My college club team played Queens College for the “Eastern Championship” in 1988, which I think was their last year as a club team before going varsity. We lost, in overtime, if memory serves. The list of “defunct” teams that played in the NCAA Championship tournament is eye-opening. Yale? Loyola Chicago? Pitt? Army? Colorado State? Texas A+M? Imagine having all of them still playing.
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This is a really interesting idea! Can you explain more why breaking into smaller zones would negatively impact revenue?
Why doesn’t USA Water Polo hasn’t hire fundraisers and then invest that money? (Or hire better fundraisers?). Using ODP as a fundraising mechanism seems especially problematic. The USA Swimming Select Camps are free for the kids that make it. By contrast, one has to fundraise over $1,400 and then pay for a plane ticket to go NTSC - after paying for everything else before one gets to NTSC. Then you have 4 girls sleeping in rooms with 2 double beds. Many of the kids coming from other time zones are kept awake by the 3 kids on their rooms from CA. The free swim camp has 2 per room in their own beds. One could go on and on about the ways in which ODP is bizarre.
Circling back to the foreign player issue, I’d be surprised if there’s any similar nonsensical setup in other countries. ODP is eliminating 90% of the general population through these fees. Then, we have leadership that probably consists mainly of Southern California coaches? I’m sure people are doing their best, but either this group doesn’t realize how problematic things like ODP are or likes to preserve the status quo because it benefits them - so in that sense you’re also disadvantaging the population from most of the United States on top of effectively excluding most kids based on financial issues. How is this a recipe for success? Of course colleges are recruiting foreign players. But perhaps that’s more of a focus in this forum because players from teams affiliated with leadership are actually disadvantaged?
There’s no reason things should be this way or have to be this way. Just look at this list of top 50 swim teams of various sizes in the U.S.: ASCA Names 2026 Top 50 Age Group Teams In Four Divisions
They are from all over the country!
I hope the CEO is able to implement some new ideas and wish there was something average people could do to help. I love our sport, along with thousands of smart people outside the leadership bubble that would step up to do something. Polo would be a better fit for so many of the kids that are swimming on those top 50 swim teams and thousands of others - especially the girls. Being timed by the hundredth after female puberty is brutal.
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Waterpolo might be a tougher sell than you are implying for swim kids considering concussion risk and dirty play (kicking, punching, scratching, etc). Getting kicked in the face intentionally happens all the time in 12U, hard to imagine what goes on at higher levels.
Not saying it isnt a great sport though.
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Has anyone seen him in person and not on a webcast? I have no idea who he is and what he looks like other than one picture posted when he was hired.
For sure, but California does not have a special monopoly on kids willing to be kicked in the head or physical.
I’ve met him a few times at USAWP events and can confirm he is a real person.
Are you saying that there have been more sightings of the USA Water Polo CEO than of Bigfoot?
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what kind of usawp events? i have never seen him at any event, maybe he is going undercover CEO like the TV show?
Fair argument for sure. There is lots of talent across the USA. Perhaps California has the monopoly on stupidity (or is it just blind passion)? Most people that are willing to go all in to be the best at something want to have some potential for financial return on that investment. Low hopes of college scholarship, very little NIL money if any, no real professional league (maybe this changes going forward?). In most states those kids are playing American Football.
That’s because no other country has anything remotely resembling US college sports. In most countries, the high level college–and age group–athletes are playing for private clubs.
The correlation between strong water polo and strong swim clubs appears to be pretty minimal. Having state recognized varsity teams will engage the kids. Then you hope that some aspiring HS coaches will want to win by spending an absurd amount of time founding a club whose youth will land at that HS.
California’s advantage above the already existing HS and club teams is that there are plenty of good present and former college players to help with the coaching. Always fun to have the legends of Cal or UCLA or some Hungarian icon coaching your little kids.
There are great coaches all around the country. So I think your point is that USAWP needs to help in some way with the time and effort (we’re talking years) to create the successful flywheel that will attract kids. Right now it appears that they have decided to try to motivate already existing clubs to boost their membership. It takes less effort, is less risky, but will also only create marginal membership improvements.
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@wpolo93, If that was an intentional callback to my earlier Bigfoot reference, bravo.
I have met him on some pool decks and some golf events. Support USAWP and attend the events. There’s usually plenty of space as many of the people/areas that are often maligned on this platform for paying their way to recognition are not present. I’ve found him very receptive to discussion.
Greenwich is the potential poster child for this, where a traditionally strong local swimming culture spawned several high school and club water polo teams. Maybe also Texas? I have no local insight there. What’s surprising to me is the lack of strong water polo in Florida. Sadly, here in the east the Greenwich model seems to be a one-off. I coached a start-up HS team in New Jersey in the early 1990’s. Looking at their schedule today, not a lot of teams have been added in a state that’s got tons of strong swim clubs. NYC/Long Island and Greater Boston have also not seen much growth.
I don’t think this is it. Having spent most of my life living outside CA, both as a kid and as an adult, most of the kids I knew played sports that had very low prospects for a potential professional career or college scholarships. Also, when you’re female, the professional prospects aren’t promising in any sport. That’s half the population.
I’m aware that so many places have strong swim programs without polo. That’s my point. There are pools everywhere. There are swimmers who play contact sports that would make great polo players all over the U.S. Many of these swimmers would love to play water polo. There’s nothing special about humans from California that merits focusing the majority resources in CA as an overall, long-term strategy to improve the sport. Hire fundraisers, use that money to help hire good coaches to start programs in other places. Eventually - now that the population of U.S. players really includes the entire U.S. - U.S. players are competitive enough that foreign players taking college spots is less of an issue.
The fact that this hasn’t happened suggests to me that there are too many people in leadership roles at U.S.A. Water Polo interested in preserving a system that primarily benefits themselves and their colleagues (mostly in SoCal). When something threatens that - foreign players taking college roster spots - then there’s a discussion thread about it. Of course many will say that it is not possible to grow the sport elsewhere in the U.S. and vote no on measures, like potentially the proposed zones(?), to help that come to fruition. Like foreign players, strong players/teams from other parts of the U.S. might negatively impact the success of their individual programs as well.
Some people, like Tony Azevedo, do sincerely seem to be trying very hard, though.
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“The new Amateur Sports Act, just passed by the Congress of the United States, removed authority from the AAU and distributed it to all the various sports; and for water polo, this meant that the Californians were now in complete control.”
-Chuck Hines, founder of YMCA Water Polo Programs from Minnesota to Illinois to North Carolina, and former vocal member of the WPP message boards.
He wrote a book on his experiences from the 1950s into the late 1970s, when by his estimation the sport began to shift away from a system of national involvement and into the hands of national team interests in CA.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like real historical context on how and why the sport is shaped the way it is. Instead of pretending like living by a beach in CA makes you inherently tougher or something.
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