Splashing Sport -- Understanding The Underwater Action Of Water Polo

A couple of months ago, our daughter Molly introduced us to a new sport called water polo. You play it in a swimming pool, and I believe the idea is to keep from drowning.

Of course, Molly's mother and I had seen water polo before, but we had watched it for only a few minutes. There isn't much to see in water polo because everyone stays underwater. You just see the tops of people's heads, a ball flying through the air and a lot of splashing.

But you start looking at the sport differently when one of your kids is involved.

For one thing, when one of our kids starts to play a new game, we try to understand what's going on in the game so we don't sound like complete idiots when we start yelling encouragement and suggestions from the sidelines.

Granted, our kids are already convinced their parents are complete idiots without having them yelling "Nice touchdown!" when they hit a homer in baseball. Not only would the kids be convinced about the low brain activity of Mom and Dad, but the other parents would look at each other and mutter, "What a couple of idiots."

So with each new sport, I usually watch a few games to get a general idea of what's going on before opening my mouth and yelling something that doesn't have anything to do with the game being played.

I believe the saying goes: It is better to let people think you are an idiot than opening your mouth and removing all doubt.

Plus it's a lot easier to yell at the umpire or referee when you think they made a bad call on your kid if you have some idea what is going on in the field or court.

The most popular sport for the Johnston children is soccer, and after watching 10 years of soccer games, I'm finally figuring out how the game is played. Just when I got this soccer business almost figured out, my daughter introduced us to water polo.

I've been to three games, and I can tell this game is going to be trouble for me.

There are seven players on each team, with one team wearing blue bathing caps and the other team wearing white caps. Everyone is up to their neck in water, so the only way you can tell which is your child is by the number on the bathing cap.

Out of all the sports the Johnston children are involved in, this water-polo business looks like the toughest. Not only do you have to throw a volleyball around while seven people try to stop you from doing it, but you have to throw and catch the ball while treading water.

I call it a controlled drowning mode.

I think it's hard enough to tread water using both your hands and legs, but people playing water polo use only their legs because their arms are busy catching the ball or throwing it or trying to get the ball away from the other team.

Thrown into this mix are the referees who try to keep everyone playing fair and making sure no one drowns. Every few seconds the referee blows the whistle, and everyone swims to a different section of the pool. Then the referee does some sign language to a judge sitting at a card table, blows the whistle and the game continues for a few more seconds.

One of the parents, who claims to understand the game of water polo, told me that the players foul the opposing players on purpose so the game will be stopped and the players can find better positions. Sometimes the players were told to go tread water in a corner because they committed a foul that was worse than the other fouls.

I didn't understand the reasoning behind these rules, but I understood this parent when he said my daughter was one of the best players on the team.

It meant I would be seeing a lot more water polo.

Steve Johnston is a reporter for The Seattle Times. Paul Schmid is a Times artist.