By In many ways a transitionary year, 2013 presented some surprises to US water polo fans. Much in the interscholastic game remained the same or at least returned to the status quo, but not without some genuine and welcome turbulence along the way.
And though the highest echelons of US water polo have no formal connection to what goes on in high school and college water polo, there is a sense that things are going to change some with a new regime in place at the men’s national team. But before we predict the forthcoming year, a recap of some of the biggest stories of 2013. If we missed something let us know on Twitter (@TotalWaterpolo) or below in the comments.
Mater Dei Title and Win Streaks End
Perhaps the finest boy’s high school team in history won over 100 matches in a row before finally succumbing to fate and history. First, San Diego’s Cathedral shocked the Monarchs to end the win streak at 105. Then Harvard-Westlake dismantled them in the fall’s CIF Southern Section Championship, denying Mater Dei a sixth consecutive section championship. With the victory the Wolverines earned our unofficial number one ranking in the US. Neither a Monarch resurgence nor new blood among the top CA teams would surprise us in 2014. But until then, Harvard-Westlake and coach Brian Flacks have earned the “giant killer” label of 2013.
Two Epic NCAA Championship Matches Go USC’s Way
2013 was a good year for Trojans head coach Jovan Vavic, who tallied his ninth national championship overall (and whose women are expected to compete for yet another in 2014). More notable, though, was his teams’ victories in two of the finest NCAA championships ever. The women endured Stanford’s onslaught, fought back to take the game in to overtime, and prevailed after nine periods to win the title in one of the colossal women’s matches in US history. All the men did was erase a two-goal deficit with three minutes remaining against upstart Pacific and win the match in overtime in front of a jam-packed Northern California crowd to earn its sixth consecutive championship trophy.
Pacific’s Historic Men’s Season
An NCAA Championship victory, which was within reach for the Tigers, would have produced a story for the ages in the collegiate water polo community. Instead, a wrenching overtime loss slightly reduced the weight of its stunning and wildly successful season, which will long be remembered for shattering the wall separating the “top four” collegiate teams from everyone else. Graduation is likely to handicap any chance of a repeat in 2014 for the Tigers. But now that they did it, who says someone else won’t next year?
Udovicic Takes Over US Men’s Senior Team
The search for a new men’s national team leader led USA Water Polo officials as close as up-the-405 Long Beach and as far as Frankfurt, Germany. In the end the highly successful Serb, Dejan Udovicic was selected over Italian Carlo Silipo (too similar to Terry Schroeder, according to a source familiar with the selection), Long Beach State’s Gavin Arroyo, and UCLA’s Adam Wright. With Udovicic comes a European fanaticism for fundamentals and a commitment to enlarging the team…literally. Small, crafty athletes may have to make way for more linebacker-sized ones. The new coach also announced the return of professional water polo to the US, coming in 2015, among other things.
The Team That Could Surpass Mater Dei’s Winning Streak
Lost in the well-deserved clamor surrounding Mater Dei’s record-smashing 105-game winning streak was the fact that another boys’ team in the US could quite easily surpass it next fall. The Rams of Rockford ended their fall season by coincidentally earning their 100th consecutive victory in the Michigan state high school championship match. With it they hold the unofficial record among boys and will look to expand upon it while attempting a third straight state title in 2014. The girls’ team took home the state trophy too.
Stanford Women Tap Midwest, East for Talent
With most notable signings of talent among the top four women’s teams coming from California or Europe, the Cardinal strayed slightly from the script and validated the improving state of play in US states that aren’t “Golden.” Three top players from Michigan, Illinois, and New Jersey were invited to The Farm for the 2013-14 season where the Cardinal are expected to compete for another national championship.
Farewell to the Colorado State Rams Women’s Program
Another year and another program cut. After nine years Colorado State administrators decided that soccer was a more natural fit for the university than women’s water polo and announced that the latter was to be cut. The women ended the season with a flourish earning fourth at the WWPA tournament, matching their best result ever.
Monmouth (IL) Joins the NCAA Fray
The Scots of Monmouth completed its first season under NCAA sanction as the men competed as a Division III squad in the fall. They finished the year with five wins, nine losses and a new appreciation for water polo at the varsity level. The women will earn their varsity letters with the CWPA this coming spring.
Spanish-laden Lindenwood Nearly Wins Club Title
Tiny Lindenwood (MO) nearly shocked the men’s club water polo world by earning a spot in the CWPA club title match. Their efforts were derailed by UCLA in a less-than-stellar final, but one that highlighted some of the unique talent that somehow found its way to Missouri via Spain.
American Football Faces its Greatest Challenge
For several years we have monitored data from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, which indicates statistically insignificant injuries among water polo athletes (in no way diminishing those that do occur), and quite the opposite among football players. And while reporting on significant growth in California high school water polo we not-so-subtly mentioned a downward trend in high school football participation rates. Though not a subject we’ve addressed directly so far we add it to our year-end list because we believe that a confluence of phenomena in 2013 may genuinely begin to drive young American athletes away from the country’s most popular (and profitable) sport for the first time.
It is increasingly evident that the violence inherent in American football correlates to a significant degree with tangible brain damage among many of its athletes. The data supporting that assertion has emerged gradually over the last decade, but has now been validated both by the National Football League’s $765 million settlement last August with over 4,000 of its own former athletes who claimed such injuries, and by such exposés as the recently published League of Denial and an accompanying documentary by PBS’s Frontline.
As unapologetic fans of the game you won’t find any cheap gloating about those terrible results here. But to deny that this is an historic opportunity for our sport to intensify its attempts to recruit young men who would otherwise be drawn to football would be foolish. We can and we should. With still over 100,000 football players in California high schools alone, there is much talent that families should be happy to have join our sport.
In the coming year we expect to highlight this issue more. Until then, consider the issue to be our least reported but perhaps most important issue of 2013.
