I am currently a freshman in college. I swim division 1. However I am just not happy at my school. I am considering transferring. I am a good swimmer and could swim mostly anywhere I choose to transfer to. But I don’t think I like swimming anymore either. I am considering trying to transition to water polo and play d1. I have never played water polo before but have always wanted to. Is there anyway a college team would let me walk on just because of my swimming abilities? What would I have to do to get on a team? Any advice would be appreciated.
Water polo is a tough sport to walk on to. I’m not sure where you are located but all of the programs are concentrated on the West coast with some of the Ivy’s also having programs (men’s side) with a few more thrown in on the women’s side but still a small number of schools. Schools are limited to 4 scholarships by the NCAA so with rosters of roughly 20 athletes almost everyone is a walk on so you will be competing for a spot with others that have both swam and played polo for years. The nice thing is all schools compete division I, regardless of the school’s other sports division, simply because there are only 30 - 40 programs across all levels.
All is not lost however. My son would have loved to play polo in college and could have played at small California schools (this after several trips to the national age group tournament and ODP participation over his teen years) but the small school experience was not what he wanted in college. Most large schools have a club polo team that compete at fairly high levels and this is where my son has found his outlet to continue playing. Every school is different but most accept all comers (some exceptions such as Indiana has tryouts, cuts, and a paid coach) and having a strong swimming background will help. That said polo is a very physical sport and my son would swim circles around future division I swimmers in high school polo simply because it is a different type of swimming, more like wrestling with a swimming component.
Good luck.
Swimming is important to water polo like running is important to basketball. It is possible for a track star to start playing basketball for the first time at the D1 level, it is just not probable.
I have a high school swimmer daughter with one season of water polo under her belt. After watching it, I tend to agree that it is very different than swimming. Other than the tip-off at each quarter (not sure the terminology) where the two sides sprint for the ball, the treading of water egg-beater style, above water backstroke, and the physical nature of the sport is very different. I find it to be swimming (odd strokes), soccer (positional-type in that way), and wrestling (it is vicious under the water) all rolled up into one sport.