The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- November 8, 1999

Making a splash

Men's and women's water polo take advantage of funding and fortune to stay above water

BY HEATHER YOST
STAFF WRITER

With a little help from some friends, water polo is growing program by program, and championship by championship.

What used to be an endangered sport has through a series of well-planned strategies -- as well as a little good fortune -- emerged to a new level. Not only are both the men's and women's games now at a championship level, but the growth of each is being staged on a national instead of regional basis.

Water polo benefited from a United States Olympic Committee (USOC) grant program started several years ago, a program that partnered with the NCAA and member conferences to encourage growth in participation opportunities to preserve endangered sports and the development of women's emerging sports.

The ECAC was awarded $400,000 of the $8 million available from the NCAA/USOC Conference Grant Committee in June 1997 to start a men's championship and encourage member institutions to add men's water polo. It was the first time water polo had a connection to an existing multisport conference in the East.

Since the partnership began in 1997, water polo has added a total of 17 women's collegiate programs [five in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC)] and an additional four men's teams, all in the ECAC. The ECAC also has added a men's conference championship. And the NCAA is considering adding a women's championship, perhaps as early as next year.

"Water polo has done a great job of utilizing the grant program," said Don Whittle, manager of athlete grants for the USOC. "Even more so, U.S. Water Polo has done an excellent job of utilizing resources beyond funding to make water polo attractive to athletics programs."

"This gives a few more teams the opportunity to compete in a high-level championship," said Dan Sharadin, director of senior and collegiate programs at U.S. Water Polo, the sport's national governing body. "Because of the distribution of teams nationally and only four schools being selected to the NCAA championship, it is particularly beneficial that the schools in the East have another championship."

The ECAC, the country's largest collegiate conference, staged its first men's water polo championship in 1997. The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, won that championship as well as the next two.

National ramifications

The National Collegiate men's water polo champion has never been from an institution outside of California. With the growth of water polo and the addition of a conference championship, ECAC schools hope they might change that tradition.

"The gap is closing," Sharadin said. "It won't be much longer before a program will benefit from all the great things happening in water polo and impact the national championship."

Women's programs should benefit as well. When conferences were bidding for the grant initially in 1997, women could not benefit from the funds being offered because women's water polo was not an Olympic sport. But in January 1998, FINA, the international governing body for the sport, announced the addition of women's water polo to the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Besides heightening the opportunities and interest in the sport, the announcement allowed USOC funds to be applied to women's water polo.

Since the announcement, 17 NCAA schools (11 from the ECAC) have initiated a program or have announced their intention of forming one. Currently, 41 institutions sponsor women's water polo, one more than the minimum number required to request a championship. In fact, the Division I Management Council gave initial approval at its October meeting to Proposal No. 99-63, which would provide for a National Collegiate championship in women's water polo. The event could happen as early as the 2000-01 academic year due to the adoption of legislation that would reduce from two to one the minimum number of years for a new women's sport to be at the required sponsorship.

A natural fit

As athletics departments push for gender equity, it is no surprise that women's water polo has taken off. Sharadin, in fact, said U.S. Water Polo was prepared to capitalize on the interest even before the grant program was initiated by offering its own funds to help encourage schools to add both men's and women's programs.

"It was certainly a bonus for us when they announced the addition of women's water polo (as an emerging sport)," Sharadin said. "In light of gender equity, we knew it would be difficult to encourage athletics programs to add only men's teams."

Four athletics programs have taken advantage of the $60,000 grant offered to athletics programs to add both men's and women's teams. They are Connecticut College, Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania State University Erie, the Behrend College and Grove City College.

"We lost two men's programs but added four," Sharadin said. "We have 46 total programs today, which is very positive. We are moving slowly in the right direction, which means a lot these days."

Look to the future

The grant that helped five ECAC schools add water polo in the past two years will end with the 2000-01 academic year. Although the results of the grant have been closely monitored by the NCAA/USOC Collegiate Grant Committee, the future of the program has not been determined.

As a result, U.S. Water Polo will continue to offer $15,000 to help athletics departments with the start-up costs of initiating both men's and women's programs and a lesser amount for adding just one of the two. Additionally, the support that has been available to interested athletics administrators through the U.S. Water Polo Collegiate Office will be continued, which can help new programs find and educate coaches, search for officials, schedule games and utilize a high-school recruiting database.

Sharadin said that as athletics programs examine options for adding sports for either women or men, institutions with aquatics facilities are likely to find water polo an attractive and viable option. Equipment expenses are minimal, encompassing only suits, balls, caps and a pair of goals likely to last 20 or more years.

"Many athletics departments don't realize that the six-lane, 25-yard pool they already have is fine for water polo," Sharadin said. "When you see it played in the Olympic-sized pools, you think that this the requirement. However, 28 of the men's programs compete in a 25-yard pool and one-third utilize facilities with a shallow end. Administrators need to know their pools are acceptable and will meet NCAA regulations."

Once the word is spread, and with the continued help of the grant program, both men's and women's water polo figure to no longer be endangered species, but thriving NCAA championship sports.