Of all the sports offered at Chamblee, water polo is one of the least understood; many compare it to soccer and hockey. Greg Valley, a social studies teacher and sponsor of the water polo team, agrees with this comparison.
“It’s like water soccer, but you’re throwing the ball with your hands, and people will try to dunk you under, but they have to make it not-so-obvious so the referee can’t see it,” said Valley.
Due to water polo being a sport in which players constantly tread water, it takes a lot of energy to play.
“Endurance is definitely a huge part of water polo because you’re sprinting back and forth in the pool for around an hour,” said Natalie Price (‘24), captain of the girls’ water polo team.
Many of the people on the team put in extra work to condition themselves for the season.
“A lot of the really passionate water polo players do swimming as a way to stay conditioned for water polo, and it translates into water polo because the short sprint races help them have useful bursts of speed,” said Valley.
Though water polo is described as a very tiring sport, the team agrees that their dynamic couldn’t get much better.
“Everyone is so sweet to each other, and we’re all like one big happy family. If I’m being completely honest, we’re all just really goofy and comfortable around each other,” said Mallory Williams (‘26), a member of the girls’ team.
The team has set goals and expectations for the current season.
“I wouldn’t be too surprised if the [boys] win the [varsity] team tournament. The Chamblee girls’ team has only been around for a few years, and we’re a lot younger, so we’re expecting to get fourth,” said Price.
While both teams have high expectations for their performance this year, they’re also managing these while undergoing major changes to the teams.
“We got a new coach this year, so we’ve been letting him try to figure everything out and just get a good feel of the team,” said Williams.
Although the players do have to adjust to something new, many prefer their new coach to their previous coach.
“[The new coach] is doing a great job. The last coach we had was very hard on us. He was very intense and emotional. I think he got kicked out of one of the games because the ref was making calls that he didn’t like so he threw a chair, so he had to get ejected from the game,” said Price.
Coaching isn’t the only aspect of Chamblee water polo that’s changed this year.
“Last season, we had two seniors who were leaving, and they helped start the girls’ team, so it was really emotional to see them leave,” said Williams.
Despite the current coaching change and the loss of some players, the boys’ varsity team is determined to perform incredibly this year.
“I think we have to step it up because many of us are seniors, so we’re trying to all get locked in for this year,” said Matthew Haag, captain of the boys’ varsity team.
Even though the Chamblee players consider water polo an easy sport to get into, not many students try out for the school team.
“Water polo is such a fun sport,” said Price. “We all wish that more people looked into it, and we wish more people would come and try it out.”
