New to Alabama, water polo hoping to make a splash
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (BVM) — James Clemens High School continues to pave the way for people of all different backgrounds and interests. They seem to specialize in obscure sports, starting a top-notch esports program, and now adding a water polo team. This makes the Jets the first water polo team in the entire state of Alabama.
Until other schools decide to follow along, the Jets will have the unique experience of playing an out-of-state schedule. Joining the Tennessee Interscholastic Water Polo Association High School League, most of their competition will come from the major hubs of Tennessee like Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis.
Although being a new team and for many, a completely new sport, the Jets will be led by someone with wisdom and passion for the game. Head coach Eric Demirjian played on Georgia Tech’s club water polo team the entire length of his collegiate career.
Demirjian will coach 17 participants, three of them being girls. The athletes not only come from James Clemens, but other surrounding schools who don’t offer the sport. This will give Alabama high school athletes the option to dip their feet into something completely new, and maybe one day spread the game statewide.
Being at the forefront of this new adventure, Demirjian is excited. Although the COVID-19 pandemic got their competition indefinitely shut down, he is still thinking up ways to keep his team engaged and working on their ball skills. Demirjian has the team communicating through the mobile messaging app GroupMe and gave each athlete a ball to take home during the school’s closure.
“We are trying to give them things they can do at home like passing with their brother or sister or if they have a pool of their own, getting in there and practicing,” Demirjian said. “A lot of these kids are new and haven’t been playing very long, so getting those inherent ball skills is important.”
While COVID-19 has schools and sports shut down, Demirjian is also finding ways to continue encouraging interested students to consider giving water polo a try when it’s back up and going. Because the game isn’t currently being played, he had to find a new angle in getting students amped up about the sport.
“Enticing the students with the challenge of being the first team to represent Alabama,” Demirjian said. “Also, thinking of putting this on your college applications, stories of how you overcame or built something. Trying to connect with them on that societal basis.”
To the Jets’ benefit, they are doing something entirely unique. Their program allows students from the elementary level and up to participate on their team. This grants them access to many more students so that they can continue to build some buzz about the sport in the area.
However, this means there will definitely be some hardships. Demirjian says that in their first-ever tournament, they played a team from Tennessee that was in the Tennessee state championship last year. This team, comprised mainly of juniors and seniors Demirjian says, beat them pretty badly. However, there were encouraging signs.
“They still had the love for the game, the tenacity, the drive to want to get better,” Demirjian said. “Every quarter we played better and allowed less goals. We scored our first couple of goals too.”
Demirjian said that before actual gameplay, he could only teach his players so much. It wasn’t until these first couple of live experiences that he was able to take notes on what they needed to concentrate on more to continue their maturation within the game.
“I want to teach the history of water polo itself,” Demirjian said. “And that quickly translates into teaching the fundamentals – eggbeater, passing, shooting, offensive and defensive strategy.”
So while the players are at home quarantining, they’ll have plenty to think about and even plenty to work on. Being new to the game, there are so many aspects of the sport in which they can learn, whether that be Xs and Os or polishing up their skills. Demirjian has laid the groundwork for them to understand this.
“I feel very privileged to work with the team members,” Demirjian said. “I’m just trying to match their unwavering enthusiasm.”
