I’ve always found it funny that NJO gets absolutely zero news media covering it.
CIF title games still get a local news network doing something in most sections.
While this doesn’t say much given the lack of coverage for HS sports in general, it still makes me a vote for CIF titles meaning more than JO Championships to most coaches and athletes in my opinion.
I agree. Everyone’s answer is going to be based on where they live and where their kid goes to school. The right answer is what’s right for your kid and what keeps them motivated to play the game we all love.
The idea that proximity to the beach somehow determines the value of a championship just doesn’t hold up. A CIF title represents an entire season of work, adjustments, adversity, and consistency against the best teams in your section—it’s the ultimate team accomplishment.
Programs in places like Moraga, Orinda, and Atherton prove every year that you don’t need to be a “beach school” to play elite water polo. When you win a CIF championship—whether it’s NorCal or SoCal—you’ve earned something that reflects depth, discipline, and the ability to perform when it matters most.
And the point about athletes who’ve won both is key. JO’s are an incredible tournament, no doubt, but CIF carries a different weight. It’s your school, your teammates, your community, and a full season culminating in one goal. That’s hard to replicate, and it’s why so many players value it more.
I don’t think the feeling of winning CIF can be replicated. In the CIF-SS playing at Mt. SAC for championships in front of a packed stadium has got to be an unrivaled experience.
CIF-Sectional
Junior Olympics
Futures/super finals
Maybe ODP Nationals but that’s such a limited group that get to participate.
There’s obviously other competitive tournaments but hard to put them in the category. Especially when Last year we saw B teams representing clubs with A team ringers come in for finals at a lot of tournaments.
All others are
Every high schooler I know would love to win CIF as the number 1. Junior Olympics would be 2nd. The others are not close.
I suspect there’s a big difference between winning CIF in Southern Section vs winning in NCS, CCS, or SDS. For players from Contra Costa or San Diego, CIF is just not as competitive as JOs, especially on the girls side. The same HS’s place top 1-4 nearly every year.
If you are a female student in San Diego area you better do whatever it takes to go to Bishops School. 
Thus my question regarding whether we are accounting first place = first place and gold medal = gold medal. On the front they look the same, but on the back a JOs medal that says “Platinum Division” means something different I think than the one that says “Cardboard Box Division”. Division 1 Champion in CIF-SS is 9th place overall. Though the Division 5 championship game for CIF–SS is played in that awesome stadium at Mt. SAC just like the all the other games that day. Is it the experience or is it being #1 that matters to the kids? My guess is the experience is what matters to those below Open Division? Perhaps I am reverting back to Reese Bobby and need to correct my mentality, “If you ain’t first, you’re last!”
Nobody cares about JOs. There are super teams and high school based teams and you cannot draw any conclusions from the outcomes. Direct quote from multiple recruiters.
CIF-SS is a valuable outcome. Your high school team’s performance is a true indicator.
Everything else is a crapshoot. Not everyone is available…some people are pulled into NTSC, ODP camps, etc…
One could argue for boys that North vs South is ahead of Futures at this point.
That is a good one to list, but a bit limited in participation.
Re Futures, I’d think that emerging victorious over a three-day championship weekend that is seeded after 5 weekends of competitive play is a valuable indicator of a program’s quality. The top 8 seeds teams play amongst themselves for position/path to quarters, with bottom four crossing with the top four from seeds 9-24. Game 2 for every bracket is meaningful. And yes, there are other divisions, but there are also other divisions in HS ball.
By contrast, JO Seed 1 (who by definition is the winner of the JOQ tournament for the zone that won the prior year, irrespective of where the zones/teams are the current year) has a chance to rest all starters for game 1, then plays–at best–the 24th seed for game 2, and then (most likely) has the rest of the day off to head into Platinum Top 12 bracket play with the winners of the 8th and 9th seed brackets. For 2026 18u, that would be SPA1 seeded 1st (thanks to Beast Boys), tying up with the winner of CST1 (8th seed) vs SPA6 (17th seed) and the winner of PAC3 (9th seed) vs PAC5 (16th seed).
For HS ball, North South is 16 teams (5 public schools) by invitation. For even more limited participation, there’s Elite 8 (3 public schools). My surmise is that winning N/S or E8 or both would be a hollow consolation for a team that tripped on the final hurdle for a CIF championship.
It boggles my mind that JO’s can’t figure out a way to properly seed the tournament. Always bothered me they go off the zone results from the previous year. Makes no sense. CIF is 1,2,3,and 4 for me.
It would be almost impossible to ‘properly’ seed so many teams, across so many divisions, and so many age groups, when a lot of these teams coming from different zones have never even played each other.
CIF is a more regional tournament, so it’s feasible, just like the JO quals are pretty well seeded.
They needed to set up a system that is clear to everybody and that way there is no feeling of biased decisions when doing the seeding. They take the results of the JO Quals and plug them into last years zone results and ultimately the best team will need to go thru the other best teams, to win it all
JO seeding method is (maybe, arguably) one of only a very few ways of having a repeating seeding structure that kinda works.
Everyone knows what it’s going to be going in (there are Rules on the Conduct of Championships published at usawp website).
And everyone knows that to win it all, you have to beat some really good teams, including teams formed for the express purpose of winning JOs (noting there is no “Beast Boy” equivalent in Futures this year).
I guess my argument is that HS Open is great, but Open selection is also somewhat political. And limited entry HS tournaments like N/S and E8 are not going to capture all of the best teams (unless there are really only eight or sixteen good teams, which is news to me).
Further complication: closed clubs would tend to prioritize HS (many of them “fire” their seniors for club play to get rising juniors/sophomores more experience), while open clubs will naturally prioritize JO/Futures/National League.
So while it’s not an apples to apples comparison (club tourneys to HS tourneys), it’s also not apples/oranges.
Let’s go with peaches to nectarines.
I understand the concept of “The Beast Boys”, but don’t the kiddos want to play with their high school teammates one last time. Who care if you win or lose JOs???
These are your people and I understand that development is important for the next generation, but so are the relationships with the youngers. If you want to develop the sport then keep those HS teams together.
Our kiddo could have absolutely joined a “super team” but decided to stick with her girls…they came in somewhere around 4-8, but went out with the “girl that brung her to the dance”…a much more important lesson than joining an all-star team. imho
In many clubs, particularly ones that are specific to one HS, the seniors are not rostered for the 18u season and need to find a new home. So the kids talk and find where their similarly situated friends from other clubs are headed, and that’s how you get a Beast Boys, or a Cozy Boys, or a Flavor (Flav!) of the Month Boys. I’m sure there are plenty of seniors from the closed clubs who would be happy to suit up with their HS teammates, but that’s not always an option.
For other HS programs, there is not a HS-related club to stay with. (In SD County, the vast majority of schools do not have a pool, so HS clubs are not really a thing, despite the appearance of a closed club at the beginning of this year… and that’s one club, one school).