Fifteen months ago, a group of local 9- and 10-year-olds jumped into a swimming pool and grabbed a water polo ball for the first time.
Now, that same group is aspiring to compete in the U.S.A. Water Polo Junior Olympics next month.
Riding a wave of newfound love for water polo and their team, the One Way Water Polo Club boys’ 12-years-old-and-under (U12) team traveled to the Junior Olympic qualifiers on June 4 and 5 in Los Angeles and finished 19th, earning themselves a shot at receiving an invitation to compete in the National Junior Olympics in San Jose. A total of 72 U12 water polo teams from across the country will qualify for the main event in July.
“The boys played hard and fought tough all weekend,” One Way Club coach Miles Whitfield told the Sun. “It’s going to be very close whether we make the Junior Olympics. We won’t find that out for a couple of weeks.”
Water polo teams in the One Way Club have rarely made runs at the Junior Olympics in the past, in part because its teams are co-ed while the Olympic competition separates the genders. As a result, One Way usually doesn’t have adequate roster numbers of both boys and girls to make the run.
But this year’s U12 boys’ team was a special case. The roster gradually grew to 12 boys over the course of the past year, thanks to the enthusiasm from the players and their efforts to spread the word around town.
“We’ve kind of grown organically,” Whitfield said. “We started just with my son and then one of his friends—with just the two of them. They invited some of their friends, and just gradually we’ve been able to get more players out there.”
Whitfield, a former water polo star at University of the Pacific, joined the One Way Water Polo Club along with his son in 2015. Whitfield noted that the boys showed an impressive amount of dedication and commitment to the team over the past year, attending practices four times a week, which inspired the decision to try for the Junior Olympics.
“The boys have all been really, really consistent,” Whitfield said. “It requires a lot of commitment from the parents, and obviously from the kids too. From that, we decided that this would be a good group to take to try to qualify [for the Junior Olympics].”
Building up the water polo skills and swimming endurance levels of a dozen 9- and 10-year-olds doesn’t happen overnight. The One Way Club always starts off with the basics of swimming before rushing into the sport’s offensive and defensive schemes.
“The first things we’re going to teach kids is how to egg beater [the technique of kicking one’s legs under the water to stay afloat] and how to swim,” Whitfield said. “Freestyle and backstroke are the main strokes you’ll be using. We’ll teach them those fundamental skills.”
With those skills mastered, the One Way coaches can move on to the strategy and skills of water polo, which his U12 team picked up quite quickly.
Whitfield helped prepare the team for the qualifiers by sprinkling in some competitive tournaments in Oxnard and Santa Barbara, and matches against top teams from Orange County, to supplement their normal Ventura League games this spring.
“Orange County is kind of the mecca for youth water polo,” Whitfield chuckled. “Since the Ventura League is more of an instructional league, those were really good experiences for our guys.”
Whether or not the team ends up qualifying for the Junior Olympics, the future is bright for the boys. As far as the U12 team goes, only two of the boys are 12 years old, which means that 10 players are eligible to continue playing together next season.
“It’s a neat group,” Whitfield said. “We still have another year to go where we’re going to have this group together. We’re really building something kind of cool for them for the next couple of years.”
Whitfield noted that one of the goals of One Way is to help youth prepare for high school water polo competition, which he believes the organization does successfully.
“A lot of the Santa Maria teams have done well over the years, and we’d like to think that some of that has to do with the fact that some of the kids that come from One Way end up going to those schools,” Whitfield said. “If they can go into high school and already know the basic structure of an offense and defense, and all the basic rules, they’re way ahead of the curve.”
While any sport can have a lasting positive influence on youth—whether it’s in building teamwork or individual discipline—Whitfield said that water polo is an especially healthy sport for a developing person to take up.
“Water polo is one of the most challenging sports you can play. It requires a lot of physical discipline,” Whitfield said. “What you see from a lot of water polo players is that they have that work ethic. It’s really a great sport as far as developing people. It’s really good to see the kids get into it early.”
Contributor Peter Johnson can be reached at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jun 9-16, 2016.