By Paul Silverfarb
Sentinel Editor
When it comes to water polo, California sets the gold standard in youth athletes competing at the highest levels of that sport.
Well, Gavin West and Jack Bruce are proving that The Golden State needs to make some room for two kids from the Connecticut Gold Coast.
West, a 13-year-old student at Brunswick School and Bruce, a 14-year-old Eastern Middle School student have been named to the USA Men’s National Development Water Polo team.
“I was surprised when I made it because I didn’t think I would make it at first, but I was really proud of myself once I made it,” said Bruce, who plays water polo for Chelsea Piers Stamford. “I hope that I can try to make it another year and do it again.”
In fact, the duo of West and Bruce are the only two water polo players of the 24 selected that are not from California.
“This is very exciting,” said West, who plays for the YMCA Greenwich Aquatics team. “I feel very fortunate that I made the team and that I get to experience this moment in my life. It’s certainly a big one.”
For the duo of Bruce and West, they are taking it as a high honor that they are the only two athletes chosen for the USA Men’s National Development Water Polo team that don’t reside in California.
“Although we are not from California, people might look at that as a disadvantage in water polo,” West said. “But I think our club is great and has some of the best coaches. It could rival a lot of the California clubs. And through hard work and my coaches giving me good tips, it all came together at the camp.”
Bruce said that it’s wild to think that the only non-Californians on the roster are both from Greenwich.
“Not a lot of people form California make it, and I thought that it was cool that I was one of the people that did make it and that I am from Connecticut,” Bruce said.
In order to make the team, both Bruce and West went through some pretty tough tryouts at the National Selection Camp located in Orange Country, Calif. The three-day tryout camp hosted 75 boys born in 2003 and 2004.
The test included body measurements, a 2,000-yard swim test and around eight hours of water polo play per day.
“My goal is to always work with everybody around me,” West said. “I tried my hardest in everything that I do, both in the pool and out. That helped me make the team. You have to be a little lucky in the tryouts and catch the coaches watching. But it’s also a lot of hard work. I wasn’t that nervous. I just wanted to go out there, try my best and whatever happens, happens.”
Bruce said he doesn’t think there are many things that make him stand out from other people competing to be on the Men’s National Development Water Polo team. However, that doesn’t mean that the Eastern Middle School student didn’t work hard and fine-tune his craft.
“I worked really hard in practice and I did really well in the evaluation process at the camp,” Bruce said. “I think I swam pretty fast on the swim testing times and I did well on defense. They weren’t really looking for goal-scorers. They were looking for fundamentals, and I think I did that really well.”
And it’s those fundamentals that makes Bruce a successful water polo player.
“They are really important because you have to have balance and other things like that to succeed,” Bruce said. “It’s not all one thing. I think I need to work on my ball IQ to know the right moves in passing or shooting.”
While West couldn’t be prouder to be on the team, he’s setting his sights toward the future. Both West and Bruce will be traveling twice more to California this summer, in an attempt to make the national team that will compete in Canada later in the year.
“I am going to keep working hard,” West said. “I need to swim a lot and stay dedicated to the sport of water polo. A lot of the guys on the team are nice and supportive. I look up to them a lot. When I joined the team, they accepted me and we have a special bond. We go out a lot to California and train really hard together, so it’s a special place.”
