USA Water Polo

Official Name of Club: Sun Devil Water Polo Club

Director of Club: The club is operated by a board consisting of coaches and parents.

On the Web: www.sundevilwaterpolo.org

Coaches: Director Mark Lawrence is the main coach but has help from a host of volunteers including some current ASU collegiate players.

Number of Members: Overall the club has close to 100 members with 35 in the masters program, 25 at the collegiate level and 40 in the high school range

Home Base: The team practices mostly at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center on the campus of Arizona State University. The club also uses the Student Recreation Center on campus as well as some local high schools and middle schools.

Travelocity: The Plummer Center is located in the center of the Phoenix Metro area and some of the players have to travel 20 miles to play. With that in mind and other commitments sometimes practices can have limited participants. Then again other nights can see a full pool of water polo action with others waiting on the side to get in.

Who Do They Play?: The club is still growing so competing in a tournament like the Junior Olympics is still a goal. They did send a full girls team to the recent Winter Fest tourney and have hopes of competing in two or three upcoming events. The club may host an age group tourney later on in 2009 and is of course already well known for the Desert Dual. Now in its 20th year the Desert Dual is one of the better known master’s tournaments.

How Did They Get Started? The current version of the club started five years ago has a pilot season to create an environment for the sport and introduce it to the area and the ASU community. It was pretty limited early on as some nights only one athlete would show up. Since then the club has continued to grow through more promotion and the offering of things like a free clinic to encourage local high school athletes.

A Tradition Like No Other: The Masters portion of the club is what really got it started and from there it has taken off with other age groups. At one point there was a pilot program of cross training with the Sun Devil Aquatics Swim group and one of the swimmers immediately joined the water polo group after trying it out. That helped the word of mouth movement in having other athletes sign up. The club has also taken advantage of the US Leagues program as they have some 100 high school players affiliated with USA Water Polo through a league.

What's Up Next?: The club hopes to continue to promote the sport of water polo and act as a facilitator for the sport in Arizona. They also hope to put together a program for the younger athletes that will give them an opportunity to rise to the various levels of water polo. There is also hope for future growth at the high school level in and around the Tempe area. New programs have sprouted up at Chandler and Chaparral High School and those join already ongoing programs at Desert Vista, Highland, Mesa, Red Mountain, Basha, and Westwood just to name a few. Some high schools have also contacted Sun Devil about how to start their own club, another good sign in growing the sport.

Setting Up Structure: Another one of the many goals of the club is to further cement their structure as an organization. Local cities have been more amicable about the availability of pool time for water polo or potentially modifying their pools for water polo which is a huge step in the right direction. In addition more USA Water Polo referees are now in the area making for more quality matches and two non profit organizations have been set up to help facilitate the club.

For more information on Sun Devil Water Polo visit www.sundevilwaterpolo.org