The Salty Splash Podcast - Adam Huff.mp3

The Salty Splash Podcast - Adam Huff.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The Salty Splash Podcast - Adam Huff.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

This is the Salty Splash podcast. Welcome to the Salty Splash Waterpolo Pond, The Salty Splash. We'll take a look at waterpolo growth from the perspective of water polo, athletes, clubs, parents, referees and coaches exploring issues facing the growth of the sport we love at a local level. And we'll seek to have interesting and collaborative conversations with stakeholders to the games. My name is Shawn Stringham and I look forward to creating conversations honoring the history of waterpolo, but more importantly, talking about the future of our sport. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I am the men's head coach and club director of Olympic water polo. I serve on Utah water polo and USA water polo mountain zone boards. In this episode, Adam Huff and I have fun talking about his experience in the game as one of eight siblings that played waterpolo, his early opportunities that molded him and built his current coaching philosophies. We talked about the process. The Utah High School Water Polo Association has progressed to build consensus for a strategic plan to support high school and club water polo. And Adam offers some incredible insights on how to build youth water pool and how to be successful with both athletes and parents. Tune in to the end to see what Adam and Rocky Balboa have in common. It is worth to listen. The goal of the salty splash is to listen to the diverse voices in the game. Support athletes, clubs, referees and parents to create growth that is best for them, and the strategies that will introduce more kids to the game and create quality, competition and development opportunities in our home. Utah Mountain Zone and ultimately across the country. Please subscribe. Great. Give a five star review and share the podcast. Look forward to bringing you regular episodes. Let's work together to bring the sport we love to every pool. Feel free to engage on these and other waterpolo topics by finding salty splash pond on Instagram and Twitter. Join the conversation in the salty splash pod Facebook group. Or simply just email me at Salty Splash Pod at Gmail dot com. Let's keep the conversation going.

All right. We'd like to welcome everyone into this episode of the Salty Splash podcast. We've got Adam Poff with us here today. Adam is currently the president of Utah High School Water Polo Association.

He is also an ODP coach where he's in a men's cadet, ODP coach. Most importantly to him and to his family, he is currently the head coach of Murray Spartan water polo and also head coach of Murray High School Swimming. He's got a lot of lot of hats that he wears like many of us do in the water polo world. All important. All working towards the growth of the sport. Adam, thanks for joining us on the Salty's Splash podcast.

Happy to be here, Sean. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me. Sounds like a lot of fun.

It is gonna be fun. It's been a it's been a fun experience to be able to interview and talk and get some insights from some of our leaders in our sport here in Utah as well as we throughout the mountain zone. So first of all, thanks. I have served as the president of Utah High School Water Polo Association in the past. Thanks for taking my spot.

Yeah, you bet. I'd say any time. But this is a one time deal, is it? Only one time. It's only when I was shanghaied into the board service. I don't know if you remember, but I'm. I can't remember that. I don't know what you're talking about.

Also, I still to this day, don't know who nominated me, but the meeting where they were asking, they were they were announcing the people who were running. I was sitting there and unbeknownst to me, they said my name. And so I said, sure, why not?

Four years later, here we are. Here you are. Yeah. Like I said, service begins is like you just it's like tie that little ankle bracelet to, um. And just real men. So that's right.

If I ever find out who it was, I'll send them a thank you. Thank you. Basket.

Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure. Well anyway I do. I know exactly where you're coming from. It is a ton of work. It's a ton of extra stress for your family and as a coach as well in terms of time you take away from your club. So I know exactly where you're coming from. And so let me say thank you. If no one else ever has said now, you can say someone is actually saying, you know, it is a lot of work.

Like you said. But I'm glad that not just that we have seven board positions. You're one of them. And I'm glad that we have passionate people who are willing to step up and take on that extra responsibility.

So it it does make it fun. I mean, you one of the things that I'm learning about waterpolo and listening to podcasts and talking to people is that you meet people and have interactions with people you never would have had otherwise.

Right. Creates friendships that will hopefully last for a long time.

So, you know, in the end they do because it's just it's such a small community. Yeah. It's that just this last it was ODP one of my old college teammates who I haven't seen since college. His name's Jeff Horner. He now coaches St Mary's and Big Valley waterpolo. And we happen to be on the same deck. And we recognized each other and we said, hey, like we like it. Had it been eight years since we'd seen each other. That's right. So that's cool. It's kind of neat.

So go ahead. I've been starting with everyone because I think a part of growing the sport, which is the focus of the podcasts and the strategies behind that, is how did you get into waterpolo? Right. I mean, everyone has kind of a waterpolo origin story. And they had that moment where they jump in the water and score their first goal and go, OK. I'm hooked. Right. And so I got we've got to create that. We've got to create that for athletes and parents. So tell me your story, Adam.

Yeah. So, you know, if I'm being honest, it was going into waterpolo was never a question of if for me. I have I have I have eight there's eight siblings in my family. I'm the sixth of eight. And we're we're all pretty much clones of each other. We all swam. We all played water polo. And that's just kind of what we did in our family. So, no, it's not that we didn't want or we're forbidden to explore other sports. We all played other sports. But it was just known that the Huff's swim and the Huff's play waterpolo and it said you have your own team with eight siblings, too. When Michael Goldhar used to have his three on three winter tournament, we would always enter just with my family and we'd play together. And it was a lot of fun. That's awesome. Yeah. So.

So how did your whole family get into it? Was it I mean, a mom or dad and a wonderful athlete or an athlete or is it just.

No. Neither of them. So actually, it's that my mom has an irrational, not irrational, but she has an out of proportion fear of drowning. Wow. And never wanted her children to be put in a position where they might drown. And so at the earliest age possible, she put my oldest sister into swim lessons and then from swim lessons on a swim team and then from swim team onto the high school swim team and the water polo team and. It just trickled down from there.

The power of moms, I'm telling you about the here's the thing about that story is that my mom hates the water, hates swimming. Right. Yeah. And she did exactly the same thing. Like, she didn't want to pass this irrational fear of the water that had been passed from her mother down. And so she did exactly the same thing with me. Put me on lessons. She still tells, like the most terrified she's ever been in her life as it is mom and son swim lesson where she had to dunk me under the water. And like that. That changed. That changed my life. Still to this day, when she's watching her grandkids play, she can't sit down. She has to sit there and pace because it makes her so nervous and so funny that we have that same background, same story.

It is. You know, I can still I can still remember my first organized water polo game. So I swam at Kernes and on their youth swim team, which was Khayat. And there was no when I was younger, at least there was no youth water polo. The only water polo I got was when the swim team on Funday Friday would play water polo where there are 30 kids and. Right. Everybody is just kind of swimming around. But it was actually Brads Brad Pierce's Junior League, and I think it was 2001 was the first year for it. It was just one fifth through eighth grade division. And I happened to be in fifth grade.

And that was my first taste. Yeah, that was my first taste of organized water polo.

And looking back at the team from now, looking back at the team now, from then, there were kids on that team who would go on to play for Hunter. Murray Taylorsville Cyperus turns some big names, actually. Yeah. And it was just a fun experience. My my oldest brother was a senior at that time and he was a big, you know, center like me. So he was kind of my first role model as far as as what I wanted to be as a water polo player. And he helped me out a lot. And that was it. There was no going back.

That's so awesome that Fali out at Kernes is singularly responsible. I missed seeing or not really, but for the growth of youth water polo, it is very important because I 100 percent agree as as I've talked, I've talked with Tyson Heath and I've talked with Brad Piercey and Tyson said the same thing. I was in the first fall league. That was an imprint moment of like, this is going to be awesome.

So, yeah, hundred percent agree on that. And that was your one by year two, it had already split into two divisions, a fourth through sixth grade division, which was more fun for me because by then I was in sixth sixth grade.

Yeah, I feel that big boy. I was.

And then there was a seventh or ninth grade division. And then, as you know, last year there was what, Splash Ball 10 and under at eleven, under 14 and underrated and under. Boys and girls each with multiple divisions inside each age bracket.

Yeah. Twelve clubs. Fifty six teams. Over six hundred athletes. That's been it's been great. That's, that's a that's a fantastic, fantastic story. So tell I interrupted you. Go back to your waterpolo story. How did you go from there? You had your family played at Kernes, played high school. And then what?

Yeah. So I was I did the mountains on teams and I was lucky enough to be selected for the national team for two years. And that was that was my first experience of of kind of next level out of Utah. Water polo. Right. You know, and not the Utah is great. I had a ton of fun playing here, but seeing that there was something else, something more really lit a fire in me. And it was I think I wanted to say it was the 2000, either 2004 or 2005 NC double a game. It was Tony as vedo senior year at Stanford. Nice. And we Brad Piercey, my coach at Curran's, got us together to watch it as a team. And man, I decided when I saw that game, that's where I wanted to play. There you go. Oh, I worked hard through high school and was lucky to have met the right coaches at the right times to end up allowing me to play after high school at the University of Pacific. Nice. And it was a great experience.

So were you pretty excited last year when you R.P.M. went to the finals?

Yeah. Did you wait to see in there? Yeah, I can't. They're going to win one day. They are all in there.

They're going to win. So that was their second time in the finals recently in recent years. And James Graham is a smart coach. He he red shirts and gray shirts and whatever he can to go for the championship every three or four years. So I don't know what they'll be like this year, but you can expect him maybe three or four years. They'll be there again.

Well, we probably will have time for this podcast. But I mean, I know we've shared text back and forth about Coach Graham has been putting out in terms of the advantage rule and some of the national conversation that's been happening there. We won't spend any time on that. But shout out, Coach Graham, for bringing this sport forward.

It's out here. He's he's been a game changer for a long time. Yeah. I always kind of been a thorn in the side, I think, of orthodoxy, if you want to put it that way. You know? The rule that was recently changed about if you if you foul and intentionally send the ball right. That's a penalty. They used to just be an exclusion. That was changed because of James Graham. There you go back EOP. That's what he taught us to do. You're up by one and they have the ball with under 10 seconds left. Farlam, send that ball to the other side of the pool and then swim to the corner because you're kicked out. Right. To stop whatever play they had drawn up from the corner. Yeah. And so because it was so successful, but maybe a little bit against the spirit of the rules or NC to a pheno water polo. Change the rules on that. So interesting that James Graham.

There you go. Credit. Very good. So what did they do after you? OPIS played for four years there. Went through the whole time.

No, I didn't actually. I just played the one year and then decided to serve an LDS mission. And after that is as much as I loved it. I hung up my Speedo and put on my coaching cap and have been coaching ever since.

Since you started coaching at Kernes, as I recall.

I did, yeah. I started started coaching in high school, you know, in the youth age groups and stuff. And then I coached one between after high school. Between UAP. I coached the high school team. And then when I came back from Europe before I left on a mission assistant coach with Brad, the high school team again, and then returning from my mission back to Kernes with Harad. And I coached there until just three years ago when I made the move over to Murray. And I've been there. This would have been my third year there.

Do they let you walk back in the Kernes without being heckled at this point? I know there's already intense rivalry there between Kernes and Murray. It's like there's the there's rivalries everywhere.

But there is that.

And I mean, even did it help, especially considering the circumstances? Because my last year at Kearnes Purt Currence had won the championships every year. Yeah. From two thousand five. Two thousand. Let's see it until 2016. Yeah. And so 2017 was Murray versus Kernes. Yeah. And Murray won and I was still with Kernes and Murray won. It was the first year occurrence that loston. What's the math on that 12 years. Yeah. Then for me to leave from Curran's. Oh for the Murray was not a popular move at the time but it was the right move for my family. But now, you know, I'm, I'm old and anybody who remembers that is pretty much graduated. Yeah.

And so now you're you're you're living the coaching dream, really. You're coaching waterpolo. You're coaching swimming. You're you're a teacher at Murray High School from a traditional sense. You don't see it very often anymore here in Utah. But that's you don't it's kind of a it's kind of a good gig for you.

It is. It is. I'm happy. I'm comfortable. And I hope I I hope I can keep doing this for a long time.

Fantastic. So we're coming out of what would have been our spring season. We're not going to spend a ton of time focusing on Coronavirus or Cobbett or any of those kinds of things. But it's the first time for many of us where we haven't had spring high school waterpolo in Utah. I'm curious, what did you miss? What did you not miss?

I think two different questions there. Yes.

I mean, obviously, what I miss the most was just the interactions with the kids. Yeah, they are great kids and call me biased, but swimmers and water polo players are better than they are. They're better and more dedicated than a lot of student athletes. And they tend to excel in many areas of life, not just in the pool. They are great kids to be associated with. And that's that's what I miss the most. I've just being with with the kids and helping them and and teaching them and learning from them easily. Easy question. That's what I miss the most. Right.

How about any any, like, secret things you don't want? Well, you're gonna say it on out loud here on this podcast. My secret things. You think, oh, my gosh, she was so nice to be able to during this.

Sleep in. She sleep in. Yeah, right. And I'm not a morning guy, but I forced myself to do it because I have to. Right.

And you know, it seems like every year I want to do more and more with my practices. And so, you know, my first year we start practice at seven. The next year, you know, we can go to six thirty and come on next year. If we start at 6:00 a.m., we can fit in a little more in there. And so, yeah, I get less and less sleep. So, man, it was great to be able to sleep in for a little bit.

It was. I have to agree with you. Like I use Fitbit and I like to see it was pretty funny, like pre March 13th I was like, you know, I was getting X amount of sleep and then like plus an hour every I was like, oh my gosh, I did some great sleep.

I felt great. No wonder I. Absolutely. And you know what else? If if I'm gonna be honest with you.

It was it was it was probably healthy for me. And what I mean what I mean by that is so you as you said before, I coach swimming. Yeah. Coach waterpolo and I I've learned that I'm a very different coach in those. Different sports. Yeah. And in that in the sense that it's in swimming, there's not much to be vocal about. Right. They're their heads are in the water. Their ears are in the water. You can scream at them all you want. They can't hear you anyway. What doesn't make a difference, right? I tend to be pretty calm during the waterpolo season. I think my blood pressure doubles the entire three months. Right. And I'm sure that I lose years off my life every waterpolo season because I'm a vocal coach. Anybody who's played for me or has has been on the deck or coached against you.

Yeah.

Those that probably sometimes I take it too far. But whatever, you know, sometimes I'm just trying to inspire and light some fire. But it's always exciting. But it was nice to be able to to relax and and just stay a little bit calmer for a few months.

Well, I found one of the key things that was really interesting to me is like it kind of is a forced break to get you hungry for it again. Yes. You going through that? Going through the motions. And I hope that's true for the athletes also. Right. I mean, I think having them recognized that, oh, man, this could go away or could be taken away or I miss being with my teammates. I hope that that's something that I think the least this generation of kids won't forget. Right. And had the opportunity to to think about as we get back, getting ready to get back in the water.

I think you're right. I think we'll see athletes come back from this more hungry than they've ever been willing to work harder than they ever have to try to make up for lost time and take advantage of what they have. Yeah, I'm excited for it.

That's cool. Well, let's let's turn our attention a little bit to kind of current status as president of Utah High School Water Polo Association, and your term ends at the end of this fall. Let's talk about the process of the growth and the development that we have accomplished as a board. Not we have not the board is accomplished, but kind of the bringing together of the coaches and and creating a plan to move forward with that. We've seen some pretty extensive growth over the last four or five years, especially in that younger age group. But I'd love to know kind of talk us through that process of what we've done as a board in terms of engagement and the outcome of that.

Sure. Yeah, happy to do that. First of all, you hit it right on when you said that this has been a process. Yeah. Any anybody who. And then there were those that said it. But anybody who said what is this is coming out of the blue. This is the first time I'm hearing this. That's that's a stake to my heart. Right. Because this has been a process of for me just for years, but for you and others on the board, much, much longer than that. It really started kind of at the at the information gathering stage. We we have done the best that we could to reach out to our coaches, but also coaches from other sports and other programs and coaches from other states and systems. Just to kind of figure out what works for them, what's different for for our situation. What are some opportunities that we could be taking advantage of and what's the best way for us to move forward? And the notion that we're trying to fix something that's that's broken and that's incorrect. Nothing's nothing's broken here. We're not trying to fix anything. We're just trying to take advantage of some opportunities that maybe have been there or that are there now and we haven't been taking advantage of. So, as you said, our biggest growth has been in the youth by far. In fact, I think it was just last season when the scales quit.

Yeah. And that the youth age group 14 and under had more athletes than our high school age group. Yeah. Fifteen and above. And that's fantastic. That means in the next two to four years those 14 other kids are coming into our high school program and we can expect to start to see is some sort of similar growth in our high school age groups, assuming we can find places for all those kids to play. Right. And so it's been fantastic. So amidst all of this fact finding and gathering, kind of what we saw was that we had, again, not a broken model, but maybe a little bit outdated. I mean, to go back decades and decades. The original intent. The original intent. Sorry, I talked a little fast. Sometimes the original intent of this, the Spring League, was for it to be a high school spring league. But with so few teams and so few high schools, less than 20 for a lot of a lot of that time. Yeah, there were every year exceptions had to be made about where kids could play. And just in terms of eligibility, in terms of eligibility, where kids could or couldn't play. And every year more exceptions were made or presented and voted on and passed by the coaches. And that happened year after year after year for decades to where we're left with a product that I think was is probably very far from its original intent and is not very recognizable, at least on the surface.

If you read through our what what we're seven pages of very complex bylaws did not really feel or read like a high school league. Right. What it was more like was what I referred to as the hybrid model where it was. Kind of high school. There certainly were elements of high school and there were a lot of elements of what would be considered traditional club waterpolo. The idea was that while we need to be one or the other, this hybrid model doesn't work, doesn't work. The more we we talked about it there, you know, it's a very it's a very polarized topic in this state that some coaches really love. High school waterpolo, because that's the model that works for them. Some coaches really love club waterpolo because that's the model that works for them. And so through this process of more fact finding and we did so many years of that figured out what we know, we actually do need. We need both. Right. There are huge advantages and huge opportunities in both a high school format and a club format. And let me clarify, when I say factfinding an information gathering that's you know, we're not going door to door and we're not clandestine spying on people. Friends were meetings with coaches. These were Zoome conferences. These were phone calls. These were emails.

And I think a lot of conversations outside of the state of Utah as well. I mean, yeah, we were doing we're having lots of calls with teams in California. Well, you know what's going well from high school perspective in Texas.

And what are some of the best parts of those in terms of the people that have been successful in this transition process?

Yeah, absolutely. We we we put our shoulder to the wheel. Four plus years, you know, on a Saturday out occurrence in the fall, it was coach a game at one o'clock and then go the Springhill coach at two o'clock and have a conversation with him and then coach again at three o'clock and then go find the Harryman coach. And we did a lot of work. So let me explain a little bit more about high school and club and the benefits of each so high school waterpolo is is fantastic. What it gives you is numbers. If done correctly and done in a way that gives gives the rules of teeth to say you've got to play where you live and you've got to build up the program where you are, then it's a it's a system that if we were able to get it up and running now, we could have 30 plus teams and in a year we could have 40 to 50 teams. Yeah. And in less than five years, we could double the amount of schools that are currently represented in our league. And that's the benefit of high school waterpolo. And that looks so good to the school board. Right. Those making those types of decisions to see, well, we have 70 high schools being represented in this waterpolo. And so high school is is a great terms of creating that pathway to sanction.

Right. Which I mean, yes, really, that's one of the things around consensus that we've gotten to, is that trying to set that goal towards high school and Utah High School Athletic Association sanctioning over and getting into that emerging sport, getting the attention of those individuals and showing, hey, look, we've got we've got these teams that are that are growing. The product may not be great in terms of brand new waterpolo, but that doesn't matter. It's just about getting out with high school and getting and getting, you know, building referees and building the coaches available to be able to support that kind of play.

So, yeah, and that's not to say that high school is just it's not that we're resigned to the fact that high schools, crappy waterpolo. Not at all. No. I think we'll eventually build back up to the point where high schools are competitive. But right now it's just about getting as many athletes from as many schools play at high schools. The way to do that, if I'm talking about reaching the widest base possible and lowering the barrier of entry.

Right, gang. I mean, and not making it be three month or eight month commitment, you know, just getting them in and lowering the barrier of entry for the parents, for the coaches and making sure that they recognize that. I can try that for a couple of weekends.

Sure. And that's what you see in other states and with other sports is that high school is easy. It's easy. Here's when the trials are. You show up and it's that easy and it's not it's not a complex or convoluted system. And so that's been one of our goals with high school. You talked you mentioned goals earlier. It was during this fact finding that we decided we kind of have two goals here. One is to become high school sanction, and two is to compete at the highest level of Gio's. That's Junior and that's what below. So that's where we've kind of been focusing our efforts. So that's that's the advantage. That's the why we need high school waterpolo. It's going to attract so many more athletes. And, you know, once we have quantity, I think quantity leads to quality. And that's where the club comes in. Our other goal is to compete at the highest levels of Gio's club waterpolo will do for you is allow athletes to play where where they feel is going to be the most successful area for them, where they feel the most comfortable and it allows for higher quality waterpolo. You know, maybe maybe Murray has a high school team, but for Club Morgan Olympus combine just for. Just don't get excited, Sean.

That's a good idea, man. That is a great idea. This is just a for example. Does it, huh? Exactly.

But that's the idea of club waterpolo, is that it allows us an environment where higher quality play can can be fostered. And we need both, right? If we only had one or the other. Despite which despite which system you favor. I think the reality is that if we only had one or only have the other, we would we would be seriously limiting ourselves. You look and you look at a state like like Nevada. They have Team Vegas. Right. They're a great team. We know the best clubs for Utah struggle against Team Vegas every year in the Utah Summer Games. Right. But they only have one team in the state. So how do you quantify growth with that? You know. Yeah. Yeah. But if you were to look at the other end and say we had a thousand high school teams, but they were the thousand worst teams in the country. Right. Is that also meaningful growth? I'm not sure. Right. And so I think the fact that is, if we only had club or we only had high school, we would be doing the entire waterpolo community a disservice.

So as as a board and as a league and as coaches, we I mean, we kind of got through that and had a pretty overwhelming vote in terms of moving that club season to the spring season, creating divisions, creating D1 D2, letting letting athlete or letting coaches choose where their teams going to participate. We had just start we had like literally two weeks into that four season of doing that. Right. Yeah. And then and then hopefully trying to create a low barrier to entry league for high school in the fall. What was this fall? What would have been this fall? And we're kind of kind of working through that right now. But even though it was two weeks or three weeks off season, what would you say? Some of the successes in those just two to three weeks were in terms of creating the consensus among the coaches and just the overall play and to kind of tie it through like D1 D2. What does that look like overall for coaches and teachers?

So, as you said, it was an overwhelming vote. Don't quote me on the numbers, but I think the vote was 17 to five. Correct. And in favor of of passing this this proposal of keeping club in the spring and moving high school to the fall and having two separate but equal leagues. So the early returns on it were great. We only had two weeks worth of games, but we heard some really great things about about the competitiveness level of those games. So with with D1, D2 in these three and this was another one of the great things about club is that, you know, in high school, if we're if we're sticking to classifications, you have a brand new six, 18 grand up against a 50 year Stallworth. Kernes. Right. And they have to play because they're in the same classification.

But classification in terms of the size of the high supplies of rice, the high five, a six A for a six a being a hot the biggest high schools in Utah.

Yes. Enrollment standpoint, which really doesn't apply to anything from a water polo standpoint.

No, it doesn't. Yeah. And so in club coaches have the opportunity to select between Division one, Division two and Division three based on their feeling of how competitive their teams were. And because this was the first year of that, we had a lot of coaches switching even on the even in those first two weeks, you know, they had a game and realized, OK, we need to we are not as good as I thought we were going to be or we're a lot better than I thought we were. Right. And we need that. We need to move. But that's that's great because nobody likes to get beat 20 to one and nobody likes to win 20 to one. And so the club system of having tier divisions and allowing teams to compete where it's going to be the best opportunity for them to compete and to learn really was a blessing for everybody. Right. And we saw some really good early returns on that just in the first two weeks of play.

One of the key goals of that is really trying to create quality competitive opportunities. Right. Think about it. If you have goals within a plus or minus three to five goals was kind of the what we're trying to seek for.

Exactly. And then, you know, there were also some issues with it being the first year of a pure club format. There were a lot of things we didn't know and we didn't know what we didn't know. A lot of that, I think was, you know, we don't we don't offer a 16 and under division. And so having a division of 14 through 18 presents some unique complications. And there were just things we were learning and working through, but we would have been simple to solve. Right. But I think now we're just gonna have to kind of let those play out for another year and see and see next year.

And I think one or one of them is the key impacts that it had was on our tournament. Right. We went from a six, a five, a four a state championship. And then we had this J.V. state championship, which was huge, which is an albatross in terms of trying to manage that. It also gave clubs an opportunity to say to field a real team and multiple like a bigger club to fill the D1 team, a D to team D3 team, if they had the opportunity, do that and create that competitive advantage. Opportunity for all of the athletes to keep them engaged.

Thank you for bringing that up. So I know Olympus has been in the same boat. But last year, I had 14 boys on my varsity team and twenty eight different boys on my J.V. team. Right. So during the season, I had seven boys in the water and twenty one sitting on the bench. Right. And trying to rotate them all through. Playing time was just it didn't work out.

Right. When they did. Yeah. Oh, man. No.

You know, as sad as it is, I had a few boys not play this year because of that experience last year. This year I was able to have a Division one, Division two and Division three men's team, and they were all separate roster, different boys. And it would have been a lot more playing and learning for everybody. So that's yeah, that's that's another another great advantage to those divisions.

And so going forward, the J.V. tournament in the spring won't exist, but those same athletes are essentially being absorbed into a different team, a D two or a D three team, and having an opportunity to play legitimate championship opportunities. Right.

Correct. At the end there. Right level. And I don't know how deep you want to get into that Chafey tournament. There's a lot we could we could talk about there. It was it was too big and it was too important and it was too redundant, meaning that there were very few athletes that only played in that J.V. tournament. Right. Most of them either played the weekend for the fortune hunters or were going to play the next weekend in the varsity tournament. Yeah. And we would even see coaches who would sandbag the varsity tournaments so that they could be they could finish better in the J.V. turn. Yeah. And that's not what we want to see. No. And so that's so that the division. The way we have it now where Division one, Division two. Division three. But each is a legitimate and recognized championship. I think just gives more, more competitive opportunities.

Well, it's going to be really exciting to see how that grows. Hopefully, again with it, with the relatively strong vote to move that forward. I think that we're on a great pathway. Let's talk a little bit about the future of age group water polo. Can you tell from your seat, from your your role there, what kind of investment in age group polo do you think coaches should make? Clubs to make? What are the benefits of that? I mean, I know you have spent a lot of time over the last three, four years there at Spartan Polo. Fine. And any kid and thrown them in. Right. Yeah. How have you. How is that. Have you seen benefit in that and overall for your club.

Well, you know. So your first question is what kind of investments we're making youth water polo. Yeah. All the investments. Yeah. Really the answer. Spartan water polo is run by a parent board. And they whenever we have extra money or ideas, I tell them, invest in the youth, invest in youth, water polo. So like, I have spent a lot of time there. When I came over here to Murray, it was it was confusing to me because Murray High School had strong teams, had a strong men's team at least. Like I said, the year prior, they had they were state champions and we were state champions that year as well. But there was no youth water polo in Murray. There was there was nothing. It just didn't exist. And I couldn't believe that that floored me. And so I spent a lot of time investing in my youth and doing everything I could. I wasn't the the youth forum coach at the time. I am now. Yeah. Wasn't at the time. But I went to their practices anyways and I was passing out flyers and I would go and talk to their parents and pass out flyers to their parents in the stands. And then I got contacts to the elementary schools and junior highs and I made sure that flyers went out to all of those parents, just letting them know there's gonna be youth waterpolo. And Murray, come try it out. Yeah, those first two years were pretty rough. Not enough. We got we got a lot of players and I was happy with that. I was happy to see that that return on that investment. But, you know, brand new water polo players, it's it's a steep it's a steep learning curve, especially if they're not coming from a swimming background. Right. And so, you know, it was rough, but they were happy. They were they were loving it. And so I learned a lot.

I was going to stop you right there. Why were they happy and loving it? What did you do as a coach or as a program to make sure those kids that I mean, I saw some of those kids, right. I mean, they're they're in board shorts and they're coming in with their rash guard, John.

Sean, I legitimately thought some of them were going to die in those first practices or games. It's it's quite a possibility. How worried about how did you keep those kids coming back?

Great question. I had to change as a coach because like we said, I came from Perm's where the tradition was winning. Yeah. You know, and I had coached predominantly the high school age group, at least since 2012. And that's what I was comfortable with. And they they can handle a little bit more grit and in your face, tough type of coaching. And here's the reality, like it or leave, you know, type of stuff. And so I had to change as a coach with kids like that. It can't be. And it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be about winning. Whether they're the best 12 year old in the country or not, that age group is all about fun. Right. And so I just made their practices as fun as I could. I, I learned how to coach youth waterpolo. I match their energy level in practice. We learned through games and we made little mini goals. You know, hey, you know, this quarter, let's swim all the way down the pool. That's something we can do.

We can control that. See that red cone there? Exactly. And we got good at that.

And then, you know, hey, all right, now we're good at swimming down the pool. Let's swim to certain spots in the pool, you know, and they learn that. And we did that. And that was a success for us and that it wasn't only healthy for me. Shawn, that's so healthy for a young athlete. Yeah. To be able to focus on goals that are within their control and that have nothing to do with winning. It shapes them, I hope at least shapes them for the rest of their life. Right. If I were to come in there and, you know, we've got to win now, I don't care if you can't swim, they'll score me a goal. Right. I wouldn't have a youth program because they all would have quit on me by now and rightfully so.

But it's it's great to it's great to have a conversation with coaches with similar philosophies. Right. I mean, yes. You've gotta make it fun. It's absolute. Gotta be like the most exciting thing in their day is to come to waterpolo practice. Right. And. Yeah. Absolutely.

And because parents can see that parents to want to have the fight on that side and like, I don't want to practice. You know, I mean, nothing. That's especially for a 10 year old. Eleven year old. Twelve year old. OK, then let's just go play soccer now.

Let's go play cross, whatever what exactly to do.

You know, I mean, we as much as we're growing up, we don't have the luxury of losing athletes yet. No, we don't. So we got to do whatever we can to keep every single one in the pool. And, you know, it's it's all about fun, right? They love winning, too. And winning will eventually happen. Yeah. You know, because and it's because kids are are far better at learning than we adults are at teaching. Yeah. And so it doesn't matter if you're the worst coach in the nation. If you get a kid in the pool at eight years old for the time he's 12, he's gonna be pretty good.

Well, if you think about it, he's got a really good. Yeah.

Those kids that are eight to 12, they have played more games by the time they're 12 than we did in our entire high school career.

Yeah. I mean, it's just nuts to think about that way. Absolutely. And so, you know, the winning will happen. You know, just last year in the Fortune and under age group, my team took fourth. Yeah, we finished fourth in the state. And that was huge for us. Being that these were these were kids who had started that I recruited into the sport. And we're brand new. So the winning will come. Yeah. Like like you've said, you've got to just make it fun for those kids. You've got to give them a reason to come back the next season. Yeah. And that's what I've always as a head coach, you a big part of your job that nobody sees as is training your assistant coaches. Yeah. And so I always tell those assistant coaches your main priority in the spring season is that they come back for the fall season. Right. And your main priority for the fall season is that they come back for the winter season and and whatever else you do needs to be towards that end that you keep this kid in the pool as you spend more time with each kid and you earn trust with that athlete. You can't start to be a little more strict. And, you know, in terms of of physical progression and. All right, it's time to get better at waterpolo now. Right. Because you've put in the time with that kid and you've built that relationship of trust and they have that they can win and they have and they can swim.

Oh, man.

You know, nobody likes to hear this, but I've been asked many times, what's the best way to learn waterpolo? And my answer is to swim for four years first. Right. And obviously, that's that's maybe that's not sustainable. And it's definitely not the funnest way, but it is the best way I can stand by that to the day I die. The best way to learn waterpolo is to swim for four years first before you ever touch a ball. Yeah, but that's that's a separate discussion.

So in terms of your transition, a little bit different topic, but kind of the same idea in your development as a coach. You've mentioned a couple of different transitions. What's been this biggest aha moment or shock from moving from an assistant coach at Kernes into a head coach role at Murray? And what are some of the individual strategies you have added to develop as a coach?

Yeah, great question. So one of the biggest things I didn't know as an assistant coach was how much administrator for there is, first of all.

And you love building rosters, right? Yes. That's what I've learned. It's not my favorite thing.

There's a lot of time before the season put into scheduling games, building rosters. There's a lot of administrative work that goes into head coaching. And it turns Brad did all of that. In fact, I think Brad loves it.

Yeah, he said that. And our conversations. I just like to do it. You know what? He's good at it now. Yeah. Yeah.

He he's not the head coach at Current anymore, but he still does that work because he loves it. And why now? So there's a lot of administrative sides to it. And what I enjoyed most about making that transition to Murray was that it allowed me to discover my own style of coaching at Kernes. You know, I was I was the assistant. And so you follow the head coaches lead. I don't want to be misunderstood. There was nothing at all wrong with the way that Brad coached. I mean, had 13 championships in a row. Right. So I felt very honored to be a part of his program for as long as I was. And that's you know, I learned everything about being a player and a coach from Brad. From Brad Piercey and being at Turn's. But then being at Murree. Just allow me to discover some things that just because of my personality, I wanted to do differently. So some of those I were maybe more specific training. Working, working more with specific teams, splitting up practices. That was more of a necessity, actually, because it curran's they have the 50 metre pool right there. They have more space than they need. Murray, we're in a twenty five yard pool, so we have to split up practices.

But that just gave me a chance to work more intimately with each team and with each player. And so I discovered that I did something at Murray that I always wanted to do at Kernes. But Brad never let me. And that was the week of passing the week or passing the week, literally a full week of passing with my with my team because, you know, after a particularly bad game where they just couldn't pass or catch the ball. Right. I said, you know what? There's no point in learning anything else until you can catch a ball. So we're gonna go back to practice and we're going to make two thousand dry passes and we're not going to do anything else until you can do that. And so we did that and it took about three days. Yeah. I don't know how else to put it. It allowed me to kind of find my own coaching voice. That's awesome. And so it's it's been a really enjoyable experience. I, I like to have fun with the kids and mess around with them and but also push them and challenge them and get in their face a little bit and. Right. And demand honor and commitment from them. And it's it's been a great experience.

That's awesome for a younger coach or maybe one of these seniors that's coming out of high school right now that might be interested in coaching. What would be some steps that they could take to become a coach?

You know, I would encourage them to be an assistant coach first, and that's not always possible. You know, there's not that many programs out there. Right. And we have many programs in need of head coaches every year. So sometimes those young kids are thrust into that role before they're ready. And that can be hard. Yeah, that can be really hard. So if they can't, I would say become an assistant coach first and learn as much as you can from that head coach. But if you know but regardless of whether they're an assistant or a head coach right away, I would just tell them to lead with passion. Hopefully, if they're if they're thinking about coaching, that means they have passion for the sport and lead with passion. The kids aren't going to love it any more than the coach does. Right. Kids are smart. They pick up on that and they can they can tell if the coach is having a bad day.

They can tell if the coaching can wait as well. If that's that's a Seage. That's a trade secret. That's a trick.

You know, they can tell if the coach is just a little bit burnt out and they feed on that. They they echo that. So I would just first tell them to lead with passion. That's that's far more important than X's and O's. And what kind of drills you're doing. Right. And, you know, how much conditioning should you be doing? What's most important is that is that you're you're passionate as a coach. And that will transfer to your players. I think I've always I've told people many times I think Michael Cold-Hearted Herriman does a fantastic job at that. His kids love to play waterpolo. Yeah. I think maybe more than any other program I've seen more than mine. It's something I've tried to learn from Mike that those Harryman kids loves to play water polo. And they catch that for Mike. And he loves to coach water polo. Yeah. So am I. Yeah. Shout out to my goldhar. You know, that would probably be my my biggest piece of advice. Lead with your passion.

So let's transition again a little bit. Flash forward five to 10 years. What what would you want to see waterpolo look like?

In Utah and in the mountain zone, you know, I think it would be a little unrealistic to say that we're already high school sanctioned in five years. Right. But I will I would hope that we will have made significant progress. I do think that if if we're able to get our high school lead, not if we are going to get our high school league running in the fall of twenty, twenty one. And so I think in five years, realistically, we could have 50 plus high schools represented with full waterpolo teams. So I'd love to see that happen on the high school side.

We're going to have a busy developing referees and coaches, too, Adam.

Yes, that's been the biggest unsaid part of the discussion right now, is that, OK? We're going to have waterpolo. We're gonna have high school waterpolo. OK. All right. If we're going to have 50 teams, we need 50 pools. We need 50 coaches. We need 100 referees. And so there's a lot of work to be done. Yeah, but that's good work, you know. Yeah. That's a good type of work. So five to 10 years. I hope we're at 50 plus high school teams being represented on the club side. I hope we have more focus on jails and more clubs going. Right now it's been Perm's Olympus Harriman and Park City slash mountain premier crap. You know, Murray Murray hasn't even taken a Murray Spartan team to jails yet. It's on my my bucket list. And we have more Murray athletes going each year. But some go with mountain premieres, some go off turn, some go with Olympus. Haven't even we haven't yet reached the point where we're going as Murray yet. So I hope that more athletes from more teams continue to travel and that eventually more teams are traveling and that eventually we have more teams that want to go to jails than we have spots.

All right. Let's talk a little bit about travel. I mean, if you were to have I have found that it's kind of set up, but I have found from Olympus perspective, once we started to travel, my kids got really engaged. They loved that. It was really very fun. Right. Do you do you feel like have you seen that same experience in your kids? Would you make that recommendation to other teams that say, hey, how do I get my kids more engaged?

Hundred percent, yes, Sean. And let me explain to you why I think it's successful, not because California is the mecca of water polo for the world, right? You know, it's a water. California has crappy coaches and crappy refs and crappy players just like anywhere else in the country. Right. And so traveling. I don't think it's the fact that they're seeing superior play or superior coaching or superior waterpolo. They're number one. And this goes back to what we were saying earlier. It's fun. Yeah. Traveling with your team is fun and taking a 13 hour bus ride with your team is fun.

I was talking to that with Brad. I think the Kernes bus ride is really where the magic is to. Oh, it's legendary. It was legendary.

It was always so much fun. And staying in a hotel with your team and if it's in California, hopefully going to the beach. It's fun. Yeah. And and and it lights a fire under you as a player. Yes. When I came to Murray, travelling wasn't something that they did. Yeah. I made sure they did that very first year. Again, we weren't able to take a full Murray team. We combined with much of Cypress and a few Park City players that first year we took teams to the CAP seven tournament in Irvine. And then last year, we took more Murray players and less other players to that same CAP seven tournament in Irvine. And this year we had two full rosters of Murray, only people willing to go to CAP seven and excited to go to Cap seven. That's awesome. And unfortunately, it didn't happen. But yeah, it's fun. And so you get you introduce that aspect of of travelling outside of the state of Utah with your friends to do something that you love. And it just hooks them even more and it makes them even more excited to come back and work harder. Right.

Give me one or two more things to those coaches and athletes out there listening that want to grow their team. They want to blow their sport. They want to create more engagement in their community around water polo. You've done a great job at Murray, right? I mean, you've invested in your youth. The youth program you're traveling. What are what are some other, like tidbits or nuggets of information?

That said, I think that this is one of the answers.

So like we said, if you want to build a long term, sustainable, competitive program, number one is to invest in your youth. If if you are a perpetual nine through 12 program, meaning that kids are introduced to waterpolo in ninth grade and then they have four years to learn and master it, you're going to be stuck for a long time. You're going to have the Augier of some great athletes where they are going to do better than other years. But on the average, you're kind of you're kind of condemning yourself to mediocrity. Right. And and you're also not going to grow numbers wise because you're just not getting a wide enough base. So no one, for the long term sustainability as as far as the administrative side of things is to invest in the youth. Yeah. Get everything, do everything you can to get a strong youth program. Number two, and probably more important, but has to happen. Second is to make it fun for all age groups. You know, you can have 100 kids, but if a hundred kids hate it, right, next year, you're going to have 20 kids. And so make it fun for them. Lead with passion. Create opportunities for recognition. That was that was, I think. But one of my more genius things, if I can if I can say that about myself. One of the more genius things I did with those first years of youth waterpolo is that at the end of the season, every single kid got a personal award about something they had done during the season. And and I knew that I was going to do that at the beginning of the season. So I watched each kid extra closely to look for opportunities to recognize them. And so at the end of the season, I was able to say, you know, Mr. Caite himself here gets the bulldozer award.

Doesn't that game against Herman Cain? He deserves the bulldozer award. What he does. You've seen that here, man. I have seen that kid. I know how that I know. I've seen that kid has turned. My kids do a couple of eggs. Exactly.

You know, and so you're able to say that that game against Harryman, something clicked in Caden's head and he just decided that nobody or no. Seven people were going to stop him from putting the ball in the cage. He'd just mowed over kids like that was like he was getting paid for it. And he put that ball in the back of the cage. And kids love that. They love to be talked about. And so creating those opportunities for recognition and making sure their parents see that is key. Another thing, and maybe this is the dark side to waterpolo, is that, you know, it's also a business. Yeah. And and your kids have to love it. But ultimately, the kids are the ones writing the check to enroll themselves in your program. The parents are, yes. You also have to create a professional product that the parents are willing to spend money on because there are other sports and other teams and a hundred other things that their kids could be doing. So their parents have to say, no, this is this is the best use of my money. And so I always stress that with my assistant coaches that you have got to present yourself professionally, especially when the parents are on deck. And I think parents appreciate that. I think that parents notice that for sure.

So I don't know if that answers all your questions. Those are just those two. Those are some fantastic tips.

There is some sage advice in there for people hoping to develop their club and for especially on the administrative side. OK. So we're going ask you one last question. This is I'm going to try to build a salty splash podcast playlist, the best waterpolo playlist of all time. All right. And so I need to know I need to know what your favorite song is, whether it be a pop up song or a song that gets you ready to coach or go back in time.

The song you like, this is the one that I listened to before every single game laid on us. What is it?

You know, there is one. And in fact, I don't know any athlete who doesn't have that one. I know they don't. I'm not sure that they're an athlete because a lot of them are gay.

So my one and I'd be curious to know if Brad Piercey still remembers it because he knew it when I was in high school. It's either Tiger. John.

Eye of the Tiger. Fantastic. That is my pump up jam. The fact that, for example.

Did you figure that out when you went to Utopia's and then Tiger, their mascot?

It is their mascot. But no, it was before that. Even in high school, even as a young kid, I've always loved little support and losers in general. Yeah. Yeah. Little. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, either Tiger is the theme song for Rocky three or Know fights. Clubber Lang, who's McGeady and I always loved those Rocky movies. And Eye of the Tiger is that iconic song from from those movies. And so before big tournaments, I would literally do this. It. It may sound a little cheesy, but I would watch the Rocky movies. Yeah. Big Swim meets the four big water polo tournaments. I would watch them all.

And show your favorite scene. Well, he is like hitting the side of me with his bare hands. Did you like that? That's a good one. That's a good tenderizing. The meat side in.

My favorite scene is probably probably the workout montage from Rocky four, where he adds the Russian. Yeah. He's outdoors and world's natural tragedy. And he's just. He's huge man, but. So either Tiger has always been my number one pump up song. And I said, I wonder if Brad still remembers that, because in high school, once I was swimming the 500 freestyle, I must have been being punished or something because while first off, some of us are distance swimmers.

Adam, be nice.

I was kind of lagging off the pace a little bit. And so Brad, who was an assistant coach at the time, got on the music system and played either tiger. I kid you not. As soon as he did that, my 50 started picking up. So I got a little bit faster.

And that's a good tune.

So, yeah, that's always been my my number one go to pump up song, even if I hear it to this day. I just have to do something. Mastech gets me going.

I love it. Well, I truly appreciate you taking a little bit of. Time you have you have the coronavirus beard. I do. Is it when are you shaving or are you not shaving?

Not until I can start coaching again. OK. I think I'm going to keep it until until I've got to get back out. The nature public has to see me.

But OK. They're keeping it. For those of you who are only listening, it is it's it's down to the collarbone at this point. I mean, it's it's it's getting there.

So and it's not pretty either. It's not even it's not you know, it's patchy in some places. Yeah. But it's the best you can.

You look like Rocky in Rocky four out every go rating.

Yeah. There we go. Yeah. That's what I was going for. That's good. Adam. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it, Sean. Thank you. This was a lot of fun. Happy to be here. Invite me back anytime you got us.

Thanks, brother. Thanks again to Adam Huff, head coach of Murray Spartan Waterpolo and Murray, Utah. ODP coach and current president as the Utah High School Water Polo Association Board. If you just can't get enough water, pull upon podcasts. Check out Steve Careers pot off the deck where Steve talks to many of the best coaches in the game. You'll also like Tony Acevedo's podcast, the Tony Azevedo podcast hosted by Dave Williamson. As they look at waterpolo through the lens of Tony's five Olympic Games and a future focused mindset, check out what's going on in Texas at the Texas Waterpolo podcast and in the Midwest at Nearside Low podcast.

All very interesting conversations. Working to support the game we love. We are just trying to make a journey to be a voice for sport growth in the water polo wilderness. Always honor the game and keep your head on a pivot until next time.

Peace.

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