No Surprise: LIU Announces Addition of Men’s Water Polo in 2022-23
In an announcement that has been rumored for months, Long Island University yesterday confirmed that it will compete in men’s water polo beginning next fall. Adding a men’s team is a logical follow up to the LIU women’s squad that began play in spring of 2020—and which captured the 2021 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) regular season in just its second year of existence.
Due to complications from COVID-19, the Sharks were unable to field a team for the 2021 MAAC Championships last April, denying the program a shot at the conference’s NCAA berth, captured by host Marist over La Salle 12-11 in sudden death overtime.
[Commentary: LIU Water Polo Withdrawal from MAAC Championships Another COVID-19 Casualty]
In a statement LIU Athletics Director William E. Martinov cited the women’s program success as a primary impetus for starting a men’s team,. That, and a rapid expansion of athletics at LIU—12 men’s and women’s Division I teams have been added the past three years, as well as an eSports squad. It was therefore no surprise that after adding men’s swimming last spring, men’s polo would become the schools 37th intercollegiate sport.
The pool’s the thing
In 2002 when then-LIU President David Steinberg insisted that the university include a pool in its planned athletic facility in Downtown Brooklyn, he likely did not anticipate women’s or men’s water polo occupying it. The pool in what is now called the Steinberg Wellness Center has proven to be a valuable addition to the university’s athletics programs, and will now directly support four teams including men’s and women’s swimming in addition to polo.
What was likely never considered was what is the right pool configuration for polo, a sport which is most popular on the West Coast. The sport typically requires a consistent depth of 7.5 feet (1.893 meters) in a course that runs from 20 – 30 meters long. At its shallow end, the LIU pool is four feet deep. This is barely acceptable for women’s water polo; it will not be ideal for men’s, where athletes are typically 6’2”, 6’-3” or even as tall as 6’-9”
It is likely that the Sharks will compete in the Northeast Water Polo Conference, perhaps the region’s toughest from top to bottom. Members include Brown, Iona, Harvard, MIT, Princeton and St. Francis, Brooklyn. The Terriers of Brooklyn Heights will be a natural rival for a Sharks’ men’s program; LIU and St. Francis are both members of the Northeast Conference (NEC) where the schools compete against each other in 17 men’s and women’s sports.
But not water polo; as mentioned, the women will remain in the MAAC for the foreseeable future. Geographic considerations make the NWPC the logical choice—though Wagner, based in Staten Island, is a member of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference for men’s polo. The Seahawk women compete in the MAAC.
Pool at St. Francis Brooklyn’s Genovese Pope Athletic Complex. Photo: SFC Athletics
Like LIU, St. Francis and Wagner compete in shallow / deep pools. However, SFC’s shallow end is as deep as 5’-5”; Wagner is close to five feet deep. Neither is ideal for polo but are (marginally) better than the Sharks’ tank. Especially on the men’s side; in the MAAC, where the LIU women compete, only two of the conference’s seven members—Marist and Villanova—have deep/deep pools.
Given that the majority of the men’s teams in the NWPC—which at the moment boasts three teams nationally ranked—play in deep/deep pools, training and competing in shallow/deep conditions can be a liability. Though not for St. Francis; over the past two decades the Terriers have been to numerous conference championships and won four titles since 2005, advancing to the NCAA Final Four in 2005, 2010, 2012 and 2013.
[At N.C.A.A. Tournament, a Splash From Brooklyn, by Way of Europe]
Recruiting for both a coach as well as athletes has begun. If the LIU men can be half as competitive as SFC, their primary rival, then the program’s launch will be a boon for polo in the Northeast and New York City in particular.