Old sport new to county

A ferocious pass makes it past the goalie. As a relatively unknown sport in Chesterfield County, it might be easy for some people to confuse water polo with the Strawberry Hill-style stick, ball and horse variety. But absolutely no horses are allowed in this venerable Olympic sport. It's stylish, physical and demands endurance non-stop. Teams are composed of six swimmers and a goalie. They are hard playing, dedicated athletes swimming back and forth, attempting to gain the upper hand and rip a ball past a goalie while treading water.

Begun in England during the mid-1800s, the sport is alleged to be the first team event sanctioned by the Olympics in 1900. It is popular today internationally, on the West Coast and in the Northeast. And now it's finally waded into Chesterfield.

Brooks Landes, age 40 and a Navy wanderer for most of his adult life, has settled in Chesterfield County as a facility manager with a local industrial gases firm. Business interests aside, he always harbored a desire to jumpstart water polo in his new surroundings. He is married and has two children.

Brooks Landes founded the Greater Richmond Water Polo Association last May. "I started playing water polo in high school in California. I joined the military and played some while I was in the Navy. I've been playing off and on ever since," he recalled.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Landes moved to Richmond from Florence, S.C. nearly 18 months ago. "I thought there would be some water polo, and to my dismay… there wasn't. So I called USA Water Polo (American sanctioning body). They got me in touch with the U.S. Naval Academy's head coach Mike Schofield, who is ranked very highly in the NCAA. He just basically said 'go get a pool.'"

"A friend in Virginia Beach introduced me to [Chesterfield resident] Tim Martin. We got together and just basically started trying to get people to come out. We started shaking the tree, so to speak," Landes reckoned.

They started organizing last May, and every Sunday at 6:30 p.m., the Midlothian YMCA is the scene of practice, matches and scrimmages for the fledgling Greater Richmond Water Polo Association (GRWPA). This club team includes a Serbian swimmer, a former member of the Kuwaiti National team, a former European pro swimmer and everything in between.

According to Landes, the future is bright. Recruiting new players is ongoing and junior play is being looked at to introduce youngsters to the excitement of the sport.

"This is a very diversified group… a lot of people from all sides of Richmond. We get the occasional kid from the University of Richmond coming to play with us from time to time, and we are in the process of helping the Hampton Roads area start a team," he stated.

Landes is enthused about their upcoming tournament at the University of Virginia on Mar. 29-30. "We're real excited about that. We'll see how we get seeded. We might be playing the Navy A Team, and they're supposed to be pretty good," he said.

For information about joining the GRWPA, playing the sport or spectating, visit www. greaterrichmondwaterpolo.com or call Brooks Landes at 402-2800