Aquatic Center to open this weekend

By Cecile Nguyen

The No. 13 men's water polo team will take their first plunge into the newly opened Sullivan Aquatic Center when the Broncos play their inaugural home games this weekend.

"I'm very excited about the pool," said men's and women's water polo Head Coach Keith Wilbur. "It's something that I think is going to help the men's and women's water polo program a lot."

The pool will open to the campus community on Sunday, according to an e-mail sent out by Janice DeMonsi, director of recreation.

"Five years ago, I really had doubts whether we could raise the money to pull this off," Athletic Director Dan Coonan said. "It was only through the incredible generosity of Jack and Joan Sullivan that we were able to do this."

The pool should make an immediate impact for the men's water polo team, as they play their games Saturday against Air Force at 10 a.m. and Cal Baptist at 5 p.m.

"Being on the road for the first 18 or 19 games has taken a toll on all of us," redshirt junior Jack Wall said. "To finally have a place to call home, because this is our home pool, makes a huge difference.

"This last weekend was our first weekend off in the entire year," he said. "It was relaxing. Now to have that feeling going into a game will mean a lot."

Regulations for men's water polo require the pool to be 30 meters long and 20 yards wide, and it has to be at least 7 feet deep, said Wilbur.

The previous pool was 25 yards by 20 meters, and the depth of the pool varied.

The Sullivan Aquatic Center pool measures 50 meters by 25 yards. It is 7.5 feet deep.

The team had to find a regulation pool to practice in while the Sullivan pool was under construction. They used West Valley Community College, roughly a 25 to 30-minute commute.

"To actually have our own pool, being able to schedule it when it works best for the students and their class schedule is going to be a big benefit," Wilbur said. "Just being a student athlete, I think, is tough. And it's a little tougher, kind of, what we had to do finding a place to play and practice."

In addition to the convenience of scheduling practice sessions, Wilbur believes that the state-of-the-art facility will draw more schools to Santa Clara.

"Teams that want to play us don't want to play in a small pool because unexpected things can happen," explained Wilbur.

Many teams ranked in the top 20 will play at Santa Clara at the end of the year. "We are really excited about that," he said.

The pool should bring more play to Santa Clara.

"The previous pool was not big enough to host any event of significance. A lot of schools didn't want to come and play us because of it," Coonan said.

There could have been other reasons behind their refusal to play at Santa Clara, though, Coonan said.

"To some degree we thought they used that as an excuse not to play us because we were pretty good," he said with a laugh.

"We can host conference championships now. We got Stanford coming in here. A team like Stanford would have never come here before because of the pool."

The women's water polo team will host its first conference championship this year.

The host of the conference championship alternates between the schools within the conference.

Santa Clara had always passed because they did not have a regulation-sized pool, Wilbur said.

"We'll get to host this year, and it's the year we got the new pool so it was perfect," said Wilbur.

The Sullivan pool will also help with recruiting, Wilbur said.

"When the students come on campus, they love everything about Santa Clara: the location, the school and the professors."

"Before, for the pool, I kind of had to explain it and kind of make excuses for it," Wilbur said. "Now the pool's will something that will help the recruiting process."

He said they have already experienced a greater ease with recruiting.

"We've had a lot more interest and a lot more recruits visiting this weekend to see our new pool and our first home game," Wilbur said.

"I'm excited that the pool's going to help draw good water polo players to come to Santa Clara."

The pool's dimensions will also allow for lanes to be set up for lap swimmers while simultaneously being used by the water polo team.

"What we are going to be able to do now with the pool is that we are set up for a 30-meter course. And, on top of that, since it is a 50-meter pool, there are going to be 20 meters that can always be opened for recreational swim," Wilbur said.

There will be six or seven lanes available for recreational swim all the time, even when the teams are practicing.

When the pool is not in use by the teams, the entire pool is going to be open for swimmers.

"I think that was a big plus, and that it is important to everybody that the pool wasn't just for water polo, but for the entire school," Wilbur said.

"I think it is going to benefit everybody."

The Broncos have won six of their last seven games and have an overall record of 12-5.

They hope that the new facility will help them continue their winning ways, especially as the team enters one of their toughest stretches of games.

"Our schedule to finish out the year is probably the hardest part of our schedule during our regular season games," said Wilbur. "I think we have one game against a team that isn't ranked in the top 20. So every game is going to be difficult competition."

But the change from West Valley should help to energize the team, Wilbur said.

"Playing in the new pool in the middle of the year, that's going to add a little excitement for the guys," he said.

"To have six of our last eight games being home games will get them fired up. That will add a little boost to the mid-season."

Wall said he felt that the opening of the new pool was sort of a reward for the thriving water polo programs.

"My freshman year I think we were No. 20. My sophomore year we were 16th at one point. Last year, 15th and now this year we were as high as 12th in the nation," said Wall.

"Each year we're getting better and better, and this new pool just feels like a reward. Everything that we've done has paid off."

"With the pool done now, what the Earthquakes helped us do with Buck Shaw and the synthetic turf practice field, now Leavey Center being updated, Schott Stadium and the tennis court," Coonan said.

"We have very good facilities for our conference, certainly in comparison with the region."

The Sullivan family and university President Paul Locatelli, S.J., will dedicate the pool Nov. 9 at noon. An alumni game will follow.

Contact Cecile Nguyen at (408) 554-4546 or sports@thesantaclara.com.