{"id":293077,"date":"2018-01-22T12:59:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T19:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=293077"},"modified":"2018-01-22T18:03:35","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T01:03:35","slug":"whats-wrong-with-this-picture-novice-water-polo-program-joins-mpsf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-novice-water-polo-program-joins-mpsf\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Wrong with This Picture: Novice Water Polo Program Joins MPSF?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

The announcement came in the usual form\u2014a press release embedded in an email. But this was not just any bit of water polo trivia; it concerned the future viability of men\u2019s polo in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, home to the country\u2019s most successful men\u2019s and women\u2019s water polo teams.<\/p>\n

\"mpsf-shield-final\"<\/p>\n

The news: starting next fall<\/a>, the men\u2019s water polo program of Austin College, a school of fewer than 1,300 students 50 miles northeast of Dallas, will join the MPSF, a stunning notice akin to hearing, say, that the NCAA\u2019s mighty Southeastern Conference was expanding to include the Bowdoin Polar Bears.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, the fact that Sherman, Texas is barely within ICBM-striking distance of either the Mountains or the Pacific is surprising enough, but not without precedent (the conference annexed the polo program of Penn State Behrend three years ago, although Behrend had at least completed at the varsity level in the past); but the Kangaroos of Austin College have played not a single NCAA varsity water polo match. In fact, their program\u2014currently in club status\u2014is exactly one year old<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what happened? Swimming World<\/em> wondered too.<\/p>\n

Six: the magic number<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Austin College, little Penn State Behrend of snow-laden Erie, PA, where Joe Tristan<\/strong> has built a respectable program, is nearly a continent away from the polo powers of the MPSF. But in an interview<\/a> with Swimming World<\/em> last November, Tristan indicated why two years ago his men\u2019s team joined the MPSF despite being almost 2,500 miles away from UCLA and USC, its closest conference opponent. \u201cLet\u2019s lift a lifeline for them,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s give them a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"penn_st\"<\/p>\n

The powerful MSPF was in urgent need of a lifeline. NCAA eligibility rules require that a conference must have six or more varsity members to guarantee the winner an automatic berth in the\u00a0 national tournament. So when Long Beach State, University of the Pacific, Pepperdine, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara departed the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in 2015 to join San Jose State in the Golden Coast Conference, the elite MPSF teams\u2014Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC, all members of the Pac-12 Conference\u2014were desperate. They faced the real likelihood that one of its members would be denied the opportunity to compete for an NCAA title.<\/p>\n

\u201cMPSF men\u2019s water polo has been severely impacted by teams which left the conference a couple of years ago,\u201d Al Beaird<\/strong>, Executive Director of the Federation, wrote in an email. \u201cAs a consequence, we were in danger of losing our automatic qualification to the NCAA men\u2019s water polo championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without the addition of at least two other schools, the MPSF men would lose a perk the conference has enjoyed since its founding 26 years ago to provide non-revenue-producing Olympic sports intercollegiate competition.<\/p>\n

And so the Penn State Behrend Lions were recruited; but that left one more spot to be filled in order for the MPSF to keep its \u201cAQ” along with the two at-large bids the conference now receives annually.<\/p>\n

A Question of Location and Priorities <\/strong><\/p>\n

Enter Austin College, according to its website, \u201cthe oldest institution of higher education in Texas [1849] operating under its original name and charter, as recognized by the State Historical Survey Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"austin-college\"<\/p>\n

The Kangaroos do field teams in a number of sports, competing in the Division III Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference<\/a> against similarly-sized private institutions in Texas, Louisiana, and Colorado. Until now they have not fielded a water polo team at all, men\u2019s or women\u2019s, and next fall will be thrown into the deep end, so to speak, against competition above their weight class.<\/p>\n

And they will travel. Man, will they travel. UCLA, USC and Los Angeles are 1,400 miles; Cal and Stanford clock in at more than 1,600. But, as it turns out, the Kangaroos (the college actually kept a kangaroo in a special pen at one time, courtesy of the Class of 1923\u2014the name stuck), despite their nominal conference membership, will play only three games against MPSF teams\u2014all at the conference\u2019s end-of-season tournament on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, since Texas contains no other NCAA varsity programs, AC will likely be filling out its schedule against members of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference West<\/a> (MAWPC-West), similar smallish Division III schools, whose ranks they might\u2014some would say should\u2014have joined. Nearest would be two schools in Illinois, McKendree University and Monmouth College. After that, a cluster of schools further afield includes Gannon, Mercyhurst, and Salem International. These programs, like Penn St. Behrend, the MPSF school closest to Austin College, are more than 1,200 miles away!<\/p>\n

\"anderson_matt\"<\/p>\n

Swimming World<\/em> spoke in a recent phone call to Matt Anderson<\/strong>, head coach for the men\u2019s and women\u2019s water polo teams at Connecticut College, and a member of the NCAA Men\u2019s Water Polo Committee, about his impressions of the Austin-MPSF union. Given that the flight distance from Dallas to each coast is approximately the same\u2014a trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis is also 1,400 miles\u2014Anderson pointed out that going East to play less daunting competition was not as inviting a proposition as might it appear.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at geographically, time-wise and financially what makes sense.\u201d he said. \u201cSo, without knowing, it might be cheaper for Austin to fly to Los Angeles than it would be for them to fly to Connecticut to play us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because there are no independents in the small world of NCAA varsity polo\u2014consisting of just 48 programs\u2014 Anderson said Austin College needs a conference affiliation, competitively compatible or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether their goal is to win that conference or not is up to the individual institution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Anderson is well-suited to understand the Kangaroos\u2019 situation. Since 2014 he\u2019s coached the Camels, a DIII program that also competes in the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference West; before that, for 12 years, he led the DI women\u2019s water polo program at Michigan, where he took the Wolverines to four NCAA tournaments. He believes that individual institutions need to prioritize their identity as a means of placing a value on athletics programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the Division III model is [that] the kids go there for the academic side,\u201d Anderson explained. \u201cDivision I, the athletic side is a difference-maker as to why a kid chooses that school\u2026.Division III is so academically orientated that they will get as good as they are able to be based upon the [academic] level of athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kangaroos could have opted for membership in the aforementioned Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference West, which primarily contains DIII programs; they will certainly be filling out their 2018 schedule against MAWPC schools. Austin College will play only three games against MPSF teams\u2014all at the conference\u2019s end-of-season tournament on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

Legitimate Expansion of the Sport to a Promising Region\u2014or an MPSF Punching Bag?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one coach who understands how competitive the top MPSF teams are, it\u2019s Pepperdine\u2019s Terry Schroeder<\/strong>. First as a player and then for over three decades as a coach, Schroeder has been battling Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC in men\u2019s water polo for most of his life. In 1997 a Schroeder-coached Pepperdine squad was the last non-Pac-12 team to win a national championship, and he was one of the ringleaders of the move by five non-Pac-12 teams three years ago to jump ship to the Golden Coast Conference.<\/p>\n

\"schroeder-usa\"

Terry Schroeder. Photo Courtesy: USA Water Polo<\/p><\/div>\n

Schroeder, who won Olympic silver medals in 1984 and 1988 as a player for the U.S. Senior Men\u2019s National Team and also coached Team USA to a silver medal in the 2008 Beijing Games, was skeptical of the stated reasons for the Austin-MPSF union.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The MPSF is] doing what they have to do to maintain their automatic qualifier,\u201d he said of the recent announcement. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to understand how it makes the big picture better. Maybe adding one more team with Austin College, continuing to grow the sport that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

MPSF Executive Director Beaird emphasized that growth is one reason for expanding his conference to Texas; the other is ensuring the best teams qualify for the nation\u2019s top tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy bringing Austin College into the MPSF we will be able to maintain our AQ while helping to grow the sport in a new region of the country where until now collegiate water polo has not existed,\u201d Beaird said. \u201cIt would not present the NCAA championship in the best light if the perennial top conference in the country does not have an opportunity for automatic qualification.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps so. But, as Schroeder points out, in order for the Kangaroos and Lions to improve their level of play enough to be anything but a noncompetitive oddity within the MPSF, both programs will need to play a full schedule of highly competitive matches\u2014as well as elevate their practice regimen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMountain Pacific teams are the four best teams in the country right now,\u201d he said. \u201cFor one of those schools to compete at that level, it\u2019s a huge jump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever the stated reasons, there\u2019s no question that the optics aren\u2019t good of this union between the country\u2019s best teams and what promises to be, at least in 2018, one of its worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cPenn State and Austin College come out and they play a couple of games against [top MPSF teams] and get throttled.”\u00a0Schroeder said. “it\u2019s no competition at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhose motivation is it right now?\u201d he added. \u201cIs it Austin College\u2019s? Or is it Mountain Pacific taking care of themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n

With Chip Brenner<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor The announcement came in the usual form\u2014a press release embedded in an email. But this was not just any bit of water polo trivia;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4875,"featured_media":293109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[65767,65764,65765,63510,10449,60192,63329,1168,61248,61418,65766,382],"class_list":["post-293077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-water-polo","tag-al-beaird","tag-austin-college","tag-connecticut-college-water-polo","tag-joe-tristan","tag-matt-anderson","tag-michael-randazzo","tag-mid-atlantic-water-polo-conference","tag-mountain-pacific-sports-federation","tag-mpsf","tag-pepperdine-water-polo","tag-southern-collegiate-athletic-conference","tag-terry-schroeder"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nWhat's Wrong with This Picture: Novice Water Polo Program Joins MPSF? - Swimming World<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-novice-water-polo-program-joins-mpsf\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What's Wrong with This Picture: Novice Water Polo Program Joins MPSF?\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor The announcement came in the usual form\u2014a press release embedded in an email. 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