Back to the future (another 'Globe and Mail' rejected essay)

Dipping a toe into familiar waters

Our budding water polo star. 

I read somewhere a few years ago that water polo was the toughest sport of all.  What with not drowning, you have to then play.  That made sense to me because I watched my daughter play it in high school and university for six years.  Water polo is a tough, demanding sport that challenges even the fittest, however, current research tells me it is not ranked the toughest, swimming is.  Nevertheless, I would still argue that water polo ranks right up there because it combines the rigours of swimming with the vicious moves of soccer, rugby and at times boxing and wrestling.     

So, it is with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I have now begun my second foray into water polo with her daughter, my granddaughter, who has taken up the sport.  She is nine and this is her second year.  

Driving her to a practice the other day, I thought back to the many times I had done the same with her mother, sitting on the hard, backless benches in the pool and discarding layers of clothes to adapt to the hot pool deck.  Water polo is not a sport for the trepidatious or hesitant.  It is a demanding physical sport for only the tough and decisive.  Watching a team of nine-year-olds duke it out, I started to figure out what kind of kid my granddaughter is.  

Fearless comes to mind.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, as I did, girls didn’t play many sports.  We had track, basketball and volleyball, but unless your school had a pool, no swimming.  The sports we did participate in were modified for girls, in other words, they were milder versions of what the boys enjoyed.  We were encouraged to take HomeEc, not shops.  Any girl who was a fast runner got to practice with the boys and that was a big deal for me.  However, it didn’t translate into serious sports, so I became a cheerleader.  

Looking back, it amazes me that cheerleading was such a big deal.  It was rather a rah-rah activity to support the high school boys football team, not a sport in itself, like Cheer is today.  And as for water polo, it was unheard of even for boys.

During all the years I watched games, I never quite figured out the rules?  The whistle blows and the teams suddenly turn and switch from offensive to defence, or vise-versa.  But I did know how brutal it was.  Underwater, some pretty vicious moves take place – such as scratching, punching and kicking.  If you were lucky, the referee didn’t catch them, but if you weren’t, the penalties could range from a game misconduct penalty to being thrown out altogether.  Often, players would emerge bloodied from unseen hard battles underwater.

As for mixed water polo, that is much tamer because the boys don’t dare do to the girls what the girls are capable of exacting on each other.

The name of the game also puzzled me, until I googled it and learned it had begun in the late nineteenth century in Scotland as a form of water rugby.  As for the term “polo”, that was taken from the term “pulu”, an Indian dialect term for ball.  Who knew?

Water polo practices with my granddaughter involve much more than just picking her up, driving her to the pool and watching her play.  I routinely pack a peanut butter and jelly fold-over for after practice in the car, where some of our most treasured conversations take place.  “Better safe than stupid,” she said one evening as we drove home through a blinding whiteout.  Cars were speeding past us, only to be seen in the ditch as we safely passed them.  A small victory which didn’t go unnoticed.  

Thanks to my observations, she now unfortunately knows the meaning of the word “idiot” -- a term I frequently use to describe other reckless drivers along the way who are not up to my safety standards.  I have, however, cautioned her not to use it without good reason.  She laughs uproariously at this advice because “idiot” is now one of her favourites and used in a host of other settings such as grocery stores and parking lots.  Oops! 

We also have chats about school, her friends, other sports and what she thinks about life in general.  With parents and siblings around, these moments are rare, but there is something about one-on-one car conversations that lend themselves to precious, one-on-one intimacy.

I have also had interesting and informative chats with other parents and grandparents in the stands while we watch.  I learned, for example, that one of the fathers and the coach played professionally and a couple of the mothers were competitive swimmers.  Their stories are fascinating and ones I would never have known without these encounters.

So, as we embark on another season of water polo, I will continue to bring along snacks and treasure every private moment with my emerging star.  I only hope I don’t see blood in the water anytime soon!