On The Record with Andy Lewandowski, Board Chair for USAWP Northeast Zone

Andrew Lewandowski, head of the New Haven Hydras age group club and long-time Northeastern water polo coach, has recently taken on a new role: Board Chair for USA Water Polo’s Northeast Zone (NEZ).

Welcome, Andy, to one of the most challenging polo positions in the region!

A volunteer, Lewandowski was tapped by his six fellow board members to lead the zone, assuming his responsibilities this January just as the country is emerging from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s not been an easy moment for polo in the Northeast. Before COVID-19 struck with deadly force more than a year ago, the region—one of the country’s most populous—had enjoyed a steady rise in popularity of age group competition.

Now, the challenge is to knit back together a coalition of clubs stretching from Annapolis in Maryland to Greenwich in Connecticut to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. A concrete sign of the NEZ board’s efforts is a 16U tournament beginning this Saturday at The St. James sports complex in Springfield, Virginia.

Lewandowski responded to questions about the current state of water polo in the zone, the renewal of play in Pennsylvania under the banner of American Water Polo’s (AWP)—USAWP’s long-time rival—and new initiatives he and his fellow zone board members are developing to strengthen the sport in the Northeast.

- The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in tough times all over the country. How have you and your club responded to the challenges presented by the pandemic?

We shut down last spring. In the summer, we started running “practices” in backyard pools. The pool at my house was used 5 or 6 days a week. We limited it to 8 kids per session due to the size of the pool. In the fall we began non-contact practices, moving to intra-squad scrimmages in November.

Due to COVID-19, we shut down from late November to January. We restarted in February and were non-contact until 3 weeks ago. We have run some scrimmages with other teams, but had to cancel one date, as we had a couple of kids get COVID-19.

It has been very stressful to run a club under these circumstances, but we are very lucky to have a supportive host site, Albertus Magnus College.

- The Northeast Zone is spread out along the coast with an inland presence in Pennsylvania. This is also the home base of American Water Polo—a rival to USAWP for group memberships.

[Pennsylvania] the state with the most kids playing the sport in our zone, works with another sanctioning entity. I’ve known Dan Sharadin since the mid-nineteen eighties and the Yale teams I coached for a decade and a half were members of the CWPA. We often traveled to Villanova to play against his teams and his teams came to Yale and played in our tournaments. I have a lot of respect for him.

With that said, it is foolish to think that that the health of the sport in our zone is not impacted by the absence of PA’s participation (I am originally from Reading, PA). There is no easy answer to this. Dan started AWP for reasons that were compelling for him. One of the first things I did was reach out to Dan and to USA Water Polo to understand where there might be opportunities to collaborate. Unfortunately, there was no low-hanging fruit, but I am an opportunist and will keep trying to find linkages.

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

There are 30+ public high schools [in Pennsylvania] playing the sport and probably 10-15 private schools in the state—and at the Youth ODP [Olympic Development Program] level there were three or four kids who tried out for the team two years ago. We need to find a way to collaborate with American Water Polo that respects the integrity of their organization and USA Water Polo.

- You, and one of your NEZ board members, Peter Smith, have mentioned a focus on getting more girls in the zone to play polo.

I feel strongly that girls are under-represented in the sport. There is only one club, Greenwich, that can consistently field girls’ teams in our zone. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that we have had one of the most dominant teams in the world—The USA Women’s National Team—in any sport and almost nothing has been done to leverage that success with girls in our zone.

I am watching teams scramble to assemble girls’ teams for JOs and it’s frustrating that this is still happening. We have an all-Girls clinic scheduled for June 12-13, where Lynn Kachmarik and Alyssa Diacono are coming in to run the program. It’s not an evaluative clinic or showcase event. The focus will be on development and giving girls a chance to play against other girls. When girls have to play on boys’ teams, the opportunities to play 2-meter or guard 2-meter are limited. The last time I checked, the ratio of female to male members in our zone was 1 to 3. We need to do better.

- What general plans do you have for growing polo in the Northeast?

High schools are the keystone in building the sport in our zone. Many clubs don’t like high school teams, because the perceived level of play is lower. However, for most clubs, a water polo ecosystem without high schools leads to a lack of stability. At my own club, many kids leave the sport when they get to high school, because they can’t play at their school. If you get high schools playing, then clubs will be offshoots of those programs; you’ll draw in younger siblings, and there will be a snowball effect.

The biggest club in our zone is an offshoot of a successful high school program. Greenwich Aquatics and CT Premier would most likely not exist if Terry Lowe hadn’t run such a successful high school program in Greenwich.

Right now, there is a big void in our zone (except for PA) at the high school level. The number of public high schools with programs outside of PA can be counted on one hand. Private schools play the sport, but most people can’t afford to pay $60,000 a year for their child to play water polo on a high school team.

Josh Sill has done some really impressive work in Virginia starting high school water polo clubs. He and I have talked and we’re trying to create a roadmap for establishing high school-based clubs. Every state and district will be different, but there should be some basic steps that you need to take to get this type of effort off the ground.

- There’s a decided push from USAWP to make the sport more diverse…

On a personal level I am interested in connecting this sport to minority communities. We have exciting work taking place in New Haven. This summer we are running a Splashball clinic in conjunction with an educational enrichment program at the Foote School, called Horizons. We’ve partnered with USA Water Polo, Yale University, and Albertus Magnus College. We’ll be getting kids in the water with a ball which will be awesome.

In the fall, I’ve reached out to two New Haven schools whose populations are 90% African American/Latino. The Aquatics Director is a Slippery Rock Alum who swam and played “spring” water polo with Doc Hunkler. I am very excited to get this initiative moving forward.

- As you look at the overall health of clubs in the NEZ, what is your assessment? Have clubs in the East fared better or worse than those in other zones?

If your question is during COVID, I am not really able to answer that. Some regions/zones are open so they’ve been able to have more activity; I’m thinking particularly of Florida and Texas.

If the question is more broad-based, my answer is that our zone has one super-club, Greenwich, and we need a few other “anchor” clubs to provide balance and assistance to others throughout the zone. Navy has potential and I like the direction they’re heading in. Cumberland Valley has potential, as does Capital. The fact that Asphalt Green is engaging with the sport is encouraging as well.

As a zone, we are top heavy and what I mean by that is that we have a focus on elite level play to the detriment of grassroots development. For example, before this summer’s JOs got switched around, we were only going to be able to have two slots for 16U boys, which is the second lowest allocation of USA Water Polo’s zones for that age group.

Greenwich likely has a team that would finish in the top 5 teams if they could participate at a National JOs in that age group. No other zone outside of California has a club that performs that well. But we have the second fewest boys in our zone playing the sport. Again, not having the active participation of Pennsylvania is a challenge and the absence of public school teams is also problematic.

The push is on elite level play and we simply need to introduce the sport to more kids, because that will ultimately help everyone. And there are only 14 members of the National Team, but you can still have a lot of fun and have great experiences playing the sport without making it to that level.

The more people we get involved with the sport, the better it will be for the sport long-term. Many of my club’s participants come from families where a parent played the sport.

- American Water Polo restarted play in March. Was there any plan for the Zone to hold competition before national JOs?

The clubs in the zone sent out an email in March about return to play, but there wasn’t a great response. I think there was a lack of comfort with hosting large tournaments, like the Tri-State under the current conditions. In fact, most facilities would not permit this type of event.

However, many clubs have traveled to play individual games, including Navy, Pittsburgh, Capital, CT Premier, and Greenwich. We are running tournaments on May 29-30 and June 5-6 for the 16U and 18U age groups. These are not going to be JO Qualifiers, but most of the teams participating will likely consider going.

- The Tri-State League was a very popular tournament that was helping grow polo in the region. It’s clear it won’t come back this spring; when might clubs in the East expect this competition to resume? If it does, where do you anticipate competition being centered?

This is a conversation that I want to have after we get through JOs. My hope is that Greenwich continues to host. I would not be opposed to Asphalt Green or other facilities hosting. For our tournament on May 29-30 and June 5-6, we are playing at the St. James in VA and Wissahickon High School outside of Philly. We want to play at different locations.

One thing I’ll say is that the pool rentals are not cheap! They are significantly more expensive than what we’re used to seeing. I’m not sure if it is due to COVID, but it’s something we’ll have to keep working on. Local play is really critical to all of the programs in our zone. We have teams in Virginia Beach and Richmond and they don’t have many opportunities to play other clubs. Pittsburgh is another club that is isolated.

- I’m of the opinion that— given that so many athletes and clubs have struggled to get back in the water—holding ODP camps in the zone at this time is counterproductive. What was your / the board’s thinking regarding the value ODP as the region is emerging from coronavirus restrictions?

The one thing that needs to be understood is that ODP is a national program and the Zone Board does not have control over it. We coordinate with ODP to avoid conflicts, but that program is run by the National organization and we have no control over it.