What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about sports? Maybe it’s something one does involving a ball or just a way to have fun. What if you took a sport like soccer, rugby, or football into some other conditions, perhaps a pool? You come out with a unique sport called water polo, in which the word “polo” is the English pronunciation of the Indian word “pulu,” that means ball. Americans in the late 1880s referred to it as water rugby and many now today view it as water soccer-like sport.

    Unfortunately the school doesn’t have any water sports apart from the swimming team; however, Amaia Garay, an eighth-grader from Kenilworth Junior High has decided to try to spread the diversity of water sports here on our campus.

   “I started water polo about five years ago, and I have been playing it since. Last year when I knew that I wanted to keep playing through high school, I started looking at my options: I either commute to high school in Novato or San Rafael or I get something started here. So I chose to try something here. Water polo is an awesome sport and I want others and I in Petaluma to have a chance to play it at our local high school,” said Garay.

   Water polo is not your typical school sport, but it is a competitive game that posses many different aspects from a variety of other sports: basketball, soccer, and hockey. Delaney Stevenson, a junior, is a part of the school’s swimming team and is aware of the desire to bring the sport to the school. Stevenson describes what the sport is like.

   “It’s kinda like soccer, but in the water. So you have a volleyball that you can touch, catch, and throw, but only with one hand basically. And you can’t touch the bottom and you have a goalie, and just like soccer, you have to try and make it into the other goal,” said Stevenson.

    Another swimmer, freshman Sophie Obbagy, plays water polo for fun and shares her opinion on the possibility of a water polo team on campus.

   “I think it would be beneficial to add another swimming sports for the school, I’m all for water sports. I love them. Having another water sport here at school, for me that would be awesome. I think it would give people an opportunity to get in the water. Especially if they didn’t want to do distant swimming or other strokes, all you have to do its sprints basically,” said Obbagy.

   Whether you are a big fan of watersports or not, it wouldn’t hurt to just dive right in and try it out. Who knows what talents one can discover just by trying something.