Water Polo
of American football. The American game became almost even rougher than the original English version had been.
Different versions of water polo started to spread around America. There was even a type of softball water polo. However this version wasn’t as popular as the original version and it was soon dropped.
When water polo reached a certain popularity goal, the AAU took over creating tournaments all over America. This idea seemed great at the time but then that year in the national championship tournament, the semi-final game between the New York Athletic Club and the Chicago Athletic Association resulted in a major fight and because of it, the AAU dropped water polo all together.
In 1914 water polo teams all around America and the AAU decided to come up with national rules for the game. This gave them a greater advantage to have the game be a national competitive sport and also a chance for more tournaments to be produced. After this the AAU decided to start conducting national championships once again. However some groups kept on playing the unaccepted softball version.
A man named James R. Smith helped to create a different type of ball then the leather soccer ball that they were originally using. He created a new ball that had a cotton covering of rubber fabric to keep the ball from becoming heavier from absorbing too much water. The new ball also helped to keep the ball less slippery as it allowed for more grip in the course of the game.
The new ball helped to create a higher scoring game and also a faster game; as a result of this the new ball was adopted all around the world. It was even accepted into the 1956 Olympics as the official ball.
In 1977 the AAU was replaced with another group called the U.S. Water Polo, Inc.
Women were not as accepted into the game of water polo. They started to play it early in the 1920s, however the sport was considered to be too rough for women as the proper sport we have now was not yet created. People thought that women would not be able to handle the contact and that it would result in more sustaining injuries. Because of the level of roughness water polo for women was dropped by colleges and clubs. However the AAU began conducting women’s national championships in 1961.
Women’s water polo quickly spread mostly into California and Florida. In fact, most of the top teams since the early 1970s have come from those states.
Since 1986 there has been a women’s championship held by the Federation Internationale de natation amateur (FINA) as part of the World Aquatic Games.
There were also a lot more rules of the game that I [next page]