On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6-7:30 p.m., co-ed club sport water polo takes place in the Maverick Center natatorium.
The water polo club at Colorado Mesa University has recently appeared in the Stall Street Journal, inviting students to come play. In its eighth year, the club is still growing.
Their coach, John Hildebrand participates in Masters Water Polo for the age bracket of over 60 years old. His team took fourth place in the world at Budapest this year.
“This is by far the strongest group we’ve ever had,” Coach John Hildebrand said. The team will host a tournament for the first time in the club’s run, which will take place over fall break on Oct. 12-14.
Water polo, a sport that most closely resembles soccer in the water with seven players on each side, including the goalies, is not a big tradition in Colorado, according to Hildebrand and Assistant Captain Jacob Kernc. “I started last year but I played a little bit in high school just because we practiced on our swim team,” Kernc said.
Team Captain Evan Johnson, who is the contact listed at the bottom of the Stall Street Journal ad, is playing for his second year at CMU, sixth year total. He played all four years at Kirkwood High School in St. Louis, Mo.
According to Hildebrand, the water polo class that CMU offers recommends that the participants should be able to comfortably swim eight lengths of the pool. The ads for the club state that swimming skills are “highly recommended.”
Water polo involves treading water for long period of time, for it’s played in the deep end of a pool where no one can touch the floor. Volleyballs are used, as well as floating nets that most resemble soccer goals. The dimensions of the playing boundaries range from a collegiate minimum of 10 by 20 meters to a maximum of 20 by 30 meters.
The co-ed water polo season goes from August to November, but if there was enough women’s participation, they’d have their own team, which would play in the spring.
According to Hildebrand, club sports are a strong focus at CMU.
“A lot of colleges don’t put as much effort as CMU does into club sports,” Hildebrand said. “Less than three percent of high school athletes participate in college [sports]. We never turn away someone who wants to participate.”
