It is fair to say that until recently the middle school water polo team was not having a great season. Game after game we lost. There was only one place to go and that was up.
It would have been easy to give up, and it was tempting on the bus ride home after our third, fourth, fifth loss in a row. But amazingly enough the losses didn’t make us miserable. As a team we may not have been winning but we were still having fun. Coach Anderson brought us donuts after a rough game against Penn Charter. Even when losing we laughed a lot. Like the day Avner Schwartz ‘25 pulled a snack size ziplock bag out of his swim locker with his speedo easily folder inside and said, “we shouldn’t be forced to wear something that can fit inside a potato chip snack bag.” and we all burst out laughing totally agreeing!
The thing about teams is that it takes a while to know each other’s strengths. Like the strength of Teddy Fox‘24 who can score a goal from more than half way across the pool. Or Alex Rice ‘23 who is super fast and can shoot over a goalkeeper, Or An Huynh ‘24 and Clara Behling ‘24 who can swim across the pool in a flash.
Every day at practice Coach Anderson would give us tips and we would test out different strategies. And then the week of the October 29th it all came together. We won. Finally! Our very first game of the season. The score, 15-11 against Penn Charter. It was the best win ever!
It would have been easy to give up. But we didn’t. Sometimes you have to struggle at something before you can be good. We kept having fun and working on our skills and testing out different strategies until it all came together.
by Connor Simpkins ’25