By 
Long a fixture in the Missouri water polo scene, Coach Miguel Figueras recently accepted a position as the Assistant Coach of the US Men’s Cadet National Team. The DeSmet High School head coach and St. Louis Area Polo (SLAP) club director took part in the National Team Selection Camp in Orange County, CA ending May 27, an experience about which he wrote in detail on SLAP’s web site.
For most water polo fans, coaches, athletes, and parents in the US, the experience of participating in a national team selection camp will always be a foreign one. Coach Figueras’ fascinating observations offer a unique view in to such an event, and do so with the unjaded eyes of a Midwesterner not ensconced in the hotbed of American water polo, Orange County.
Such a report deserves a wider audience. We are pleased to reprint Coach Figueras’ blog entries in their entirety and with his permission. Final selections for the camp can be found here.
Day 1
The day started with my alarm going off at 4 AM CDT. By 6 AM I was in the air headed for Dallas. After a quick change of planes I was back in the air on my way to Orange County. By 11 AM I had my rental van shuttling players back and forth between the airport and the hotel. After a quick lunch at Cafe Rio, I had to head back to the airport to pick up my final group. They grabbed lunch at In ‘n’ Out Burger and we arrived at the hotel just in time for the 3:30 coaches meeting. By 4:30 we were in the vans headed to Santa Margarita Catholic High School for training.
We have about 70 boys in our group. It is my job to help get this number to 28. Tonight we trained from 5 to 9 PM. I was put in charge of leading the group through the dry land warm up, the swim warm up and the first activity, which was all of our technical movements. Many of these drills are the same drills we do with SLAP and at DeSmet.
We broke into small groups. My partner is Coach Dave Schiffner who is the head coach at Honolulu High School. Our job was to lead our group through many of the defense oriented drills. From the top the message we are instilling in the players is do “deny the ball at center.” We are to press as hard as we can, only play zone when needed, and try to get back into a press ASAP. This starts immediately on the counter by trying to gain ball side. Those athletes that can do this will have more success than those that struggle with this concept.
We finished around 9 PM and arrived back at the hotel around 9:40. Dinner was salad, chicken, mashed potatoes & rolls. The boys can eat. The coaches finally got to eat around 10:15. We are up and out the door at 7:15 AM. We train from 8 AM – noon and then again from 3 PM – 6 PM. Stay tuned for more.
Day 2
Two training sessions were planned for today. The first was from 8 AM until noon and then the second from 3 PM – 6 PM. I was up by 5:30 AM local time. Took care of some emails, spoke with both Coach Andrew and Coach Corey regarding SLAP business and then off to breakfast at 6:30 AM. Luckily there is a Bread Co. half a mile a way so I was able to load up on iced tea for the morning. Coach Schiffner also is an iced tea drinker. Everyone else seems to need their coffee.
The theme this morning was offense and breaking a press. What was emphasized more than anything regarding breaking the press was not what you would think. The last tactic used would be the drive. First and foremost is finishing the counter and proper spacing. Making sure the front line gets down to the 2-meter line and that we are in proper balance. The second is making sure the ball is out of the cage while the offense is still in transition. In other words, don’t let the defense get set up in a press. Once the ball is in front court, then come the releases.
We worked on pop, cross-over, and cut-off releases for most of the time and then applied them to the game situations, specifically when the ball starting at position 3 and the center holding the 1-2 side. Position X2 presses, 2 releases but this absorbs the foul from X2. X2 then drops to cover center while 3 has to release. X3 now fouls and stair-steps to press position 2.
This was a very difficult drill for many of the players to run, but it encompasses everything that we have worked on so far. Even at this level there are a few players that really stand out, especially because the players were grouped according to ability. At noon we broke and returned to the hotel for lunch from Subway.
We returned to the pool at 3 PM and worked on counter attack. Lots of swimming. All you could really hear was “front line finish to the 2 meter,” “get deeper,” “why aren’t you attacking,” or “don’t stop on the counter or everyone will stop behind you.” Sound familiar?
At 6 PM we returned to the hotel. Bryan Lynton (Head Coach), Dave Merryman and myself went to watch the last hour of the Youth Team (Brett Ormsby’s team) training. Saw Parker Cayse from Marquette. He is having a good camp, learning a lot & absorbing all he can. Afterwards Dave, Brian and I went out to dinner at Maru Sushi with Sean Nolan (Goalie Coach), Zac Koerner (Youth Assistant Coach & University of the Pacific Asst. Coach) as well as Coach Drew Klute from Clovis area. Very long, but productive day.
Day 3
After returning to the hotel from dinner on Day 2 I really don’t think I realized how tired I was. I sat down on my bed around 11 PM thinking I would just watch TV for 15 minutes, shower and then go to bed. Next thing I know it was 6:30 AM on Day 3 and I had fallen asleep on my bed. Oh, well.
My roommate, Coach Sean Murray from the Southwest Zone, and I both headed down to breakfast after our respective showers. By 7 AM I was at Bread Co. getting my iced tea, as well as teas for the other coaches that are getting hooked. At 7:15 we were in the vans. This morning’s workouts consisted of a swim test of 8 50s on :45 right into 3 225s on 3:15. Players were expected to hold :32 on the 50s and 2:38 on the 225s. There are some very fast players here.
Most of these kids are birth year 2000. This is very important because FINA sets most of the tournament age requirements we will participate in. The USA is one of the few countries that sets tournaments by grade or by current age. Most are set by birth year. So in the case of our team, a very favorable birthday is 2000. If you have a 1999 it’s tough because while you might be a great player, you are too old for what we are training for, but too young for the next level.
After our swim test, the focus was on 6 on 5 offense. Some of the players really get it and some are still struggling and feel that every time they are open they need to shoot the ball. Short, safe passes with lots of rotation are the theme. In addition to assisting the national team, I am pulling double duty and coaching at the camp. So I am responsible for evaluating 10 athletes that are here. I spent most of the morning watching them and taking notes. Training ended at noon.
We returned to the hotel where we had lunch. Chipotle was ordered for everyone. If you didn’t get your order into our team manager, Dave Merryman, you got a chicken burrito. No one complained. Each room was supposed to get 2 bags of chips and salsa, but being 13 and 14 they heard they each got 2 bags of chips and salsa. I made my afternoon tea runs.
After lunch I was able to call home and talk to my wife and kids, who have been amazing throughout this whole process. Friday was my 16-year anniversary and Saturday was my oldest son’s graduation mass. When this opportunity came up they both said, “go for it!” Before heading back to the pool I topped off the iced teas and loaded up the van.
We spent the afternoon focusing on 5 on 6 defense. At this time I was asked to pay special attention to a few players. We have 28 spots and have a good idea of our top 20. We have several players we are watching closely for the last few spots and so we were watching them play. It was a long afternoon.
Our van became the sunburn van as players from the Midwest, Northeast, Mountain and Pacific Northwest are with me, along with the Goalie Coach Danielle. On the way back we made a stop at Alberton’s so she could get them Aloe. The players all needed to buy important things like a half gallon of ice cream, 10 Pop Tarts and a loaf of white bread. It’s fun to see the kids that don’t know each other bond as well. Cooper, from Utah, can’t get Aubry back home to return his texts. So he gave her number out to everyone in the van and they all texted her. Now Aubry is good friends with Rayce from Dallas. I wonder if that will last?
I dropped the players off at the hotel then went with Dave and our head coach, Bryan Lynton and our assistant, Brian Anderson to watch the Cadet Team camp. Brett Ormsby is the coach. Brett is a former Olympian and UCLA player. He is the head coach of Del Mar in the San Diego area. I asked Brett tons of questions and he has been very helpful. I checked in with our Midwest players, Parker Cayse from Marquette and Andrew Sashin from Stevenson High School in IL. Andrew just arrived this morning as this weekend his team was playing in the final four of their state tournament. After camp, Brian, Bryan, Dave and I headed to dinner at place in South Coast Plaza called Karl’s. Very good food. All three are amazing coaches and I just kept firing questions off of them. They are so open and willing to share info. I can’t wait to put much of this into practice.
We finally returned to the hotel where the rest of the staff had been hard at it hammering out evaluations. I jumped in and joined them. Since many ate around 6:30 they were getting hungry. Around midnight I made a run to Del Taco for them. They do have brewed iced tea. It was like being in college again. I finally finished around 2 AM. It has been a very long day. I had hoped to run tomorrow, but will probably skip. The plan for tomorrow is to let them play and see if we have overlooked anyone. Should be fun.
Day 4
Our final day started with a 6 AM wake up call. I didn’t get to sleep until around 3 AM, so I was (am) pretty tired. The plan was to split the kids into six even teams and let them play a camp tournament. We were starting at 8 AM and wrapping up at 11:30. So once we left the hotel, we weren’t coming back.
I made it down to breakfast at 6:50 AM and by 7:00 AM was at Bread Co. filling up iced teas for Coach Dave, Coach AJ and myself. At 7:15, Coach Danielle and I had our full van and were off to Santa Margarita. Coach Lynton and Coach Anderson held the coaches’ meeting while I warmed up the players. By 8:35 the games were started. Coach Lynton, Merryman, Anderson and myself talked about the last couple of players and then finalized our roster. We were told to select 28 players. The national team wanted four goalies, six centers, six defenders and 12 attackers. Parents were not allowed to attend the camp until the final day.
Once the tournament ended, the stands were filled with players and parents. Coach Lynton introduced Coach Merryman, Anderson, Coach Danielle and myself and thanked our seven zone coaches that attended. He emphasized that this group of athletes are the top 70 players in the country and that is something to be proud off. It’s quite an accomplishment to have beaten out several other players just to get this far. He also made sure that players knew just because they were cut doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try again. He read the names of the 28 players and then thanked everyone else. We met with those 28. We congratulated them and filled them in on the next step.
They will return in June to attend a week-long training with Brett Ormsby’s team. From there a team of 13 players born in 1999 or under will be selected to attend World’s in Serbia in August. Thirteen players born in 2000 or under will be selected to attend the training camp with the Canadian National Team in August. I will be with this team in August as well as the training session in June.
For many of these players it now gets very “real” as they have a month to come into their week of training in shape and ready to work. They have a weekly swim set they must complete and send us the times.
