Official Name of Club:
Los Angeles Water Polo Club
Director of Club:
Dawn Barrett (Operations)
On the Web:
www.losangeleswaterpolo.com
Age Groups and Genders of Club:
10U Coed
12U Boys & Girls
14U Boys & Girls
16U Boys & Girls
18U Boys & Girls
20U Men’s & Women’s
Premier League (Men’s)
Club Coaches and which groups they coach:
10U Coed/12U Boys – Brian Flacks
12U/14UGirls – Anthony Vela
14U Boys – Larry Felix
16U Girls – Jason Rosenthal
16U Boys – Dustin Litvak
18U Girls – Eric Mandel
18U Boys – Kyle Witt & Matt Flesher
Additional Coaches on staff: Will Didinger, Brandon Brooks,Tyler Jemmett, Clay
Jorth, Tyler Smith, Dylan Mobley, Andy Walsh, Quinn Delgado
Number of members:
When the entire club is in session (including high school athletes): 312
How they got started:
The club was founded in 1987 under the name of Harvard Water Polo Foundation
and served as a small local program (predominantly boys) based out of
Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City with about 35 age group members.
In January of 2003 under the guidance of Richard Corso the club did a
legal name change to Los Angeles Water Polo Club and expanded by adding both South Bay
and Agoura satellites. At the same time, the club added a girls/women’s
side for all age groups. Presently the club has grown to over 300 athletes
ranging from 6 – 20 years of age.
Home is where the heart is:
Because of the tremendous size of LAWPC both in membership and geography they
use multiple pools in a satellite setup. During the week athletes train in a
pool close to their home and then the weekends are reserved for common
trainings. At these common trainings athletes from the same age group are
brought together to work with the head coach of their age group.
LAWPC Pools/Locations:
Studio City Area
Harvard-Westlake
School
Westside/Los
Angeles
Loyola
Marymount University
Valley Pools
Agoura
High School
Calabasas
High School
South Bay Pools
Mira
Costa High
School
Chadwick
High School
Peninsula
High School
Palos
Verdes High
School
Where do they play? More like who don’t they play?:
LAWPC takes part in just about every competition available and just about every
national championship that USA Water Polo offers. As for USA Water Polo events
the club takes part in Premier League, Junior Olympics (12 teams in 2008), 20
and Under Women’s National Championships, Speedo Cup, and the Speedo Top 40.
Outside of that they will travel to events like the US Club Championships, the
Albert Open, and the Florida International Tournament. The club tries to travel
once a year to an international event, usually in March. They take a
combination of age group athletes to these events from both the boys and girls
sides. Locally they take part in the California Cup, Coastal Zone League play,
San Diego County Cup, Winterfest, Commerce Invitational and anything else they
can get their hands on.
Blastoff to Beijing:
A big highlight for the club this year was the appearance of three players on
the Men’s Olympic Team. Peter Hudnut, Brandon Brooks, and JW Krumpholz who have
all suited up for the club’s Premier League squad were part of the Silver Medal
winning squad this past summer in China.
Growth through excellent communication:
With the layout of the club spread out over a vast area, communication and
quality are extremely important. The club has successfully grown due to the
combined efforts of the staff and their team coordinators. LAWPC is very
fortunate to employ a core group of coaches that have immense knowledge and individual
talent in the sport of water polo. Several of the staff are
current/former National Team Players (Brandon Brooks, Larry Felix, Kevin Witt),
College Coaches (Kyle Witt – LMU, Matt Flesher & Brandon Brooks – UCLA),
CIF Championship Coaches (Jason Rosenthal & Dusty Litvak) and
current/former collegiate players (Will Didinger, Tyler Jemmett, Clay Jorth,
Dylan Mobley, Tyler Smith, Brian Flacks – all UCLA, Quinn Delgado –
Pepperdine).
In addition to the outstanding coaches the club gets a huge contribution from
volunteers. The volunteer team coordinators (Peggy McClintick, Cari Kuprenas,
Mikke Pierson, Brenda Manke, Stephanie Chavez, Maureen Takahashi) disseminate information
almost daily to the athletes regarding practice times/locations, tournament
rosters/schedule, tryouts, and other pertinent club information.
Without their efforts, and some of them correspond with 90+ athletes,
the club would not be successful - they are the backbone of LA Water Polo.
What’s next for LAWPC?:
While the club is thrilled with what it has accomplished thus far they
definitely believe there is room for improvement. One of those areas is winning
national championships. With eight titles already on their resume they are
looking for more in 2009. In addition they hope to just generally overall
improve the club. According to club administrator Dawn Barrett the key to
accomplishing the improvement is “focusing on improving the quality of our
program, particularly the vertical integration process as the athletes move up
in age groups. We have recently brought Rich Corso back on a part-time
basis to offer “coaches colleges” to our staff – helping evaluate training
strategies and to implement an overall high performance plan for the club.
We intend to create and implement a curriculum for the progression of
skills and tactics throughout our program, identifying the skills and tactical
knowledge needed for each age group and developing a plan to help coaches
foster their progression.”
Another goal is to hold an annual event which brings the club together. A
veritable club day is set for May 17 that will consist of an afternoon filled
with fun, food and activity for everyone in the club. There will be games
played throughout the day, a silent auction, and great food to eat. The club is
hoping to connect everyone together and get a true “community” feel within the
group.
Taking care of their own:
One of the great things about LA Water Polo is the ability to offer
scholarships to players in financial
need. LAWPC is a non-profit organization and holds an annual fund raiser to
provide financial assistance to
athletes as well as fund other items identified by the Board of Directors.
There is also a Financial Committee that review applications and rewards
scholarships based on need. This allows the club to help grow the sport
of water polo and give back to the surrounding communities.
Pick a college, any college:
LAWPC has sent a host of players off to the collegiate ranks
of water polo. Below is a list of players and where they have landed in spots
all over the country
Arizona State University - Katy Lawlor & Joey Sparks
Bucknell - Nick Doyle, Andy Nelson & Alex Lovell
Brown - Max Lubin, Corey Schwartz, Hank Weintraub & Joanna Wohlmuth
California Lutheran University - Merdith Butte, Brandon Gross & Whitney
Haroldson
California State University, Bakersfield - Jessica Manke
California State University, Northridge- Whitney Delgado
Claremont McKenna- Jonah Chodosh
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges - Andrew Zepfel
Hartwick - Alice Gustafson
Harvard - Jay Connolly, Devon McLaughlin, Alex Thompson
Johns Hopkins- Bennett Givens
Loyola Marymount University – Alex Wike, Kristine Fernandez, Casey Flacks,
Patrick Hibler, Kim Shales
Michigan - Nicole Santarosa
Occidental - Blair Bergensteinsson
Orange Coast College - Calvin Moffett & Casey Sullivan
Pepperdine - Jordan Watson
Princeton - Zach Beckmann, Alex Edmunds,
Natalie Kim & Eric Vreeland
Pomona-Pitzer – Perri Hopkns
Santa Clara - Dailey Meistrall & Katie Moore
Stanford - Will Hindle-Katel, Jeffrey Schwimer & Brian Pingree
United States Naval Academy - Matt Carlson & Alex Kofsky
UC Berkeley - Meghan Corso, Coral Kemp & Andrew Nesbit
UC Davis - Matt Richardson
UC Irvine - Nick Burdiak, Kelsey Haroldson & Liz Seward
UCLA - Cole Consani, Kim Nelson, John Wilkins
UC San Diego - Sam de Castro-Abeger, Sean Roberts, Kevin Skinner & Markayla
Quane
UC Santa Barbara - Brent McCunney, Alli Perez, Stefan Partelow, Elle Quane,
Jessie Tootell & Jillian Waldron
UC Santa Cruz - Chris Roman
University of Hawaii - Sara Gralitzer, Megan O’Linn & Sivan Pardon
USC - Teckla Beckmann, Matt Burton, Kristine Cato, Nadia Dan, Juan Delgadillo,
Billy Evashwick, Jeff Giery, Ronnie Giery, Nick Gray, Peter Kurzeka, Nick
Niemann, Erin O’Donnell, Andrew Platt, Justin Rappel, Julie Spataru
Ventura College - Alana Altmann & Erik Brenner
For more information on Los Angeles Water Polo Club visit www.losangeleswaterpolo.com
