Join San Diego's Water Polo Scene: Late Start, Embrace the Challenge

Weekly Blog Series: How to Get Good at Water Polo

Every week, I'm going to publish some blogs about how to get good at water polo. Right now, if you take a quick look at the organization of our sport, kids play every day, starting when they're really young, eight years old, nine years old. It's daunting for a middle schooler to start.

The Club Experience: Attracting New Players

This year, at the Coronado Aquatics Club, we had over five 8 graders come out and play. They played a whole season, and although we lost a few talented recruits from the San Diego environment who decided our club wasn't for them, I'm okay with that. Our club allowed these new players an opportunity to try the sport.

Success Stories: Late Starters in Water Polo

How can someone who walks onto a program or starts late be great? I'm reminded of Craig Wilson, a goalie who walked on as a volleyball player at UC Santa Barbara and joined a wonderful team. I'm reminded of Merrill Moses, a goalie who wasn't the best recruit at Pepperdine but fought for his spot as starter, and then on to become the best goalie in the world.

I'm reminded of a gentleman named Ian Barnard from my Coronado high school team whose spur-of-the-moment goals earned us CIF championships against a much more talented Bishop's team. The best player from that game went on to play at Pepperdine with me. He was a star from that Shores team, Mike Houseman. Truly a talented water polo player, he could have been one of the best, but suffered an injury to his back preventing him from executing on it. He's an amazing player and great person.

Overcoming Obstacles in Sports

Obstacles pop up in front of us all the time: injuries, disagreements, lack of motivation. All these are just road bumps. If you keep going, but how do you keep going? That is the secret to sports success. And I'm gonna leave it up to you to figure that out. If you find out and you know, reach out. I'd love to hear it.