Water Polo Scholarships. College Water Polo Recruiting.
Water polo is an extremely competitive sport at the collegiate level. Only roughly 7 percent of female and 6 percent of male high school water polo athletes continue their career in college.
There are certain steps you can take during the water polo recruiting process to make sure that you become a member of that 7 percent. Coaches offer water polo scholarships to athletes that are high school swimmers as well. You can really distinguish yourself by showing that your water polo skills correlate well with your overall swimming ability. If you are a high school swimmer as well, then you should share your times with the coaches that are recruiting you. If you aren’t already a swimmer, look into joining either your high school swim team or a club swim team to bolster your chances of finding a water polo scholarship.
Grades play a large part in finding water polo scholarship money as a water polo player. Men’s teams are allowed 4.5 scholarships per team, and women’s teams get 8. Having a high GPA and being a good student will help you get academic money as well as athletic money. Water polo is an equivalency sport, which means coaches can split up full scholarships to give athletes partial scholarships that add up to the overall number of full scholarships allowed. Think about the costs.
The majority of water polo programs are on the west coast of the United States. The second most popular region for water polo is the northeast. If you plan on being recruited to play water polo in college, odds are you will be looking at a school on one of the coasts. To get recruited, you must take the initiative. Water polo programs are limited in recruiting because they lack funding. You should collect all pertinent information that a coach wants to see (video, stats, grades) and prepare a resume to send to coaches. Be persistent! If a coach doesn’t reply to your first e-mail, it doesn’t mean they aren’t interested; it just means that they get a lot of information sent to them from prospective athletes. Make sure you send them a follow-up e-mail if you don’t hear back from them after a week or two. If that isn’t enough, pick up the phone and give them a call. Coaches want to connect with athletes that are a good fit for their program. Remember, getting a water polo scholarship is about taking recruiting into your own hands.
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Author: David Frank
Find opportunities for athletic scholarships and get connected to college coaches.