In the East, American Water Polo Strikes a Blow for Age Group Play

LANGSDALE, PA. On March 27th at precisely 12:45 p.m. in the North Penn High School pool, a ball drop signified the end of a long drought of age group water polo play in the Northeast. When the Brooklyn Hustle swam off against the Souderton Seahawks in an 18U match, it ended a span of 398 days since the last sanctioned age group polo match took place in the country’s most populous region.

That Pennsylvania was leading the way in reopening Eastern age group play will come as little surprise to those familiar with the region. Last fall, high schools across the state overcame COVID-19 restrictions to hold both boys and girls play. Their efforts culminated in an unofficial state championship last November that was swept by Cumberland Valley.

[Water Polo-Starved North Allegheny Players and Parents Get an Outdoor Fix]

What’s noteworthy is that American Water Polo (AWP)—a sometimes unloved stepchild to USA Water Polo (USAWP), the national governing body for the sport in America—has been responsible for restarting club play in the Northeast following the long COVID-19 layoff.

As represented by the recently-elected board of the Northeast Zone, USAWP has yet to formulate concrete plans for a return to play, leaving local members in limbo.

AWP has returned to play—and it’s going well

In a recent email, Dan Sharadin described how AWP would safely re-launch its annual spring competition for boys’ and girls’ 12U, 14U and 18U teams up and down the East Coast. Which the AWP has done brilliantly, hosting approximately 170 matches for 15 clubs at various high school in the Philadelphia suburbs—competition that has provided Northeastern polo athletes a vital lifeline to their sport and their friends.

Sharadin, who has arguably done more for water polo outside of California then anyone, is the director of AWP, which facilitates age group play in the Midwest as well as Pennsylvania, where the organization is located. He’s perhaps best known as the Commissioner of the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA)—the country’s largest reservoir of collegiate and club polo programs.

[Dan Sharadin, CWPA Commissioner, On The Record]

Given the ravages of the pandemic, which for a year halted play for most teams throughout the country, it’s almost impossible to rank teams. So little is known about who has been allowed to practice, with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Maryland having wildly different coronavirus protocols regarding public venues and youth sports.

Sharadin promised that  AWP will “do its best” to “create a better competitive experience,” To ensure this he advised coaches to contact the AWP office and provide assessments of their clubs.

In an effort to give teams more games against opponents of similar ability, we are trying something different this season. It will not be perfect, but the main feedback we have received from teams is the frustration with playing games that were not competitive. Clearly, there is no perfect way to rank everyone, especially since some rosters may change with COVID concerns. However, we will do our best to work this out.

Please consider this season as a work in progress and an effort to create a better competitive experience for your athletes. To that end, if you have a specific preference or want to provide input regarding your team’s strength, please email us today…...

The upshot: to ensure that that competition is fair—and enjoyable—for all, ask the clubs to regulate themselves.

Five weeks into the AWP season, the competition has been exciting—if at times uneven—and the league’s underlying principle has remained consistent: Let them play.

In a recent interview, Damon Newman, the AWP’s Director of Membership, emphasized how important getting back to playing has been for his organization.

We’ve always wanted kids to play whether it’s a COVID season or not. Any team you run a league from year to year, you know who plays a lot, who has a lot of kids involved—this team is going to be strong than that team.

However, it’s a really hard thing to predict top to bottom. We’ve always tried to make it as level as possible and get teams to play [others] of like ability.

It’s been doubly tough this season because people have been out of the water and they’re not practicing as much as they were while some teams have only had a couple of days of practice and this is their first competition since the fall. Or even spring 2020.

What we’re trying to do is get athletes back in the water and enjoy the game that we all love. To administrate, to coach and to create opportunities for athletes to enjoy the sport.

This approach stands in contrast to recently-announced events in the region by USA Water Polo, AWP’s primary competition for age group polo athletes and their membership fees. USAWP has struggled to regain its stride during the pandemic due to a lack of pool time in California and the lingering impact of sexual abuse allegations against Bahram Hojreh, a former age group coach in Irvine.

[Appearances Aside, Lingering Sex Abuse Controversy at the Heart of USA Water Polo]

USAWP’s most recent proposal for fostering play in the East? Offer a handful of Olympic Development Program (ODP) weekend camps in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; 3.5 hours from Greenwich, Connecticut—currently the heart of polo in the region. In a period when very few clubs have been able to practice, it’s surprising that all the sport’s NGB has to offer in this region are weekend try-outs for all-star camps.

Not so long ago, the Northeast Zone fostered competition in Connecticut at two of the regions’ best pools: the Greenwich YMCA and Stamford’s Chelsea Piers. The Tri-State League was one of the best tournaments around, with eight to ten clubs in multiple age groups competing two weekends a month both in the fall and the spring. COVID-19 has apparently put an end to this competition, which is why it’s been so vital that AWP, which has organized a spring league centered in Pennsylvania for decades, kick off competition.

This is not to suggest that USAWP is directly responsible for competitive play in this, or any part of the country. Sponsored by Greenwich Aquatics, there’s been no indications from the Northeast Zone’s board—installed last January—that a new slate of matches is on the horizon, despite a need for competition by clubs fortunate enough to have survives this brutal stretch without matches or practice.

But it does raise the question: if AWP has been able to find pools and sponsor competition, why can’t USAWP?

In a pandemic, ODP is not the answer

In responding to the pandemic, USAWP has rebranded it’s ODP events “Zone Skills Clinics” and made them more affordable. That’s admirable, but the problem persists: what is the function of these events beyond providing a platform for the region’s top athletes to compete nationally?

It’s debatable how ODP events help local clubs who need access to pool time for practice. And, it creates quandaries for local parents: their kids need competitive experience, so how does a camp that includes athletes who have been playing throughout the past year help their child progress? Try as they might, skills camps cannot replicate real competition. Plus, the competition can be too steep, causing discontent and discouragement.

Past ODP camps in the NEZ have often had the feel of a coronation for Greenwich athletes, who have access to exceptional training under Head Coach Ulmis Iordache and his staff. Which is deserved; Greenwich has enjoyed noteworthy success in developing players for ODP and collegiate programs. In 2016 Thomas Dunston was the first player from the Northeast to make the US Olympic roster since Wolf Wigo, and Charlie Owens, another Greenwich product, enjoyed a spectacular collegiate career at Harvard. But seeing more players from the Northeast’s best program succeed does nothing to help athletes who need opportunity to develop their potential.

A “get more kids to play” approach dovetails with what Ian Davidson, USA Water Polo Coach Education Coordinator and Boys Development National Team Coach, said in an interview earlier this year.

“There are athletes out there, and that’s the biggest key.” Davidson said. “There’s a shift in the value of winning today versus looking at long-term potential. I don’t necessarily select the best 18 kids for the development team. That’s not my job. My job is not to win tomorrow at a championship for 14 year-olds. It’s to find a balance between the kids who are really good now that our going to timeline out to still be good—and the kids who have no idea that they could be good because they’re Labrador puppies.”

[Ian Davidson of USA Water Polo: Waiting for a Renaissance after the Dark Ages of COVID-19]

Which puts the actions of Sharadin and his organization in contrast to the ODP model; getting many kids to play will not only do wonders to encourage a polo revival in the region. It may encourage the next Dunston, or Owens or Wigo to just play, and not be focused on how well he or she stacks up against the region’s best in a winner-take-all tryout.

Making it possible for kids to play—safely—is perhaps the best thing any organization can do at the moment. Kudos to AWP for recognizing, and responding, to that pressing need.