MEMORIAL WATER POLO CLUB “The Adventure Begins”

The Memorial Swimming and Diving Team is embarking on some exciting times as we start playing water polo season this spring. We have experienced some great success in our aquatic programs. Now, we want to expand our program to include water polo to only strengthen our current swimming and diving programs. This is a great sport that will help develop your son’s or daughter’s skills as they build teamwork and have fun. However, unlike swimming and diving, the sport of water polo is not sanctioned by the UIL until the FALL of 2022. The water polo programs in Texas high schools are sanctioned through TISCA. Since our water polo is not a UIL sport yet, our program must be self-financed.

Water Polo is the spring semester off season conditioning program for the swim team. We strongly encourage everyone to participate and learn from playing in games and practice.

Expectations ● We expect each person to be respectful to every player, coach, and adult. ● We also expect each person to attend practices, activities, & games regularly. ● All players must have completed school physicals on file in order to participate. ● All players will follow all school/game rules and play cleanly during all activities. Player Fees (player fees includes a team suit) ● $180 Entry Fee per person ○ Checks made out to “Mustang Water Polo Club” or Venmo @docjenwelch ● Reason: We will have to pay for tourney entry fees, officials, equipment, coaching, etc. Schedule of Games ● We will play district games on Tuesday during the season. ● The season will run from March till May (STATE girls May 7-8 & boys 14-15).

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Tournaments (3 teams) ● We will play in a tournament some weekends on Fri & Saturday. Many of our games will be at the SBISD Nat this season. Transportation ● We will have bus transportation for week away day games and practices. This year due to Covid-19 parents may transport athletes to games if they inform the coach. Practices (mainly Monday-Friday unless games) ● Start of 8th period till -5:20 which will include swimming & polo Insurance ● The SBISD athletic Insurance will be valid during the water polo season. Benefits of Water Polo ● Water polo offers the benefits of swimming with the social aspect of, say basketball or soccer. So you have the cardiovascular benefits of swimming but then you get the technical, tactical and social aspects of a team sport, which makes it extremely unique. Parent Meeting: Thursday, March March 4th (Zoom) ● Please watch out for an email with login details. Covid-19 / Social Distancing: ● We will follow the TISCA & SBISD guidelines at games & practices. (See pages 3-4) Questions ● If you have any additional questions please feel free to contact us at: e-mail: [email protected] or 832-797-1045

Thanks,

Coach Jason Mauss

Checks for payment made out to : “Mustang Water Polo Club” or Venmo @docjenwelch to pay your dues into our team account

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TISCA Water Polo COVID-19 Safety Guidelines & Procedures

Resources: ● UIL Guidelines: https://www.uiltexas.org/files/policy/2020-21-TentativeSportsSeasonDates.pdf ● UIL Athletics Homepage: https://www.uiltexas.org/athletics ● UIL Swimming Guidelines: ○ https://www.uiltexas.org/swimming-diving/page/2020-21-swimming-and-diving-covid- calendar-and-update ● UIL Basketball Guidelines: https://www.uiltexas.org/basketball/page/2020-21-basketball-covid-calendar-and-update ○ Given the similarities between water polo and basketball we expect to follow similar guidelines

TISCA Water Polo - Safety Guidelines: Please be sure to educate your athletes/parents about all Safety Guidelines & Procedures. All participants MUST WEAR MASKS while on deck at the facilities (including while on the bench during games). If you have two courses playing simultaneously, we suggest offset game times to control the flow of traffic into facilities and limit how many teams are in the facility at one time. For tournaments, we suggest using the same “TriMeet” format at high school swimming with three schools/six teams per competition pool (double the number of schools/teams with two courses).

Coaches: Coaches are responsible for themselves, their athletes, and their team spectators. If there are any spectators, athletes, and/or coaches who repeatedly refuse to wear face masks or are not following the guidelines while on deck at the tournament and are not following the school/facility safety procedures, they will be asked to leave the facility. If participants still refuse to leave, the game in which the participant is playing, coaching, and/or watching will be suspended and the game forfeited.

Spectators: Spectators WILL BE ALLOWED into the facility (based on school district parameters). Spectators will not be allowed to come into the facility until 10 minutes before each game (athletes/coaches can get to the pool 45 minutes prior to each game). After each game, all athletes, coaches, & spectators will need to leave the pool area as quickly as possible. There will be designated spectator seating for each team.

Safety Monitors: There will be Safety Monitors on the pool deck and at the front entrance to help educate athletes/spectators and enforce the various guidelines. Successful events will be a team effort from all involved to make for a safe and positive atmosphere regarding physical distancing.

Pool Layout/Switching Ends/End of Games: For shallow/deep facilities when switching sides, all athletes will swim to the other side while coaches walk to the other side wearing a mask. In all deep facilities, teams will NOT switch ends and play the entire game from the same side of the pool. Teams will not shake hands after the game is played

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Athletes/Coaches Game Flow: Athletes/coaches can arrive 45 minutes prior to their game. When athletes/coaches arrive at a pool, there will be a designated “ready area” for each team. At the conclusion of the game immediately before their game and after the teams have vacated the pool/bench areas, athletes/coaches can move to and bring their stuff to the bench to begin their team warm-up (5-10 minutes before the game starts). At the end of each game, athletes will swim to the bench where they started the game while coaches walk wearing a mask to the same area. Therefore, the last thing an athlete does before getting in the pool for warm-up is take off their mask, and the first thing they do when they get out of the pool is put on their mask.