Water polo is back at the University of Rhode Island in the form of a club team with one main goal: to teach students how to play.
Most popular along the West Coast, water polo functions similarly to soccer or basketball, where members of each team score goals and throw a rubber ball.
Although the sport is competitive, URI’s water polo practices focus on instruction rather than official games, according to marine research technician and water polo coach Claire Thomas. Because of this difference, the group is labeled as a clinic club. Thomas hopes that this distinction removes the expectation and apprehension around joining a new sport.
“[Water polo] is like an exercise you don’t know you’re doing,” Thomas said. “You are in the water, playing a legitimately entertaining game, and realize you are actually having fun.”
Club practices consist of student-led training and scrimmages, according to fourth-year Casey McQuesten, president of both the water polo and swimming and diving clubs.
Students learn how to throw balls in the water and work with the current, according to McQuesten, who is in the process of learning water polo himself. Club members are also taught how to effectively tread water in the deep end of the pool using an “egg-beater” technique. Using this technique, swimmers kick their legs like a frog to save energy and stay afloat.
“It’s more of a loose atmosphere compared to swimming practices,” McQuesten said. “We’re really there to have fun and be excited about the sport, and just learn how to play.”
Instead of swimming in lanes and doing laps of butterfly or breaststroke, the student swimmers focus on learning the basics and going from there, according to McQuesten. Part of the freedom in practice involves not worrying about playing the game exactly “by the book.”
“You don’t need to be a competitive swimmer to play water polo,” McQuesten said. “Really, the minimum requirement is knowing how to tread water, and we will even help you with that. Even though I’m the president, I’m there learning something new every single practice.”
Water polo’s journey from concept back to club began in March when former club swim member, Adriana Williams ’24, joined forces with Thomas.
Williams came to URI from California, where she had played water polo in high school, according to McQuesten. Williams and Thomas gauged interest in the club by proposing the idea to URI’s swimming and diving team.
During the water polo club’s formation, members of the URI Campus Recreation team were concerned that the club would be “too dangerous,” according to Thomas. It took an additional three weeks for them to secure practice time in April.
Although the club is a recent addition to the university, this is not the first time students have participated in water polo.
The Tootell Aquatic Center has an old sign that lists water polo right after swimming and diving, according to Thomas. The center’s diving well also has places where goal posts once were. However, those water polo posts are cemented shut, so Thomas constructed a goal out of PVC pipes, netting and zip ties.
Water polo practices are run by the club’s vice president, Lukas Sorensen, a fourth-year student double-majoring in anthropology and history. He spends practice time teaching students, including McQuesten, the basics of the sport he loves.
Growing up in Ohio, Sorensen said he was surrounded by water polo. He learned how to play the sport in seventh grade by watching his older brothers and continued playing competitively in high school.
“Coordination is so different in the water [than on land],” Sorensen said. “After a while it becomes natural – reorienting your body to the water, sort of like synchronized swimming. It’s on an entirely different level, on a different plane.”
By focusing on training new members, Sorenson aims to maintain the skill of the sport while keeping the environment energetic and exciting.
“When I tell people I played [water polo] in high school, I get a lot of grimaces,” Sorensen said. “They don’t even know what it actually is until I show them a video. I want people to know about it.”
At 85 degrees Fahrenheit and 14 feet deep, Tootell’s diving well will house the water polo club’s next official practice on Nov. 9. For updates on the club’s practice times and registration, visit its Instagram page @water.polo.uri.