16 Malta team was our ODP Cadet team, and those two 2010 birthdays were pulled up from Development. Last year 2010 was Development, not Cadet, but ODP “loved” the potential of those two kids enough to pull them up to compete for Team USA.
Both are from the San Diego area. One plays for Cathedral Catholic and the other for Bishop’s. With all the kids in the whole of the country to choose from, ODP did not show any love to any other 2010 kids in any other zone in the US.
Perhaps he is in learning mode, but I would love to see some material and viewpoints from our CEO like previously he did with Volleyball. Both of these conversations are germane to this discussion. And yes, the NCSA one may be a bit of an advertisement, but if you get excited about bells ringing for signings for home grown talent and there is less and less bell ringing then…
I would disagree on culture. Fordham has seamlessly blended its domestic (with at least four Greenwich kids so getting local talent which helps the tri-State water polo community) and international players. From a culture and togetherness perspective, you are not going to find a team tighter than the one on Rose Hill. It was why last year and the upcoming year have a real chance to be special.
No, the WASPy country club mentality is ruining water polo. The notion that if you can’t get into the big-4 + Harvard/Princeton then you’ll just quit is the issue.
Newport Beach + CDM are a hot-spot of water polo; they produce talented kids … how many Newport + CDM kids play at Long Beach State?
Are Gavin and Shana bad coaches?
Does LB have a bad pool?
Are they in a bad conference?
Are LB teams weak?
(No, No, No, No) - What LB doesn’t have is “it’s not USC, and it’s not a UC” - so it’s no surprise that among the entire LB roster, men + women, there’s only 1 kid from Newport + CDM. And it’s been like this for YEARS - at what point do Shana and Gavin stop trying with Newport or CDM kids - because mommy and daddy didn’t buy a house on Lido Isle just so you could go to CAL STATE Long Beach.
So how do we grow as a sport when all but 6 schools are written off? That’s the issue - people with money (the biggest / best clubs) need to prioritize playing instead of the school name.
The fact that kids ride the bench at the big-4 and don’t transfer to somewhere they will play is the issue. They already got in - mission complete.
Side note - with roster limits next year, UCLA and Cal will have to cut kids - we’re all in for a big experiment, these kids were recruited to play at a top-4 school, so they obviously have the skills to contribute elsewhere - lets see how many leave vs “I’ll just stay and finish my degree”.
While you may be correct, this is written in a bubble mentality speaking to just the families of a couple of high schools/clubs that you called out. While yes that is the hot bed, water polo is bigger than just that region and it needs to be for the health and growth of the sport. Do you really think this issue does not impact those outside of Orange County in a big way?
I feel, if anything, this mentality allows kids from outside this “bubble” to get chances while the Newport/CDM kids go enjoy college at TCU or some state school
wpolo93 This is a macro issue, about the state of the game. You could extrapolate my answer above to the question “Why is JC water polo so phenomenally bad outside of 4-5 schools”
The downstream effects of the top 9-12 domestic talents holding out for a recruiting letter from Cal when LMU also needs to plan their roster is LMU looks foreign.
@ WPpops Look at the rosters of kids in college, where are the grads of Sacred Heart, Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach, Bellarmine, Miramonte, Oaks Christian, Bishops, etc going? - It’s not Fresno, Long Beach, or San Jose State.
What would you say about Long Beach state having the best men’s volleyball team?
Do all the best rich preppy kids go to USC instead? Maybe, I don’t know the full story.
I’m curious to know about why their men’s volleyball is able to reach the top and waterpolo has a harder time.
Same questions as you
Pool?coaches?factors I don’t know, Etc
MVB is a weird one, I agree - How has Knipe at LB been able to do it? There’s some good schools that LB is able to out-recruit. Does LB have a first mover advantage with the Pyramid? Kind of a gimmick but did that gimmick bring success early on back when there were many fewer teams, now LB is seen as a “perennial power”?
How active is the MVB transfer portal?
MVB has a broader nation-wide appeal than WP, does that introduce a more blue-collar demographic to the talent pool?
But I agree - LB men’s VB seems to be the outlier.
Why on Earth the graduates of “Sacred Heart, Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach, Bellarmine, Miramonte, Oaks Christian, Bishops, etc” would consider Cal State schools as their target? The level of public high school education in California is, on average, … shitty, sorry for a lack of a better word. It is hardly a secret. Why then we are so surprised that parents and kids are focusing their admission efforts on Ivies and UC?
P.S. I have been curious for some time about the story of Beach’s Mens’ Volleyball program. If somebody can share their insights, I will be grateful.
I’m curious why so many of the CSU schools don’t have NCAA teams? It seems like quite a few have water polo clubs, so the interest from the student body is there.
A few boys from our high school team started looking at community colleges with teams so that they could continue playing after high school. One of the local community college coaches visited a few of the local high school teams during practice to advertise this program, and they were pretty excited about it.
“Why then we are so surprised that parents and kids are focusing their admission efforts on Ivies and UC?”
For some reason, in Football, Basketball, Softball, Baseball, Volleyball and others, kids prioritize playing over school academic clout, but not water polo.
Title IX. I do think Title IX is on the whole a good thing, but many Olympic sports on the men’s side end up being demoted to club status because of it.
No, they do not. But MIT, Fordham, Brown, Navy, and GW do. Also Michigan for the ladies. And if this is about getting into a school with great academics, there are tons of eastern schools with great reputations–Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Northeastern, BC, BU, Yale, Dartmouth, Middlebury and more–where a kids polo experience would be a big benefit in getting admitted, they could get first class education, and play college club water polo as stars without it dominating their college years. The narrow view that only a slot at the Big 4 or Harvard or Princeton is good enough for little Johnie or Susie is the problem. Reality in most sports is that only the best 1 or 2 graduates who play varsity every year are going to play in college at any varsity level. Many of those who do will end up with limited playing time. Water polo is probably skewed such that it’s more likely a kid who plays water polo in CA will play at the varsity level than a high quality basketball or baseball or football player. How many CA kids are starting for Stanford and UCLA and USC and Cal basketball and football varsity teams? Do you think UCLA is going to take a good-but-not-great local kid to play center when the next on the basketball team over a kid with NBA chops from Serbia or France or Spain?
