Water Polo
I couldn’t touch the ground with my feet which made it more difficult to aim and throw hard. The more we learned, the more difficult it was.
I was having so much fun in my water polo class that I began to regain some hope. I thought maybe there is actually something that I can use my athletic ability on. I couldn’t wait to learn more about the sport.
I went straight home and decided to do some research. I couldn’t believe all the different associations that I found. There were so many names that I couldn’t keep track. There were even some places that I could join to enhance my skill level. There is the USA Water Polo INC, the Collegiate Water Polo Association, the Australian Water Polo INC, the National Water Polo League, the New Zealand Water Polo Association, and many more.
I also learned that water sports first became a very popular thing in England. Many people loved to spend their days at the pool doing something that wasn’t competitive but more recreational. Gradually various versions of land sports started to be played in the water. There was water football (or soccer), water rugby, water handball, and water polo. Water polo in this case however was when men would ride on wooden barrels and strike a pall with a stick, much like the game of horse polo.
Out of all of sports, under water rugby became the most popular. In this version of rugby, the object was for a player to have both hands on the ball and touch it to a post on the other side of the pool. This game was actually very violent and many men got injured. The game was full of contact, and as the game progressed fights began to occur away from the ball, and as the game is in the water many men passed out due to lack of oxygen. This game for some reason had a link with water polo and as a result it back then was called water polo.
In 1877 the Scottish took the game and made a more modernized version. They introduced the idea of having goals instead of just posts and the prohibited the idea of tackling. This turned the game into a much less contact and safer sport. The Scottish version helped to give emphasis to the idea of team work. Many concepts had to be introduced and practiced to perfection. Such concepts include passing, shooting, and swimming speed.
The first American water polo team wasn’t created until about 1888. The team was started in Boston but soon the sport spread to various swim clubs and in some places around New York. The American water polo game was very different than the Scottish. They played in small indoor pools and as a result passing wasn’t emphasized and the game started to take on a form very similar to that of [next page]