What would be the best options for a kid who doesn’t want to play for High School team?
Play for a great club. Is it a home school situation or other?
This…or depending on individual’s talent level and if there are good high school programs that are affiliated/feeding the club, maybe practice with one of those high schools as a “guest” to stay in shape, but not be able to play in any games…
Or there is always transferring…but hard to say not knowing the situation.
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I’d say waterpolo, more than most sports, doesn’t require a great high school program to be seen but you’d better have the skill to be seen at a top-competing club program.
Northgate High School wasn’t his ticket to Stanford. It’s an extreme example b/c of his skills, national team exposure and he excelled with CCU waterpolo club
If a player has the ability they’ll find you through a good club team too. Girls club even more so if the player in question is female.
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A less extreme example is SCU’s Luke Baird, his high school did not even offer water polo so he rowed during high school and competed with CT Premier and Capital Water Polo club
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He plays for a top 5 club team. The high school that he will be attending is great but not the best water polo program.
For boys club means way more than HS, and if he is on a top 5 club I would not worry that the HS is great but not the best. That sounds like a very good situation that most would love to have. I am not saying HS season doesn’t matter to the players. It depends on your son’s goals.
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If he’s going to be a 9th grader, you might as well play high school. What else would he do? PE? Another high school sport? Who knows, he might enjoy it. High school water polo generally speaking will get you more training hours than any other period of the year. So why give that up when everyone else is going to be training hard?
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If he is that good he can help build the program at his school rather than turn his nose to it.
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100% Spot on. There is so many things players can learning playing on a team that isn’t as strong as their club.
Being a leader in the program, showing that he can be coached by different coaches at different programs, and all the extra conditioning he’ll get to satisfy the PE requirement.
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Echoing this notion, I also want to add a couple points:
I think there’s a lot of value in the opportunity to represent ones’ classmates as a leader.
For example, in WA state (where I’m based) the largest wp crowd is most often State Championships. It’s not going to be JO Quals or some other club tournament, despite the gap in play level.
I’m also curious about the ‘club practice’ availability during HS season as most clubs would probably(?) assume that their athletes are competing for their HS teams.
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So, there is a team at his high school, and he’s choosing not to play for them, because they’re not very good…That might be sort of a red flag for college coaches.
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I don’t think there is enough context for a real answer, if the question reflects an actual situation.
Sure there are 5 or 6 guys people can name who didn’t play high school polo, but that isn’t the norm.
It isn’t as simple as “join a great club”, especially if the player is in California. Why does a club coach want to pour time into a kid who won’t play for his high school team when he can work on developing his own talent? I know some kids don’t want to play for certain high school coaches, but if it is a 9th grader just entering school, his best course is to find a new school.
If high school is not an option for some reason, trying to play for a good club is likely the only option, thus i mentioned it. 
Furthermore, Baird wasn’t even training with CT Premier. He was training on his own and only playing with CT Premier
I know this doesn’t really relate to NOT playing for a high school team, but if they have the option to, they could decide to play for their high school team and build the team up around them. An example of this is Jaden Joemtree at UC Davis who went to Arcadia highschool. Historically not a great waterpolo school but he was able to build that team up around him and by his senior year they were in div. 1 cif. Always an option.
I’d edit portion 1 if I were you. I’ve taken both the CCCAA and NCAA eligibility and compliance classes for years and that’s ehh… not quite in compliance with their regulations. I’m not going to complain but this is an anonymous forum after all. Just take the college name out.