When Sloan Friedman first surfaced after diving into the Seahawk Natatorium pool, he did so with wide eyes. The freshman had made a commitment to join the UNC Wilmington club water polo team after speaking to a couple of representatives at the fall involvement carnival, and his raised eyebrows clearly illustrated his nervousness.

While swimming warm-up laps, head up—as is usually done in polo—he looked from side to side, trying to see where he stacked up with the rest of the team as they warmed up. “I felt like I could barely tread water when I first came in,” said Friedman. “It was scary. I was nervous half because I thought I would drown, and half because I thought other people would make fun of me for drowning.”

There was a little bit of teasing here and there according to Friedman, but it was all in good fun. Friedman says he came initially because he just wanted to give it a shot, but he stayed because of the constant support and the warm, friendly atmosphere he found in the club. “There’s a great team dynamic that makes it all very fun,” said Friedman. “It’s one of the things that has helped me improve a lot, and that makes it fun too.”

It would have been much harder to learn to play, or get past his struggles, without that friendly atmosphere. His struggles upon initially joining the polo team closely mirror the club team’s growth. The organization started two years ago and has struggled to recruit enough members to compete on a consistent basis. “No one in the south really knows how to play water polo. It just isn’t as big of a deal here,” said men’s captain and UNCW junior Rich Smith. “Some of the players come in not even knowing how to swim properly and without any real water-sport experience.”

The lack of children’s water polo leagues, or real interest in water polo expressed by the average North Carolinian, leads the majority of new members to start out the way Friedman did. But, the good news for everyone who has joined, or is interested in joining, is that captains Smith and Alyssa Portera are willing to teach the basics, and as many advanced skills as they can, to new players.

“My counterpart Alyssa and I are always more than happy to slow things down, and break drills down to help guide newcomers as they learn the game,” Smith said. “We want everyone to understand the game, because the better you understand, the better you’ll enjoy playing. And the more you enjoy playing, the better you’ll be both at the game and as a member of the team.”

The team has had to overcome being a small organization and relatively new. They don’t yet have enough members to join a conference, but they have competed with Chapel Hill, Duke, Clemson, NC State and other schools in recent years, and will be facing some of those other big names again in February and March.

“There’s definitely a bright future for the sport as a whole,” said Portera, a junior. “Water polo is growing, and we want it to grow here too. It’s tough right now to find places to play, or to set up scrimmages and tournaments.

“We’re a young organization, with a young exec(utive) board, but we are working hard to get more established.”

Both captains stress that one of the primary ways they are working on growing as an organization is making it fun and exciting for everyone involved by making sure that everyone who wants to get better has that chance. “Now in practices and scrimmages, instead of worrying about treading, I’m seeing how many goals I can score and seeing how many tricks I can use that I have learned,” said Friedman.

“It’s been really exciting to watch Sloan progress. He isn’t the only one making huge strides, but with Sloan it’s been very easy to see him improve,” added Portera. “You can see his increased confidence level. He looks focused in the water and not only isn’t afraid anymore, but you can see in his eyes that he wants to take on the best players on the team.”

Friedman, who stands 5-feet-9-inches tall and weighs 130 pounds, loves to take on the biggest players on the team—some of whom are well over 6 feet tall and heavier than 200 pounds. What’s more is that Friedman is starting to make a habit of scoring over those guys.

The UNCW club water polo team is hoping to continue to recruit and develop enough young players like Friedman to be able to consistently compete with other, more experienced teams in the region. Like Friedman though, the team is always excited when they get the chance to face off with the best teams in the region.