Aqua Swift

Covid guidelines for the Texas Challenge Cup, a very brief intro to college recruiting, and new caps! Plus other important stuff like weekend practice, Boerne, hotel options, and welcome to a couple new athletes.

Texas Challenge Cup Details

Our friends at Thunder Water Polo have published the Covid guidelines for its upcoming Texas Challenge Cup. Take a moment to read this in detail so athletes and families are prepared for the indoor competition. And here’s the schedule.

Signed up for the AQTX 14u coed team: Austin, Jacob, James, Kelly, Luca, Morgan, Riley, Joey, Cruz and maybe Aaron. For LoneStar/Mavericks 18u girls team, Cammi, Kendall and Morgan. They’re both playing at the same facility so I should be there for all our games.

Streaming

Mr. Gerakos (thank you) has volunteered to be the team videographer for our games at the tournament. Thunder will apparently be using an app that allows four separate streams to be pushed to a single site or app so that all the games will be available centrally. I’ll send details whenever I get them from Thunder.

Tournament Hotel Info

Thunder has secured a group rate at the newly renovated Hampton Inn & Suites Lewisville, TX. The rate is $79/night for 2 Queen Bed Rooms. [link coming soon].

Also, Fairfield by Marriott DFW Airport-Coppell/Grapevine, a new hotel at 150 Northpoint Dr. Coppell, TX 76051

www.marriott.com/dalfc

Team rates $79 plus tax, 13%. Contact Catherine Johnson to book your team.

| 972-304-1112

Some Scheduling

No Weekend in Boerne

Aqua Swift hosted a mini tournament last Sunday with some good results for our AquaTex (Longhorn, really) teams – nice work Tristan! The scrimmage we tentatively planned for this Sunday in Boerne is going to get pushed off. There’s a good chance we’ll invite Aqua Swift up to scrimmage us on an open weekend. So…

Sunday Practice

Is on! Sunday November 8, noon to 2:00 PM. Here’s what our first (very productive) Sunday practice looked like.

Masters

Masters is still not nailed down but I think will be soon. Still no physical contact. Stay tuned.

Intro to College Recruiting

I’ll be adding more recruiting info on the site soon. But there’s a ton already available on TXWaterpolo.com. Go check that out.

There are MANY other steps an athlete and family need to take in order to successfully choose a college that offers water polo, and this is an excellent guide that answers a lot of questions. But here are a couple highlights of tasks necessary to play varsity collegiate water polo.

• High School Freshman Year: get to work on your academics right away. One theme that cannot be stressed enough is that good grades and test scores make decisions easier for college coaches, and can lead to significant financial aid via academic scholarships.
• Sophomore Year: Academics (always); get a working copy of your water polo resume going and keep it up to date, for example, adding tournament participation or awards after they take place. Start to research schools that offer varsity water polo AND truly fit your academic needs. Academics come first. Your aim should be to limit the list to 10-15 schools at this point.
• Junior Year: Academics (surprise!). Begin to gather high quality game footage of yourself. On September 1 of an athlete’s junior year, Division I coaches are allowed to begin calling, texting athletes.
• Senior Year: Interaction with college coaches becomes routine and very important. Coaches are now allowed to call prospective student athletes once per week. Students are allowed to contact the coach as many times as they wish. Time to hone in on top choices for schools and express serious, genuine interest.

Welcome New Athletes

Two more new athletes joined us on a trial basis on Monday and were great additions to the team. Thanks to Maddi, Tomas, and their families for giving AQTX a try.

TAGS

We will be entering a 9th grade and under coed team for this year’s Texas Age Group Championships (water polo) on December 12-13 at the Lewisville ISD Eastside Aquatic Center, 5729 Memorial Dr,The Colony,TX 75056. More registration info coming up.

New Caps

I may have failed to mention we have new caps. Or maybe not. Behold:

Thanks to our friends at RYTE Sports for coming through with the best caps in Texas. #oneteamonedream

See you on the deck,

James

According to the Statesman: “Cold front to bring drizzly rain, whipping winds, biting chill to Austin area.” That sounds like parka time and no more mosquito spray. Practice is ON for tonight. Meanwhile, other things important to our expanding club.

Invited to Compete in Boerne (Updated)

Aqua Swift has invited us to a mini tournament on Sunday, Nov. 1 (we’ve now declined to attend that event) and a practice/scrimmage on Sunday, Nov. 8. I’m inclined to do the scrimmage on the 8th only, but if there’s sufficient demand we can do the tourney on Nov. 1, which would include all age groups and teams from Aqua Swift, AquaTex/Longhorn, and Zilla. As always, let me know what you think, AQTX families.

Potential New Coach

As some of you know I’ve been corresponding with a young coach who has plans to move from Los Angeles to Pflugerville before the end of the year. He has an interest in starting a home improvement construction company. So if any of our families has some advice for him, or connections to the industry, I’d like to share it with him. Based on his background and our conversations he could be a good fit for the club. Hoping it works out.

Weekend Practices

Our first Sunday practice is this weekend on Nov. 1 from noon to 2:00 PM. The calendar is also clearing up so we can have more Saturday practices (not this Saturday). Both Saturdays and Sundays have been added to the calendar for the rest of 2020.

Scorpions Ball

For the next few months at least we’ve switched our Scorpions Ball days from Thursdays to select Saturdays, noon to 1:00 PM. Go to the calendar for more.

Masters Coming Back

Masters is coming back soon (again, keep checking the calendar) but we just need to nail down the exact dates given the conflicts with other events we’ve experienced. Still no physical contact. Stay tuned.

Calendar Update

I’ve updated the calendar on this site so that it includes events from all the ones below to better show our overall agenda and scheduling conflicts that prevent us from having practices or other stuff:

• AquaTex Waterpolo Google Calendar, to include my personal travel
• AQTX Swim and Waterpolo Team Events for meets, water polo tournaments
• AQTX Swim & Waterpolo General, for swim and water polo practice times
• Round Rock HS Swim Team, for meet conflicts
• USA Water Polo’s ODP Southwest Zone to show when I’m committed to coach that program

Texas Challenge Cup (Updated)

Updated 10/27/2020:

I’m very pleased to see the list of those who have committed to this tournament. I want to be clear about the status of AquaTex roster(s). The tournament was in such high demand that all the slots were filled before AquaTex/Longhorn could register 12u coed, 18u girls, 18u boys teams. We successfully registered a 14u coed team. So, for our athletes who want to play but are too old for the 14u team I will be contacting coaches of participating teams to see if they have roster spots available.

The following athletes are committed to the 14u coed team for the Texas Challenge Cup: Austin, Jacob, James, Kelly, Luca, Morgan, Riley.

Also committed are Cammi, Cameron, and Kendall, for whom I’ll try to find teams to play on.

Streaming Volunteers

One interesting fact about the upcoming 14u coed team that’s going to the Texas Challenge Cup in a couple weeks: no fans will be allowed inside EXCEPT if you volunteer to stream the game to the public. Do we have any volunteers? You can push the stream to any platform you want. Almost any platform…

Chalk Talks

Last Thursday we began talking about pressing front court defense. That video is now online will be online by Tuesday so be sure to take a look before Wednesday’s practice. Next topic is running a zone or drop defense. Take notes!

Celebrations

One of our newest members just had a birthday a couple weeks ago, before she joined us full time. So happy 14th birthday to Ava (Oct. 13) and to Aaron (Oct. 2)!

See you on the deck in warm clothing,

James