Column: Mr. Un-Athletic; Horses might have made it easier- Water polo not for faint of heart
I learned this week that charley horse is not a cartoon character.
In my effort to expand my athletic horizons, I made my first stop in on the women’s water polo team.
This club sport has been practicing for only two months as they prepare for their season. I was able to jump in on their last practice before they started their season.
I had no clue what water polo was before I went to the practice. All I knew was it involved water, a ball and Californians are obsessed with the game.
Fearing that wasn’t enough to go to into a practice, I talked with one of my good friends, who was on the men’s water polo team last fall.
My first concern was I didn’t have a horse.
“What are you talking about? You don’t use horses in water polo.”
Once that concern was resolved, he gave me a new one to worry about. The swimsuit. I figured board shorts would work just fine. After all, they look good at the beach. I was wrong. He proceeded to show me a tiny little torture device. He called it a Speedo. He told me if I was going to be any sort of water polo player, I would have to wear it.
With much trepidation, I squeezed into the miniature suit. I was pleasantly surprised that despite looking completely ridiculous, the Speedo wasn’t that bad – that was until I went out to meet the women on the water polo team.
That ranks in the top five most awkward moments of my life.
I said ‘hi’ to them and got in the water as soon as possible to avoid any further embarrassment. The coach yelled to swim 150 meters. That’s only six times across the pool. I started out and got three-fourths of the way there when I started to run out of juice.
I couldn’t believe it. I barely made it across the pool once in the time that everyone else had finished almost all their laps.
I grabbed that wall tight when I arrived there. I was sure hoping somebody had brought an extra set of floaties so I wouldn’t die.
After this brief warm-up, the team gathered around the coach to do some drills. They swam out into the deep part of the pool and started treading water.
I tried treading water from the sidelines and thought I was doing well until I tried to take a breath and sucked down a mouthful of water. When I resurfaced, I told the team to go ahead and do the drills without me.
While the women did the remainder of their drills, my aforementioned friend instructed me on how to tread water properly. It’s called an “eggbeater” pattern because you move your legs to imitate an eggbeater.
Once I had that down, he moved on to show me how to throw and catch the ball. A water polo looks like a yellow volleyball that you throw just like you would a baseball. Throwing was easy, but catching is a bit more difficult because in water polo you can only touch the ball with one hand at a time.
Once the drills were over, it was time to move on to a scrimmage. I opted to sit out at first and learn how the game was played.
The team did a “half-pool” scrimmage, five on five with a goalkeeper. The teams were differentiated by the caps they wore – either blue or white.
The game is a cross between basketball and soccer. Instead of kicking the ball, the players throw it to each other until someone is in a position to take a shot on the goal. That person then tries to throw the ball in past the goalkeeper, thereby earning a point for the team.
It’s much like basketball in that there are defined positions that are set up much like a basketball team. The players on offense move about freely by swimming to get in better position to shake their defender, grab a pass, or to shoot the ball.
Water polo has one neat advantage on defense that most other sports don’t: you can be as brutal as you want as long as you don’t push the other person under water, and as long as the referee doesn’t see it.
I noticed that the closer one plays to the goal, the more fierce the defense is. I watched the women push at each other and jockey for position.
I found it amusing that when they didn’t have the ball they would smile sweetly, but once they had the ball or were defending someone who did, all traces of niceness were gone. They put on their mean face and fought until they got what they wanted.
Once the ball was gone they went back to smiling again.
After watching for a half hour from the wall I was clinging onto, the team invited me to come out and play.
I was enjoying the game … until the ball came my way.
I missed the pass, but luckily, the woman who was defending me had mercy on me and didn’t clobber me to get it. I tried to swim and get the ball and the defender edged closer to me.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. This was the closest a female had been to me in ages. I tried to stay calm and grab the ball. When I got to the ball, I picked it up and threw it to another teammate as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, I went under water when I threw it.
While under water, I felt an incredible amount of pain. My leg muscles had cramped up something fierce.
The lifeguards laughed and told me to stretch out my leg and get some water. I don’t think they were laughing because I had gotten a cramp, but because I had only participated in the scrimmage for a grand total of two minutes.
I sat out the remainder of the scrimmage and watched.
I was amazed that the women treaded water out there for over an hour and a half straight. They never touched the bottom or the edge of the pool. In fact, it seemed the longer they were out there the more energy they had.
After the game, I asked the women how they rated my first attempt at water polo. I was told that I was on a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade level. I was told by one of the ladies that I did as well as she suspected her grade school nephew would do.
So, maybe I’m not cut out for water polo, but at least I found a new sport that I have a great amount of respect for.
Seth Hawkins is a sophomore majoring in public relations. Comments can be sent to
sethhawkins@cc.usu.edu.