“What are you going to do, follow the black line or play a ball sport?”
Tom Slear, former usaswimming.org writer and current head swimming coach at Naval Academy Aquatic Center, spoke smoothly through the telephone.
“Most coaches would say you can do both.”
Forest Grove water sports are currently facing a question that California has been trying to answer for nearly half a century – can water polo and swimming coexist at the same pool?
Slear covered the issue in 2002 for usaswimming.org. Back then, the question arose because swim coaches felt their pool space was being infringed upon by water polo teams.
“Amid a growth in water polo that approaches critical mass, there’s hope that swimming and water polo can work for the common good,” Slear wrote in 2002.
Seven years later, Phil Clark, the head water polo coach at Forest Grove High School, is hoping that statement isn’t a lost cause.
“We’re in competition for pool space and competition for athletes,” said Clark, who has been coaching for 20 years, including the last two in Forest Grove. “I think for a long time that swimming programs – not specific to any community – have been reluctant to promote water polo despite water polo promoting swimming.”
Tim Hamlet, who heads up the swim club at Forest Grove Aquatic Center, coaches more than 100 kids from ages 6 to 19. Hamlet has been at the helm for six years and is currently focused on getting his first national qualifier a faster time.
“Jacob Cockeram is our first national qualifier … in 20 years,” Hamlet said. “We are headed to Columbus, Ohio in December for Nationals.”
When asked about athletes crossing over and doing both water polo and swimming, Hamlet said it depends on the athlete.
“If you are talking about a high school kid who is just looking for something to do, you bet,” Hamlet said. “If you’re talking about a kid who is already playing a musical instrument and holding down a 3.9 GPA and doing the sport? No. A national level athlete? No.”
“In order to be an elite athlete, the answer is no,” Hamlet added. “But I feel that way about every sport. Don’t do baseball, wrestle and this and this, and [complain] when you are mediocre at all of them. Pick one and excel.”
Back in 2002, Slear spoke with Olympic swimming coach Paul Bergen and came to a similar conclusion.
“Instead of the two sports being mutually beneficial, it’s forcing kids to make choices,” Slear wrote. “It’s hurting both and the result has been slower swimmers and slower water polo players.”
To add to the confusion, swimming clubs all around the country are run by USA Swimming, an organization similar to USA Track & Field or USA Gymnastics, where the idea is to find and train athletes to represent the United States in the Olympics. High school sports, meanwhile, are governed by state entities like the Oregon School Activities Association.
The two organizations have different rules, guidelines and, more importantly, different goals.
“Our goal is to put someone on the Olympic team one day,” Hamlet said. “But if a parent comes to me and says ‘I want my kid to go to the Olympics,’ I tell them to buy a ticket. It’s every four years, there are injuries, false starts. It’s hard, I don’t care how talented the kid is.”
Clark has a different stance even though water polo is not yet an OSAA recognized sport.
“We follow the OSAA philosophy, which is [that] kids should be trying multiple sports,” he said. “I think we have a swim club coach that is focused on swimming and he is doing a good job. But if the water polo team went away tomorrow it would be one less thing he had to worry about.
“I think it’s too bad because [both programs could benefit] from cooperation.”
In the 1970s, Bergen promoted water polo for off-season conditioning and also as an exercise in variety for his swimmers in Nashville, Tenn. Getting his athletes away from following the lines of the pool and working on endurance for eight weeks out of the year was seen as a small benefit.
Slear thinks that playing any other sport – not just water polo – can be beneficial for young swimmers.
“I have people who play lacrosse and run cross country in my senior group, but we work it out,” he said. “[Unless] the high school coach says here’s the deal, no exceptions, we always come up with a solution.
“Either you’re all-in or you’re not? In this case, I don’t think it has to happen.”
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