Salty Splash Return to Play James Eric Jesse.mp3

Salty Splash Return to Play James Eric Jesse.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Salty Splash Return to Play James Eric Jesse.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 water of the salty splash. We'll take a look at waterpolo 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 will seek to have interesting and collaborative conversations with stakeholders to the game. My name is Sean Stringham and I look forward to creating a conversation honoring the history of waterpolo, but more importantly, talking about the future of our sport. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I'm the men's head coach and club director at Olympus Water Polo. I serve on the Utah Water Polo and USA water polo mountains on boards. I will come at this podcast from the perspective of someone who has lived outside of California, always looking for best practices to grow the sport at every level, splash ball, age group, club, high school and beyond. In this episode, I'm excited to talk about water polo. We're back in after covid and we'll have the opportunity to talk about some of the rules and how we return to play. And then we go from there into a conversation with Jesse Cockshell from southern Utah Water Polo, James Kevington from South Davis water polo and Eric Richards from Cash Valley water polo.

Each of these three gentlemen have started clubs, grown clubs and worked hard to create water polo opportunities for kids and athletes in their neighborhoods. Stay tuned after we do our rundown of how we are going to return to play for our family. And I can guarantee you will learn something that you can apply to your own local club. As you listen to the wisdom of these three gentlemen, please subscribe rate. Give a five star review and share the podcast. Find us on Twitter and Instagram and check out the Web site all by searching Salty's Pod in our show. Notes is a link that you can leave me or send me a voice message. If you have a question or comment, don't hesitate to send a message and hopefully we can incorporate it into the podcast. I look forward to bringing you regular episodes. Let's work together to bring the sport we love to every pool. Hey, everyone, I am super excited about this episode of the podcast, we are actually going to talk about waterpolo and getting ready to get back into the pool as we start up the fall league for 2020.

I don't know about you, but it's been one hundred and sixty eight days since the last time Olympus played a game. That was March 10th. March 13th is when we shut down the league. And since then we've done lots of zoo meetings. We've been lucky enough to be able to get in and do some training, some practices here and there. But we are thrilled and I hope and thrilled to see the response as we're getting ready to start the Fall League for this upcoming year. Shout out to Kearnes and to Brad Piercey for doing all of the organization for the upcoming Fall Youth Water Polo League. There's lots of great information. I would encourage you to share this podcast with your athletes and with your parents so that they can understand all of the details and policies and procedures that need to be aware of as we take this dive. It's going to be pretty exciting. This Youth Fall League is the first sanctioned league and first sanctioned game post covid that will be returning. And so we have a pretty large responsibility to make sure that we're following those policies and procedures because I feel like we're going to be under a microscope as we roll this out. First of all, let's review the teams that are here.

What's great news is that we've actually got some teams that have traditionally been only participating in the spring or coming out for the fall season. So huge shout out to all of the teams we're going to run through. And Bear River has three teams entered. Brighton has three teams, Cache Valley, four teams, Harryman one team, Iron County, welcome Iron County to the Fall League. One of the teams that I was mentioned that's new to the Fall League, that's three teams currently has eleven teams. Murray has six teams, Ogden three teams. Olympus has ten teams. Park City eight Skyline three, South Davis three, Southern Utah four and Utah County three. Utah County also throwing their hat in the ring as we're getting ready to go into the fall season. So a total of 62 excuse me, that would be 65 teams that are entered for this upcoming year. And our first games coming up on Friday, August 28th. Games are going to be hosted this year at Olympus High School at Kernes Oak Park Fitness Center and the Fifty Meter, as well as outside in the dive pool for as long as the weather holds, probably until the end of September.

And I believe there's going to be some games played in Ogden. And then we also have two weekends down in southern Utah. So we were all spreading out a little bit as per guidelines. And there's some definitely some ideas and things that we need to be aware of from a spectator standpoint and as from an athlete and coach standpoint so that we can make this work. Right now, we only have schedules available for Friday and Saturday, August 28th and 29th. I'll post those up on the Salty's Blogspot website, but we should also be receiving those updated podcast from Brad here in the next couple of days. 645 at Olympias will be the first game back in the United States after post-Soviet. And that will feature Skyline Eagles versus the Olympus Titans, kind of an East Side Salt Lake City rivalry and should be a fantastic games for our friend with our friends up at Skyline that evening. We also have a 745 game with Brighton and Olympus and then at eight 45, the Kernes in Olympus. In the new goals girls category will be, which is also across town rivalry. We're all rivalries, but we always get along and have a great time as we're getting ready to play.

All right, just by way of policies and procedures, just so we're all on the same page, a couple of things to be aware of athletes you have to be a bronze member of USA waterpolo, and all of the coaches have to be for USA waterpolo, coaches and registered and current. All of the rosters coaches have to be submitted to the USA Guy USA rostering system. And as we go through this, in terms of time of play, all of the quarters in the fall league will be five minute quarters. And that was done so that we can give ourselves a little bit more time on the end to transfer athletes in and out and also to make sure spectators can be in and out, will have 30 second shot clocks for all the other games, 14 and under will be 35 second shot clock. Twelve hundred games will be 40 and ten. And there will be forty second soccer shot clocks as well. If a game is at tied at the end of regulation, there will be sudden death overtime. Each team is allowed one full timeout per game. Twelve you and ten years will be playing by the USA waterpolo modified rules. So be familiar with those. If you're coaching the twelve you and ten you team. One of the big changes that we need to be aware of in terms of the game schedule, typically we cross paths and at halftime white caps are going to start and remain to the tables left and they are not going to switch defensive ends during the game.

So once you're on a side, you're going to be on that side for the entire game. All teams, please. In the past, this is a change from the past. I'll have to bring their own caps and warm up balls. Typically, the league has provided those in past. I think those errors are gone. So make sure you have a set of caps. Make sure you bring your warmup balls. The league will not be providing caps for other teams due to the covid safety rules and regulations. The other thing to be aware of from a corporate standpoint is that there should be no shared water bottles. So make sure your athletes have a water bottle, preferably with their name on it, so that they can know and understand and have that have their own water bottle during games. OK, let's jump into a little bit more detailed policies and procedures for the covid-19 guidelines. These are dated that was sent to me from Brad and dated August 17th. As we know, covid is changing every single moment. So if there's updated information, Brad has been been very good at sending that information out. And again, this is what I'm going to refer to.

Here are the guidelines for the games, regardless of location, no matter where they're being hosted so that we can receive the sanction for the sport. So let's run through those. And and that being said, each club should have their own covid-19 guidelines based on your own county that you're in, as well as the facility guidelines that you might have there as well. First and foremost, all athletes, coaches and referees are going to have to sign the USA waterpolo covid-19 return to play, release and waiver. You do that through USA, USA membership portal and you have to do that prior to participating any practice or games. It's pretty easy. All you do is log in to that. It literally pops up first thing. You don't have to go look for it. It's a simple check box and a submit. If you're an athlete under the age of 18, you have to have your parents do that to give them permission to be able to do that. Athletes won't be able to be added to eligible rosters until they have accepted that key thing in this goes hopefully common sense at this point from everyone. No one is allowed to enter the facility if they're experience any of these kinds of symptoms. Fever over one hundred point four, cough, trouble breathing, chest congestion, sudden change in test or smell, muscle aches or pains. We are going to be doing symptom checks, including temperature.

They have to be completed on all athletes and coaches prior to every game. Each team is expected to record this information and keep on file. So coaches help bring a thermometer, make sure your your athletes are being checked before games record that potentially on the roster so that we can know that they're clear and ready to participate. Each of the individual clubs make sure you're obviously you have contact information. This is from a contact tracing standpoint and that we're taking attendance, that you're taking role of who's at each of the individual games. So if we need to track someone that we are able to do that, this is key. What about face coverings? Face coverings are required by everyone at all times when you're coming to games. So everyone is pretty sweeping, including spectators, table coaches, athletes. Here are a few of the following exceptions. First, athletes while in the pool. Obviously, you're not going to be wearing a face covering while you're participating in the pool. It is recommended, however, while you're in the bench area, OK, just like if you've been watching any of the basketball games or baseball games, you can see that when they're on the bench or in the dugout that they have that mask on. We would recommend that while you're in that bench area, you have your face covering with you coaches.

We're not available to maintain six feet physical distance, seeing should also be wearing masks when they're not able to maintain six feet. So if you're close to someone, coaches have those that mask on. Just wear it around your ears, make sure it's there close with you. And then the other exception for face coverings are referees while actively refereeing during a game. A few of the other key recommendations as we get through this six feet physical distancing from others not in the same household is required whenever possible. Please ask you to minimize contact with surfaces, door handles, etc.. We're going to try to have those doors popped open, but use that backside to pop that door open instead of touching it with your hands. Obviously, we want to make sure that you practice good hygiene, wash your hands frequently, sneeze or cough into your elbow. All of the facilities will have hand sanitizer available so that you can sanitize often. And obviously, as I mentioned before, team water bottles. We don't want to have any kind of team water bottles. And so don't you do not share the water bottles, et cetera, towels, all of that kind of good stuff. If possible, if athletes can arrive in their swimsuit and depart without changing, that would be ideal. Trying to we are absolutely trying to limit the use of locker rooms and we will be practicing one way at all of the facilities in terms of incoming and outgoing directional patterns for teams and spectators.

Coaches, keep your pre and post game teams meeting brief, preferably 10 minutes or less. And face coverings must be worn by athletes and coaches during team meetings. Keep those face coverings close by. You're going to need them wherever you are. Again, as I mentioned, teams bring their own warm up walls not to be shared with other clubs. Teams must bring their own caps and are not allowed to be shared with other clubs. Spectators are going to be essentially limited to two per player. This may be reduced depending on the on the venue are deemed necessary by the league. So not everyone should be coming. I know a couple of working on live streaming some of the games. So you have that opportunity at Olympus. We're working on free ticketing through Eventbrite, where we are going to be limiting 30 spectators per team. So if Olympus Place Skyline Olympus gets 30, Skyland gets 30, and we're going to try to use that Eventbrite as a as an easy way to manage that on the honor system. Getting into the weeds here, when we're doing rosters and photo IDs are checked, athletes, coaches and officials have to be wearing a mask. The person checking the photos will ask the mask to be lowered momentarily just to double check identity after games or before games or during games.

Hey, no more high fives, man. Sorry. We're going to have to send the love another way. So, no, don't shake hands. No. Five, maybe a fist bump, an elbow bump, a foot bump, whatever might work, but no shaking hands. We're going to cheer for the other team after the game and then leave the bench area without walking past the other team rosters are going to be limited to sixteen athletes. So not that no more than nine athletes are going to be on the bench. And as I mentioned, teams are not going to change defensive ends during the game. So white caps are always going to start to the tables. Left a couple more here. Any athlete or coach that test positive for covid-19 or has been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, must quarantined for fourteen days unless told differently by their doctor or the health department. The athlete or coach must notify their club's head coach or designated safety person within the club must notify the league director immediately. Close contact is defined as someone who was within six feet of someone for at least fifteen minutes. Anyone that has tested positive has been tested for covid-19 must quarantine while waiting for the results, even if they don't have symptoms or their symptoms have gone away.

Well, that's a lot.

But as Brad Piercey and I have been going back and forth and working on organizing the lead, there's been several text messages that have gone back. But it's a good thing that we love this sport to go through all of this. I think it will be worth it. I know it will be worth it if when we want to make sure that we follow these go covid guidelines and regulations to make sure that we can continue to play. I guess the last piece of advice that I would give is pretend like every game could be the last one for a little while. Right? I think I mentioned there was one hundred and sixty plus games since the last time, and I've thought a lot about how what a privilege it is for us to be able to play water polo and how excited we are to be able to lead this charge and to make sure that we can keep our athletes and coaches and tables, as well as our officials and spectators, safe and free of the coat of covid. But at the same time that we can go out and enjoy the sport we love, that's going to wrap up all of the information about Fall League. So that's a little bit long winded.

Let's get into the rest of the show and talk with James, Eric and Jesse. All right. We'll see you guys on pool deck and next time we'll have some. No scores to report and hopefully some athlete interviews take it easy.

All right, we'd like to welcome everyone to this episode of the Salty Flash podcast. I have a I have a panel of distinguished guests there, ranging from the furthest southern border of Utah to the furthest northern border of Utah, which I think is like four hundred and something something miles all the way from from south to north. And and a couple of good guests there in between as well. So representing starting in southern Utah, we have Jesse Catchable with Southern Utah Water Polo Club. How are you, Jesse? I'm good. Thanks for being on the show today. From South Davis' Water Polo, we have James Headington, which is in Davis County, just north of Salt Lake metro area. Hi, James. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks for being on. And then representing northern Utah up in Cash Valley, right on the edge of the border of Idaho, we have Eric Richards. Hi, Eric. Hello. And I wish my assistant coach was here. She's pretty awesome. Her name, Samantha Stringham. I have heard a couple of things about Samantha Stringham.

So in full disclosure, the string of water polo Jean has transferred.

I am the head coach and director at Olympus Water Polo, and she came out of Olympus and she's now studying at Utah State and has probably gone to the better team, probably better management.

And so it's fun to keep it in the family and see the next generation come up with that. So, hey, thanks for joining us, all three of you. Today. We're kind of kicking back here. We took part of the summer off from the podcast perspective just to get life and sort it out and organize. But we're getting ready. We have kind of a cool opportunity as we're getting started to start our fall waterpolo league. Our fourth quarter pro league starts. Our first games are in nine days. And I think that's the Saturday, the twenty ninth and Friday the twenty eight. It's back into the grind of like trying to get your rosters done and all of that. But before we jump into that, I'd really love to just take a few minutes and just hear each of your a story, a brief story of how you got into waterpolo. Each of you have started a club and grown a club here in Utah, but would love to hear just kind of your background. So we'll start with you, Jessie, since your will go south to north again. So we'll go Jesse James and Eric, take it away. Jessie, how did you get started in water polo?

Well, first of all, I'd like to congratulate you on Shaun for coaching the boys cadet team. I don't know if any of you guys knew that, but Shaun was selected to be a part of the ODP program, which which had been a part of for the last couple of years that. Thanks, Mandrax, appreciate that.

I was excited. Oh, yeah.

Now I got the email last night or or yesterday, and we do have quite a few coaches from from Utah. That's that's a part of that Olympic development program. But real quick, I played water polo in high school. I kind of got late start at some friends. It played and they invited me. We do like a spring program and they just said, hey, you want to jump in the pool? And I picked it up really fast, did spring polo, summer polo and then played my junior and senior year. We actually had a really, really decent team. So did that. I really enjoyed it. Then after high school, life just kind of moved on. And and I always loved water polo. I kind of got into it. After I got married, there was a master's program in Northern California that I did a little bit of practicing with. And then when we moved to southern Utah in twenty five, we were looking for something for our kids to do. But we wanted to do something as a family. So we got into swimming and as we got into swimming, I learned that there like a track meet and you watch for 50 seconds or two minutes and then you wait for two hours. Yeah. So I asked our swim coach, the head swim coach here with Sousa, the local club. I just asked her, I said, hey, why is there no water polo here? Just I don't know. And so we went to Long Course Joe's and she introduced me to Brad Piercey.

From that, I started traveling up to northern Utah with my son, Ethan and Savannah. We leave early in the morning and they'd play some ball games. I got into reffing so I could pay for fuel and then we would come back and we did that a few times.

And then we noticed there was just a need to have some kind of structure, so that's when we pulled the trigger and started a club and participated.

I think it was twenty. Fifteen was the first year we did spring the Spring High School League and got some athletes together.

And and the rest is history. So say yeah.

Now, for those of you who are listening outside of Utah or even within, if you've never been to southern Utah, it's one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It's a totally different climate. It's much more like what would you say? It's more like Vegas, maybe not quite as hot as Vegas, but yeah, we're a little higher in elevation.

So it has been one hundred and twelve last week.

The night's cool down, which is nice, but they have beautiful facilities there and they just finished another facility there, Dixie State University. But they've got some great opportunities to play. And a growing population, the fastest growing section of Utah at the moment. So some incredible opportunities down there for growth. And Jesse, quick fact, when I lived in St George in nineteen, moved in nineteen ninety nine, moved there for twenty three, I actually started a water waterpolo program in southern Utah for like six months before it, before I, before I ended up having to move. So I came across that the other day was I was cleaning out some files. James will move to you. How did you what's your waterpolo journey and story.

Pretty similar to Jesse's grew up in Southern California and in the eighth grade, as we're selling out like the world classes we wanted to be in when we moved into high school, I saw water polo and I thought it was a PE class, not like a sports team, like swimming. Sounds better than being on the pavement. Anyway, I could swim for forty five minutes and mess around and, you know, you know, a little bit later I got a call saying, hey, why were you practice yesterday? I'm like, what are you talking about. Sort of the next day wearing board shorts. Nobody's in Speedos and the coach is like tomorrow Speedo. And I was, I was like awkward moment by my first tried to like, wear a mask and incognito and everything was weird, but that's how I got started.

So three to four years out there and then kind of like Jesse after high school, just kind of like I just, you know, growing up doing college, get married and and the Princeton Master's Polo and Dallas for a few years back to Southern California to play some masters there and then moved here in 2010. And my oldest was 10 years old at the time and had a hard time adjusting to the moon kind of new kid syndrome. And so I started to put together a full program where you can kind of create a new group of friends.

And that's just kind of where we started at. And so that's kind of how something was pulled. I started I was just on how my kid fit in somewhere.

Yeah, it's amazing. And I think it's similar. I think all four of us probably will have a similar story. I'll let Eric go next year. But it's the crazy things we do for our kids. Right. And then we just get sucked into it. How about you?

I'm a sucker, too, I guess.

I got I grew up in San Diego and Watercoolers Life in East County, San Diego. So I grew up watching it, loving it as high school all-American.

I was going to go play at Pepperdine, had a little twist of events with the scholarship. So I wanted to play in San Diego State and met them, met a lady and I had drug me up to Frozen Logan, Utah.

So I left seventy eight degrees San Diego on a January morning and wound up in a 13 degree cache valley.

Yeah.

Again, for those of you at home, Logan is like the opposite of St. George. It's like, yeah, I've never been as cold as I have been actually, because I went to school at Utah State for a couple of years as like you have to gear up to just walk out that door in February like it is cold.

So it's really.

So then yeah, from there I just wanted to help grow.

So I became a referee and then eventually created this program a few years back. And it's it's it's awesome. It's a good sport. Watch people growing.

So all three of you from California originally, I'm feeling kind of proud here that I'm the only local Utah native, I suppose. But what has been what has been that? I mean, you've come into it just wanting to share the love of the sport. Right. And you wanted to provide something for your kids to do in terms of that way. How what have been some of the greatest successes that you feel like you've seen in terms of building out the program? I just love to kind of hear what the the the positives are a right of starting a program, digging it up from the ground up, providing something from your athletes. What what keeps you moving in in that world? What do you think, James? I'll go with you first.

That's a it's a loaded question, you know, obviously, you know, I think there's a couple of things that keep you motivated.

You have your athletes that are really gang busters about the sport and they want to excel at it and continue to play in college. And helping them go for those dreams is very fulfilling. And then you also have kids. You just need a place to be and they'll be competitive and whether they're right. But we've had a lot of kids really face a lot of hardships, had kids leave abusive dads and had just gaping the homes. We've had kids who are suicidal. Another person who's involved in a very bad accident or another driver was killed. And all of these kids have attributed the lessons learned and waterpolo, just having to do something hard during the long run. But it's still kind of sprint through the hard stuff to them in their path to recovery and just mental health and to see them grow and just become great adults. You know, I got two kids. I'm like about eight years ago that I coached, he was really wrapped up into drugs and everything. And now he's kind of like, you know, he's just a great human being, a member of society. He's got a great job, a wonderful dad. And to me, that's the most fulfilling part about it. It's like every year my look, my my how he's graduating. She's the last of my oldest set of kids. I got young kids and a little kids. That's right. And and I'm like, this is it would be my last year, coach. Oh, well, what about him or what about her? What about him? I got to him out for them. I want to see them when they become sick. I don't know when I'm going to say right. But that's that's what's fulfilling is just see these people grow up and become great human beings.

That's great. How about you, Eric?

Now, ironically, yesterday, I got a phone call a couple of months ago, one of my former players passed away. It's a weird, weird dose of prescription cough medicine and some food that he ate. And, wow, he's from the Ivory Coast. It's one of those stories where mom is there under this war and they became refugees, wound up getting money to come here to America and this kid was ripped off. You're playing Flo. He's just a bodybuilder. Yeah. And he passing away yesterday, his aunt called me and said, hey, we Flo loved water polo and we'd like to make a substantial donation to your team. Use the money however you want to. Right. So now watching this whole process, I mean, just and he was one of my very first players. I reached out to him, handpicked him from school to come and play because I knew it would be good for him and good for our team as well. But now to watch it, I mean, kind of full circle to watch even after passing on his influence being felt is is pretty remarkable.

That's great. What a what a great story. And again, it feels like that same thing. How about Jesse? How about you? What are some of the best wins that you've had out of your program?

Well, I would say kind of like what these guys have said is I'd go it's not so much the wins and losses.

It's it's the lives that you touch and and the experiences that you have. We had a kid the first, I think was the first or second year we were a team and we went to Park City for the state finals. And this kid was a foreign exchange student. Japanese barely spoke any English. And the last game we tried everything, we could get him a goal. Right. It was one of those moments that you just that's all you want is just we're down. I mean, I think it was like a 15 goal deficit that we were down by. But also I just said, hey, let's just try and get him a goal. Make a long story short, he actually ended up moving to Southern California and he played junior college water polo. Wow.

So and he's very some of the guys tell me about his Instagram page, but he loves water polo. He went one year in Southern California and then he played another year in Florida. So it's kind of nice to see people kind of get the water polo bug and to hear those stories. And you feel like that that's a win for me. They got something out of it and they're they're going to share that experience and be part of that community because it's very funny. The water polo community is small. I mean, talk to someone that plays water polo.

They probably know someone that you've you know, so it's it's kind of a nice community to be a part of.

Yeah, well, that's so true. I mean, the community component of it and it and I think it's it's doesn't have boundaries.

Like, you can go anywhere. It seems like in water polo comes up or you're wearing a t shirt and someone comes up saying, hey, I played water polo, it so and so and you have that instant bond.

It's so nice to have it be such a small community as as we transition here. Obviously, we're recording this mid-August and we're right in the middle of a pandemic across the country. And we're like I said earlier, we have the opportunity to be one of the first sanctioned waterpolo games as we're starting league games back up here in a couple of days. So I know from our program our last game was on March 10th at at Kernes.

And we walked away from that thinking that we would be back the following weekend to play again and the whole thing shut down. Right. We nothing happened. We were lucky enough at Olympus to be able to get back in the water in June and from a really kind of structured way in terms of being able to share lanes and that Utah's continue to open up. And in July, we were able to run some full practices. And so that's been really good to have the opportunity to get the kids back in there. And they love that and they're excited to get back in and start playing again here at the end of August. I'm just curious how how the how covid has affected each of you and affected your programs and teams and some of the strategies you've used to keep kids involved to maintain it obviously is and to and to bridge into the future.

Let's see, Eric, we'll let you go first. This time I.

It's Sean. Thank you. You're kind of a pioneer.

I appreciate all the legwork you've done just to help waterpolo grow and flourish here in Utah. So a lot of us are kind of resting on your good shoulders. The foundation you've laid up here for the first time ever, we actually had access to two pools. We have our mountain crest at the high school that we had for a couple hours each week. And we had access to the Utah state pool. Of course, covid shut that down. So we lost the Utah state pool. We won't have it this fall. So we're back to where we've always been. And that is one hour of pool time, twice a week for all five athletes. So they did give us more than usually we just have the dive tank now. We do have the full pool, but it's just some wrestling. How do you fit? Sixty five kids ages nine to eighteen into one pool for one hour to conduct practice. But that's more of a pool issue than the virus issue. But we've done some practices outside at a lake that was a lot of fun.

But yeah, other than that, we've been OK. Luckily our county is Green County in green status. So, yeah, we've been we've been fortunate that way.

So you have you haven't had to really make much adjustments in terms of the practice or social distancing on deck or anything like that. It's because of the county's green status there.

Yeah, that's correct. And we're used to pool for about two hours a week, so.

Yeah, OK, very cool. James, how about you?

That we've been in not we're not quite green, but we're at looser standards than most of Salt Lake. So in June, we're able to start practicing for everything. Right? So we've been scrimmaging a couple of nights a week since June. And that's very nice. And we've had a lot of people come from all over the place. So it's been really good for our just based on where we've lived to give our kids exposure to a lot of the university athletes who wanted to scrimmage. Nice. But this has been a positive. That's where we live. In regards to that, we're going to draw for people who have not had access to pools. Right. But on the on the negative side, though, it really hurt our recruiting efforts because a lot of kids we recruited for the first year know they were testing out. Do I like this or that? So just being able to get them, you know, we've got cut off. They were still in the hard part before. They really kind of acclimated to the sport. Right. And so there's some kind of something that was so hard. I think I want to try something out. So it killed some of our recruiting efforts for the new players coming to the sport. And then we've got a you know, in the kids who come from families where they're high risk or higher susceptible to infections anyways, you know, we've got a number of our standout athletes come from those families. So we've had some impact there where they're not coming out and just because they need to limit exposure or potential exposure and whatnot. But I think that's pretty typical for a lot of clubs. But just really the recruiting efforts, I think, is where we are impacted, you know?

Yeah, that's that's true. How about you, Jesse? Where are you seeing down there in southern Utah?

So I believe we're green, I I'll be honest with you, I don't really follow what our local county is doing. I kind of get good information from our facility. They kind of let us know what we're doing, what we can, but we can't do. And they've been really good that way. But I think as a coach, like on a coaching standpoint, is when we knew we were going to get back in the pool, I had to be creative. And that was kind of fun to just like, OK, what what have our limitations? What can we do, what can't we do? And to create a workout. So you could have the social distancing and and into, you know, make sure that you're following what what the health department wants. So for for me as a coach and a club director, that was kind of a fun challenge. That was kind of neat to to do that as a club. We purchased a ball, a water polo ball for each athlete. And then that kind of because one of the restrictions we had was you can share equipment.

And we figured if we bought each kid a ball and got cut short a little bit, we figured, hey, we have enough money to go in, buy the ball.

They brought that to and from practice. I'm sure everyone's the same, like no water bottles. We've just had to just be protective of what what the situation is. But it was fun for me. It was fun to just kind of be creative with this work with this not where and with water polo. We were able to open the pool up to six lanes. So our restrictions were different versus the swim team. They're only allowed to have two swimmers in one lane. So we could have everyone in there. We just had to keep the distance and stuff. So that was fun. I thought that was kind of fun to just take on that challenge and to be creative.

Well, what I'd be curious in terms of the spring season, which is a pretty big deal in Utah, right? We it seems like we spend nine months of the year planning three months of the year. And what was the impact of canceling? I mean, what was the feel any stories about as we canceled that season and we couldn't move forward about it from your athletes? And how did you guys recover from that? Emotionally, physically? I know I was depressed.

We were pretty lucky. We only had one senior on our entire team. And so the rest of the kids. We'll play next year. Yeah. OK, so it's pretty easy. OK, and we have just good kids. The big picture, this is this will pass and we'll we'll get back in the water.

Oh. What do you think, Jesse or James? Go ahead, James.

I think it was tough. You know, we had quite a few seniors at five or six boys, four or five girls, and it was pretty tough on them. It was I think the toughest part was it was so sudden. Yeah. That it was. And then everything just deescalated or declined so fast that it was hard to kind of put a closure to the serious high school season. Right. And I think that's as unique to the club. It had a lot of seniors a seat for us, kind of got closure actually this weekend when really not because when they put the other teams, ironically, about the same size as the number of athletes that were graduating. So it was really cool for them to kind of put together just a team of their seniors where they kind of grown up with. Yeah. And just go just as at the end of summer, right before they're leaving for college or whatever their next life adventure is. And so that was actually really nice to have that at the end of the summer to really for them to play a game that playing in the open water tournament yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. That's cool. So for them to be able to do that and have the last game where they're competing against each other, you know, they competed against one of your teams, Sean, and yeah. And they're great friends with each other. And so for them to be able to have that, you know, that Bagian that goes on in the pool, but that competitiveness and kind of close out. I wasn't up there who won?

The university team won.

Ok, the second or third place team.

You know, there's that after that.

I think it's actually a I think your team came in third and they said, yeah, yeah, yes, they did really well. But, you know, just to have that bantering with their friends from other clubs and the trash talking, but then the competitiveness and then that when they leave. And it was just nice to see them experience that they kind of put waterpolo behind their high school years behind them in a positive way. That was nice.

Yeah, well, hopefully they can I mean, shout out Seth MVP for us right at the university. He was there, I'm assuming, and being able to see those guys play and hopefully want to continue to play in college club. Right. I mean, I think that's that's the win is if they can leave high school and find a way to play.

So and I learned that was Seth.

It's hard to guard him, but it's harder to be guarded by him.

Right. Fair enough.

Well, and speaking of playing in college, I know Jesse just had a drive to and from Illinois and four days to drop his son off at McKendree, right? Yeah. So so his his son is playing at the next level back there. Please tell us tell us about that drive. Tell us about your the end of their season and getting him ready to go play in college, because that's what we really wanting to see, is this generation of kids going on to play after high school, right?

Yeah. Well, he actually committed back in November to to play there. And then obviously, when everything of got shut down, it was it was a huge blow to him. I think it was more just the waiting, like, I'm going to go, what's going to happen? And all the uncertainty. So what we did is when we got back in the pool and they we had a couple of weeks where we had the social distance in the water. And then when we were able to go back to some kind of normal routine, we decided to pick certain Friday nights to have games. They were in our squad games. And then we actually did a senior night for those athletes and invited the parents and tried to have something like kind of a send off. All the seniors came. We had four boys, one girl that was a senior and one of the boys. This was his first year playing water polo is actually wants to play in league, which we're allowing some of this play. So he's like, hey, I want to keep playing. Obviously, Ethan's at McKendree. I have a goalie that he's going to the University of Utah. And I said, hey, be good, stay in the water, stay busy. So I'm pretty sure he will. And then our other athlete, he's planning on serving a LDS mission here pretty soon. So for Ethan, it was it was just the waiting game, just waiting to see what's going to happen. Obviously, all college to a sports are kind of done for the fall. They're talking about starting back up in the spring. And and I've just told them I was say, if you can get in, you can train, you get used to it and just, you know, make the best of it and just see what happens. Two of his roommates and his dorm are on the water polo team. They're both freshmen.

His other roommates, a bass fisherman. I didn't realize that that's key to a sport, but it is cool.

But I think it's just the waiting game just waiting, like, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? And finally, when we took him out there and dropped him off, it was like, I'm here, I'm ready to go, go there in class. They started classes this week. They're supposed to get in the water September 1st and then they can start training. I'm sure there's going to be some distancing that way through the university and through their local health guidelines and stuff.

But in a way, especially for a freshman, I think it feels like you could get in there, start training and get your as opposed to the fall NCAA men's season, you can actually almost get a redshirt year built in and from a training perspective, get used to the level.

Yeah, I've talked to quite a few coaches at the next level that have said that I think even if they're limited on practice and games, they could actually get another year of eligibility. So, yeah, as long as you're you're with your group of athletes and you just you just positive about it. I think that's the big thing, is just to stay positive and play. I tell the kids all the time, play this game like it's your last or now.

You just you never know. Never been more true than right now, that's for sure. That's for sure. So transitioning into fall, like, are your are your clubs excited? Are your parents excited or your team's excited? You're ready for games to start. You're ready for the grind to get back in there, to put those rosters and get everything put together and ready to go. How are you feeling as a coach? How your how are your teams and clubs feeling? Whoever wants to go, feel free to jump in.

I'll go first. I was just telling Sean earlier that that are the normal facility that we use. They had a power outage, so the whole facility was down. So we had to kind of scary and find another place to practice. We've got like forty five athletes from ages nine to eighteen and we still get phone calls and people that are interested in playing. So I think for the most part, parents want to get their kids back into a normal routine. It's fun to play the sport.

We let Brad know that that we wanted to get some of the first games get going and get playing. And then I think it's just, you know, get back to normal life. I think that's kind of the key normal life, normal games.

And then we pull from six high schools now. So for them to be each other and, hey, how are you doing it? So it's kind of fun to see that because a lot of these kids, they're really the only ones that play water polo at their high school.

So when they come to practice their friends that they see, those are the ones they they can relate. They. Oh, yeah. You play water polo. We've actually picked up a kid from California. His dad moved. He said he was tired of California and and so he moved here. So we are getting a few transplants that are moving into the area down. And I do so.

But how are you guys excited, Erick and James, who wants to go on the go?

James, go ahead. You're older. Oh, well, we know that's true. We we are determined. You were the better looking like so. But I.

I don't think our kids have ever been more excited. I think just this gap has been just kind of built up, reinforced how passionate they were. I think sometimes you play a sport year round, sometimes it becomes monotonous or that, you know what I mean. And I think having it being taken away from them is kind of reminding them what a great sport it is and just got kids. So we started practices this week and just the smiles on their faces just to be back in the water, back with their friends and doing that just to passengers. I've never seen kids more excited to do kasey drills, you know, so it's that's really cool for me. It's been so long since I've had to spring to actually take care of my yard or my house right now.

Art has never looked better at the string him home. Just so you know, you never looked better. But May made all my yard work and done all the preprogram like man, this usually doesn't happen until July, you know, like so.

So for me, I kind of hesitate a little bit. No, not really. But I think just the overall excitement is just it's just great, you know, and you've got a good job of recruiting kids. And we're doing some learning to play clinics this week and tomorrow. We do want for our younger kids and lots of kids coming out for that. So hopefully I can build something. You know, we've always kind of strongly built in the younger age group because of our practice times, but hopefully we can get some more kids out for that. So that's, you know, I think there's just great excitement. You know, sports kids love sports outdoors. And when it's all coming back to just kind of chomping at the bit to do stuff.

So, yeah, it's fun.

And we're the same here. Just, yeah, everyone is back to normal. That would be so nice. So nice. So nice.

So fingers are crossed. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about sport growth. How I would like to specifically know, as you guys have built your clubs and we've kind of gone through this process together over the last five to 10 years, how can how can we better support each other in terms of games or practice or play or coaching philosophies? What have been the things that have worked for you in terms of like this is what I would love to see happen on a more regular basis and what are you doing? And trying to keep it positive? What are the things that we as a group should abandon that kind of help and delay that? I would love to know just your thoughts and opinions that we could offer to some of the other teams and clubs that are out there.

I'll start out, but we struggle the most at our younger age.

I just mentioned that one of the reasons is, is I get an hour, hour and a half a week for practice for my 14 under 12 and 10 hours. And so they show that it's two and a half hours total for those three age groups. Right. And so what happens is we're just not able and we're not able to get them conditioned for the sport really well. And so we are our attrition rate, our drop off right after the first year, really high for for this sport. Right. Right. Probably like 70 percent, which is which is ridiculous. Right. It's such a great sport.

They're coming out and they do our clinic the free to play thing that we do twice a year. They sign up to play because they had fun at that clinic. So, you know, it's a good match. Right. But they don't come back because, you know, this is not a condition. They go to the games and just get their butts kicked, you know? And and I think it to me, it's like I'm always struggling, like, what do I got to do to help these kids get better conditions?

Because our swim teams are like some weird old school mentality, kind of resides still with our swim clubs. And that if you're not part of the swim club year round and you can't be part of the swim team if you're doing water polo, you can't be swim team. So we have some weird things that go on with that. And so. To give them conditioning time has been really been our struggle.

And so for me, you know, I'm looking at as red as a rose up in Ogden. For those who don't know, Asra, we're looking at using some shared full time. She's got a smaller program. And, yeah, more more bodies in a pool attract people to think, oh, that's a big program. Yeah, maybe I should try that. It looks popular. So we're kind of over a bias kind of going up there and do some shared full time with them. Great idea. And then, you know, we'll be competing for competition reasons this fall in the age group. I think that helps the kids enjoy it more because, you know, you go to one day practice where you do drills and other things and some conditioning, and then you go to one day about kicking, you know, or I could be doing something that feels more fun in the moment, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Our high school kids get more practice when we recruit. At that age level, our retention is still pretty good because they get more practice. We practice later at night. So and it's a bigger space because it's late. And so, yeah. And they're a little bit more social creatures because they're independent. So they'll do stuff outside of the pool together a lot more. So they tend to hang out. But to me that's a big struggle is how do I create some cooperative efforts with competing clubs. Yeah, right. In terms of pool space and time. And that's that's kind of where, you know, where we're looking. And I don't know, the Northwest could help with some of that. But when you've got these tools that are independent, like, you know, physically. Yeah. It's hard to like, well, you got to pace this where we don't want to pay another rec center.

Right. But we have a pool will give us time. That is a lot of weird politics to go on with it too. So I don't know. I'm up for ideas, but to me, I like you know, we just need to collaborate more on the pool time that we have. Yeah.

And I think that leverage that I think that super smart like to be able to combine with again, they do have a nice facility up there and both are building that cooperative model as opposed to competitive, really helps build that sport and to be able to share that those resources are really smart in terms of getting those kids hooked. Right. Because you have to get those 12 year olds hooked into it and that's where the success comes.

So, yeah, for sure. Jessica.

Eric, what do you think Sharon is going to say, even little things like this, where we get to know each other's coaches and hear about kids going off to college and that's huge is I've gotten to know the referees over the last few years. It's just been fun. You're a lot more patient with the other coaches, with the referees. They miss a calling. Oh, Don missed it. But I like Don and human Don.

Don never misses. It's on the record. Don never misses.

I mean, let me let me correct you, Eric.

I'll say it is the best thing about Don is if your team needs more time, just talk to Don because he does not know when to stop talking.

So if you need extra time to take your breath mixture strategies. Yes, that's right, Don.

I got a quick question for, you know, I think his coaches and our referee, as we if we could do more stuff. I mean, I don't know how to do stuff together, but to break down those barriers and walls, I think it leads to to better sportsmanship and better interaction between the coaches and the referees. That translates into the players as well.

Yeah, yeah. I'd say, OK, can I just add on to that? I feel like when I first started coaching, you know, we had real competitive we all like to win.

Right. And when we're on the deck, we're very competitive. And I just get so excited as I've gotten to know the coaches better, like I still like the games are just better run and manage just because we know intent.

And there's plenty of coaches where I've had some rocky starts with and some apologies and some either dropping on both sides with some friends and and then, you know, just the overall sports is but it is the kids see people who are competitive but very respectful. And I think I appreciate that. I think you're spot on about things like this and helping us get to know why we're doing this and knowing each other's people versus coaches, I think is super helpful. Good point, Eric.

Jesse, your turn.

Yeah, I think I think I'd like to see more games in the winter. I know we we probably all have a hard time with during high school swim season. I think that might be a good opportunity. I mean, we started the eggbeater tournament. I think we're going on our sixth year. Yeah. And I and I just started that because there just really wasn't anything going on. I know you guys like to come to southern Utah in the winter and get out of the snow.

So it's a win win situation. But, you know, and it is hard when high school swims going on.

Every facility is is to the max. Either have a swim meet here or you have age group swimming.

And and it's it's just hard to to figure out when when you can play games. Not all of us can travel to Southern California and get the games. And because there's a lot going on there in the winter.

But I think even collaborating. Shawn, you took a team two years to Rocktober. I took a team last year to Rocktober. I think that that development age, being able to take these kids to to travel to these championship games and to kind of get the bug, you know, we lost every game. My kids, they wouldn't even know they lost every game. And they they had a great time and the parents had a great time. I think those those types of experiences, they're asking me, hey, we're going to do Rocktober again. I'm like, maybe, you know, it just it's up in the air. But then they get hooked and the parents get hooked that it's just having more games and more opportunities to play. And I know that the biggest burden is, is the financial burden on these parents and on us as clubs to try and rent these facilities and, you know, to to make it all come together, because for some reason, it's it can be difficult to put a tournament together.

But these these swim areas that are a little more developed, they they take the pools away from us. And so I think that's the biggest hurdle or obstacle that you have as far as water.

I do think there's an opportunity there, though, in the winter. We haven't really talked much about it to make that be like the ten year old, twelve year old, even junior high kind of season. And I've fallen victim of this as well to think like if you're playing you're playing four days a week, you're practicing four days a week and you've got games, but even just a couple of practices a week and then some games, low key games throughout the winter where you can focus on that younger age group and not get caught up into the kind of the senior age group. Maybe that's something we can talk about as a group to to see if we could just get a low key winter thing going here in Utah. I think that would be a good thing.

So, hey, well, what's give your top tip to build your club? What's the what's the one thing that you've been most proud? Like, you feel like this was a great idea and you've seen the most bang for your buck on growing and supporting your water polo club. What do you think, Eric, what's your number one thing that's been successful, keep the costs down and pancuronium.

Young? Yeah, everything you can to that 10 to 12 year old age. And then and once they're hooked, they're hooked. And it becomes a generational thing, like you're saying.

Yeah, for sure.

Jesse James, you got you got something on that where you're I, I, I'd say be committed and. Yeah.

Be committed and consistent consistency.

I think the biggest thing is just some of these teams will just do it for a couple of months and then, you know, the kids don't know what to do during that downtime. They usually just find other sports.

James, what's been your number one thing that's been transformative for South Davis's waterpolo?

I think both Jesse and Eric said extremely important. I think getting parents involved, the more we get our parents involved. I did a lot of stability to our club with the consistency and we when we created a set of team values, also like this is where we stand for is what we believe in. That's more important than the sport itself are these things. And we hope you learn and developed these things. That's been really helpful as well, because the kids know that it's more it's something bigger than them and something bigger than the sport. It's it's a thing. So those two things, you the parents involved and have an established set of values that we play for. Yeah. Yeah.

I think one of the things that's been most important for Limpus, interestingly, and I did not expect it was, you know, you get kind of get a mass, but then to start traveling, like as we've started to travel as Mike as the athletes have aged and we've and I've asked them, like, what's the most fun? What's the most important thing about waterpolo for you is like I expect him to say like, oh, this six on five drill where you taught us to shot Blocker. Right. They didn't come back with that. They came back like we just like to go and hang out with our friends and I go and have travel opportunities, you know what I mean?

Like, that's why I keep coming back, is because you go to Colorado every November and you know and you go to Rocktober and the parents love that and give that opportunity. So that's been one of the key things that I feel like has driven a lot of the commitment from the parents and the athletes to the program. Is the opportunities outside of that to go and see to go and see really the world? I mean, we've even had athletes that have opportunities to go and travel to Italy and play and and just things that you would not have happened from kids from Utah, you know. So it's pretty cool, I think.

Well, that's awesome. That's that, I think this is awesome. We can start to wrap up here a little bit while we've been talking. Brad Piercey, the league director, he sent out the first final day for next weekend. So I'm excited to say that Friday, August 28th at six forty five p.m. Mountain Time at Olympus, Skyline and Olympus are going to kick off the fall season with a new gold team.

So that should be a great way. A great game between Skyline and Olympus will look forward to that for sure. And it may or may not be the first sanctioned game back in the U.S. So maybe we'll need to get on SportsCenter for that or something. Right. I see that southern Utah has games starting at ten fifteen at Kernes against Bear River. So we're up for it, right, Jessi, to get this get these games underway.

Early, early morning, early mornings lately. Yeah, four or five, depending on what our game starts and just check it out there and teams and trek back so, you know, you got to do it and keep those costs down.

And I think and I think you got some of our northern Utah teams are cruising down to southern Utah to see see how well we do with the with the 4:00 a.m. hour.

Yeah, yeah. No, we're excited for it. I assure you they're excited for it, too. So, yeah, it should be a lot of fun. And I and I appreciate all those teams that have I think going back and forth kind of helps, helps everyone out and also kind of gets people excited about the local games, so to speak.

So, OK, so my last question and kind of the theme to this gentleman is what's your favorite song?

Which which your waterpolo song and building the ultimate waterpolo playlist? Because I love music and I love and I love playing it when we're out there at Olympus. So what's this one song that like whether as an athlete or as a coach that like you put your headphones on and just get in the zone getting ready to play minus the intro to Welcome to the Jungle.

Ok, Janaya going on the playlist. I love it. What do you think, James?

Oh, man, when I was in high school, it was hard for you when I was in high school anyways, but now you are the older one. So it's our little senior member. It was it was Elvis Presley.

You know, right now. I was like, don't stop me now, OK? My queen or queen or little Eminem growing on you yourself. I mean, I'm sorry. I always told you I'd never get on a program that sort of has anything program in high school is what I did.

Ok. All right. Fair enough.

We could we could hang a bowl of kids singing along to Sweet Caroline.

Sweet Caroline. Bah bah bah. Got it. And therefore, you know, so good. All right. And people just tuned out there on that gentleman. Yeah. Yeah. Any any any closing thoughts or comments as we wrap up.

Oh, thank you, Sean, for putting this together. I really bet it.

Yeah, hopefully. Like I said, I hope get as we get into some games the next time we'll actually have some league breakdown and some scores.

And I hope you get some interviews from athletes and parents in here as well. So hopefully make it a little bit more fun. And our athletes and community can follow along with waterpolo in Utah in the mountain zone. So thanks, Jesse, with southern Utah water polo.

Thank you, Eric, with Cash Valley water polo. And thanks, James Woods, South Davis water polo. Really appreciate your time. And we'll see you guys on deck. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks so much.

Thanks again to Jesse James and Eric, please subscribe, give a five star review and share the podcast and follow us on social media. If you just can't get enough waterpolo podcasts, check out some of my friend's podcast, Steve Careers part off the deck where Steve talks to many of the best coaches in the game. We also like Tony Acevedo's podcast, the Tony Azevêdo podcast hosted by Dave Williamson as they look at waterpolo through the lens of Tony's five Olympic Games and future focused mindset. Check out what's going on in Texas at the Texas Waterpolo podcast and in the Midwest at the nearside LO 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.

Keep your head on a pivot until next time piece.

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