Click here to read the OMB Club Newsletter (January 2005)
4/21 7:45pm Game vs. Wind N Sea La Jolla HS 4/28 8:40pm Game vs. Sunset Old La Jolla HS 5/5 9:35pm Game vs. Sunset Gold La Jolla HS 6/10-12 TBD Masters Nationals Irvine, CA
Directions to La Jolla HS @ 800 Nautilus Street, La JollaFrom the South: Interstate 5 north to La Jolla Parkway, which becomes Torrey Pines Road. At the dead end turn left onto Girard Avenue, go for half a block, then turn right on Pearl Street. Turn left on Fay Avenue. Pool is on your right before Nautilus.
From the North: Interstate 5 south to right (west) on La Jolla Village Drive. Turn left on Torrey Pines Road. At the dead end turn left onto Girard Avenue, go for half a block, then turn right on Pearl Street. Turn left on Fay Avenue. Pool is on your right before Nautilus.
From the East: Highway 52 west to La Jolla Parkway, which becomes Torrey Pines Road. At the dead end turn left onto Girard Avenue, go for half a block, then turn right on Pearl Street. Turn left on Fay Avenue. Pool is on your right before Nautilus.
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Directions to Westview HS @ 13500 Camino Del Sur
From I-15 go west on Ted Williams Parkway (Hwy 56) to Camino Del Sur. Turn right from the exit ramp. The High School is on your left after the shopping center. The pool is at the southern end of the parking lot.
From I-5 take Hwy 56 east to Camino Del Sur. Turn left from exit ramp. The High School is on your left after the shopping center. The pool is at the southern end of the parking lot.
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Club Newsletter (January, 2005)
1. Masters Nationals will be June 10-12 in Irvine at the renovated Heritage park (new name). We will definitely enter a 40+ and 50+ team. Maybe a 45+ if we combine with our friends who we played with last year. This year the Masters is an open meaning that teams from around the world will be invited. If they come this will be exciting for the older guys as we will get to play some different people. I saw Bezkehousy and Krumpholz at the convention. I am working on them to play with our older teams. Paul B is interested Kurt K is balking due to the fact that he is out of shape. Depending on how many players commit to Shores and how many we have in the 30+ division we may be able to also enter a 30+ team for Old Mission Bay.
2. Next year on Presidents weekend there will be a second major Masters Water Polo tournament. The title will be "The Masters Festival" and will be held in Las Vegas. What is unique about this event is players will enter individually and then be formed into teams. The event should be alot of fun and I expect may have more Masters players involved than at Nationals. The event has been sanctioned by the National masters committee and should also have some major sponsors involved. The Masters committee voted to infuse $4,000.00 into the event to make it a truly huge event. There will be a clinic attached to the tournament and emphasisi will be placed on making this a family oriented affair.
3. Another huge development is that the Masters National chairman has been given a spot on the executive council for USA water polo. Rich Foster dropped by the meeting to also assure us that USA Water Polo is very much behind Masters Water Polo and wants to make sure it continues to grow. USA Water polo sees a tremendous value in supporting Masters for both itself and Masters polo.
4. Part of my responsibility as Masters zone chair is to keep communication open and help develop masters in our zone. There are a number of things that I hope to do over this year.
a. Create a masters list of teams, players and identify clubs in our area that welcome masters to play.
b. Create a master zone sub committee that will help grow masters in our zone (volunteers welcome, let me know if you would like to be a part of the committee).
c. Start to develop three distinct levels of masters (Competive and in shape level, those returning to polo and not in shape level, and a novice level for those such as polo mom's etc.)
d. Ensure our zone has four distinct competitive events each year.
1. Zone tournament for our masters
2. Open masters tournament for masters out of our zone to enter
3. A mini masters festival tournament where we take everyone who wants to enter in our
zone and divide them up into equall teams for a one day fun and competitive event
4. A masters scrimmage league that runs once every two weeks on either a friday evening, saturday or sunday. The league will have four to six teams in each of the three divisions mentioned above. Each team will play two games against different opponents back to back. This way teams get two games which will not take up to much of their time and at the same time give everyone a good workout. Hopefully each team will have 11 players. This means that each division will support at least 44 players. The concept should also be offered to women's teams (probably 2 divisions competitive and novice).
e. Encourage organizations such as the YMCA and Parks and Rec to start Masters Novice classes and to hold some type of Masters Water Polo clinic (probably for newbies).5. The Masters National committee realizes the growth in women's masters teams and participants and wants to work to ensure continued growth and participation. On a side note the committee endorses making sure we have women officials at Masters Nationals as well as men's officials.
6. The Masters FINA World Cup will be held next year in Stanford probably in mid August. The date of water polo games has not yet been firmed up. There should be a web site up and running in the near future. The location for Masters Nationals that year will be discused just prior to this years Masters Nationals. It could end up back here (but probably not until 2007) in Florida or as usual somewhere in California.
Well this newsletter has gotten a bit long so I will end here.
All the Best
Gary
