I heard that Tommy Corcoran has left the Del Mar WPC to establish the Dons WPC, a closed club for Cathedral Catholic athletes.
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Wow. That’s big news. So 16u and 18u boys who aren’t at Cathedral need a new team suddenly? Will be a likely boon to SD Shores and LJU with the talent in those age groups.
Yes. I’m shocked this hasn’t come out sooner. Chaos at DM WPC right now.
Why the change ? Any further insight
(1) Unhinged club hopping at the 12U/14U level since Jakov left
(2) New pool coming to Del Mar heights road
(3) Lost an open title to a bunch of neighborhood boys and time to reevaluate?
How are the Ormsby’s in charge of Del Mar and allowed to make these type of changes… seems like all they’ve been trying to do the past two years is get kids to go from Del Mar to mission. Now they’re breaking Del Mar apart. True hedge-fund manager comes in, breaks the place up and sells it for parts vibe.
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Oh absolutely it was, just look at who replaced him as president.
Why wouldn’t they stay at Del Mar?
This isn’t surprising at all. When the founder of the club is at JSerra building Mission. What’s surprising is that it didn’t happen sooner. It’s the same thing Brian K did at SHP when he started Atherton and those kids all left Stanford. Same thing Brett did when he went to JSerra and started Mission. Same thing Segesman did when he started Regency.
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Watching this sport cannibilize itself and further separate into elites and everyone else is equal parts hilarious, nauseating, and plain sad…
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So this new club Dons WPC, do they have a 10u-14u program? Seems like if any of this is nefarious it would not be the Ormsby family spreading their superlative talent in multiple regions. Cathedral and the Dons club has benefitted from Del Mar WPC obviously. Seems like maybe Cathedral felt like losing the CIF Championship was due to Del Mar, talent from other schools developing under the same roof? I dont think I like the closed club concept, but I understand the why (coaches, pool access). Doesnt seem like a good thing for “the community” though.
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There is a lot of speculation happening on this thread which is understandable, but Del Mar 16/18u, as we all know it, is effectively finished. The remaining top 16/18u players are leaving DM for other SD clubs. DM is offering to continue to support leftover 16/18u athletes, however coaching staff has not been announced.
Based on the timeline of events, it seems that Del Mar was unaware of Tommy’s plan to start his own closed club for Cathedral HS athletes until he announced it on the 31st.
Del Mar conducted tryouts at the beginning of December, sent rosters, practice schedules, and billing on Dec 15th, which was then followed by Tommy’s announcement on Dec 31st that he was leaving Del Mar to run a separate club for Cathedral high school student-athletes. A message from Brett Ormsby, in his capacity as a DM board member, was sent 24 hours later.
As far as 10u-14u, anyone who doesn’t intend to attend Cathedral is likely reconsidering their commitment to DM.
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Well… it was a good run. The core group of high school boys (Dons and non-Dons) were carrying a 5-year JO win streak into this year if I’m not mistaken. I imagine that will be the end of that….
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Fairly certain the total number of Del Mar athletes who have moved to Mission since its inception is in the low-to-mid single digits so I have a hard time believing there’s been recruitment to encourage a mass exodus to a club located 50 miles north of Cathedral that would’ve motivated Tommy to make this 11th hour post-tryouts move.
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Interesting conversation by all! Obviously, much speculation!!
The main issue seems to be who benefits from this. Certainly NOT San Diego Water Polo which from a regional and national competitive point of view, would benefit from consolidation, not fracturing talent even further. Cathedral Catholic High School (CCHS) has benefited from a deep pipeline from DMWP so breaking that connection probably does not help CCHS.
Some DMWP players are at The Bishops School but the loss to LJHS in the final CIF game had nothing to do with transfers away from Cathedral.
The original and current owners of DMWP also own and manage Mission club, two clubs at the top tier which compete directly against each other. The family has retained administrative leadership of the original club (DMWP) which may lead to this complex situation. The conflict of interest of one group owning two competing elite clubs has been a point of discussion.
The possible benefiting party may well be the owners of DMWP (and Mission WPC) as opposed to the recently released vs retired club director as many have speculated. In the process the prior and current directors may have regained complete control of the current elite club in San Diego and management appears to have gone back to the original founding owners based on publicly available emails.
It is openly discussed that some former 12U DMWP players are considering or have committed to join the Mission (and by proxy, JSerra) clubs, adding to the complexity, though I agree that historically there have only been a handful (possibly just two in recent years).
I would caution against interpretation of “he said/she said” emails between the groups and who initiated this change. Insinuation of knowledge or lack thereof in a public email is only as good as the intent and goal of the sender.
This content is edited to delete details which led to the original message being blocked due to server rules - my apologies though I do think they are relevant to the conversation in general and hope the revisions meet community rules.
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Not only have all the CCHS players left the other non-CCHS players at 16 and 18 are and will leave. I don’t know if they will be able to field a team at these age groups. If they scratch something together the level of play will be awful. In addition, 14U families at DMWPC that aren’t headed to CCHS have already been leaving and I suspect all of those players will leave as well. Shores, LJU and Carlsbad will be the big winners here. The girl’s side of DMWPC was basically nonexistent when they hired Jacob Pril. He has done a great job developing players at the Grommet level and took a 16U team with basically all 1st years to a 12th place finish at JO’s. They also finished Top 12 at 10’s and 12’s. Unfortunately, they still don’t field an 18U team. Most of the starters on the 16U A girls’ team from last year already left this Fall. Jacob was building it from the ground up, but it was a rebuild and this feels like a step backward for the girl’s program despite Jacob’s best efforts. I just don’t see the Ormsby family & DMWPC being a winner in this scenario. J Serra and Mission yes, they will probably benefit if Brett is planning a shuttle from San Diego to J Serra.
What happened to the16u girls?
I suspect for at least the near future, Cathedral/Dons Boys 16/18 teams will continue to be competitive. They have a deep bench of national team level players. The long term success will be interesting to watch based on the relationship with DMWP or formation of a youth level Dons program.
Word I’m hearing, almost all of the non CCHS high school aged boys are leaving or have left to Shores and LJU. CCHS has essentially taken the 16A/18A DM boys. However, CCHS will be diluted as many DM “A” athletes don’t attend CCHS. Clubs start back up from break tomorrow. I’d imagine a lot of new faces will be driving to new pools. DM will have enough athletes to field HS aged teams but not at a level that will entice great players to stay. Curious to see which coaches go to CCHS, which stay at DM and which coaches aren’t returning. How quickly will DM get new leadership in place?
It’ll be interesting to see the response at the younger boys age groups. In my opinion, they have the best 12u boys program in the country. If a family doesn’t intend to go to CCHS, do they stay? Is it too early to think about? How many of the 14s are in the CCHS pipeline? Will they be talented enough to make the CCHS 16A team next year?
The 2nd year 14s and 1st year 16s seem to be the most vulnerable. Starting or about to start their most valuable 4 years of club polo, 16/18u, thinking they’ll be competing for medals, to now figuring out if their roster is “platinum level”. Welcome to 2026!
Reading that last paragraph was absolutely diabolical. It will be four days into 2026, and there’s already big jumps kids will need to make some of which have a financial impact on them
It’s truly this type of move that saturates and (for lack of a better word) incites cannibalism in our sport. I understand from a competitive perspective as now even Ivan Buic is bringing back AETOS but that’s just inevitably going to lead to more dismantling of teams with boys who are at SMCHS.
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