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A St. Thomas sophomore is making a splash in the local water polo community, after co-founding the first youth water polo group in Minnesota. With its second season coming up this spring, co-founder Rory Lee said he hopes to expand the group by adding more teams.

Lee, a California native, has been playing water polo for eight years. His passion for the sport started in middle school when he joined a club water polo team.

Lee caught on quickly and soon was starting every game. Eventually, he helped lead his high school team to become the best in Robert Louis Stevenson High School history. The team was ranked as one of the best high school water polo teams in the nation.

Minnesota is a drastically different environment from the warm California climate, a fact Lee knew when he committed to the University of St. Thomas. His hope was to join a nearby masters team, for players over the age of 18 who come together each week to play water polo.

“I knew there was a masters team in the Twin Cities area but I had no idea what the level of play would be like. I was pleasantly surprised when it was very high and now I’m very excited to get to spread the water polo community” Lee said.

Lee, along with some of his teammates on the Minnesota Water Polo Club were inspired by their own love of the game and want to educate and inspire future generations. Joe Milton, co-founder of the youth program, has also been playing since middle school.

“The reason why myself and the other coaches created this youth program was to bring the same joy and sense of the overall impact the sport had on our lives to the next generation. It’s a great way to make lifelong friends, continually improving ourselves in and out of the water and to stay in shape,” Milton said.

After six months of planning, the Minnesota Youth Water Polo Group was formed, the first of its kind in Minnesota. It is a three-practice clinic over the course of three weeks to teach players between the ages of 8 and 14 about the fundamentals of water polo and to get them practicing.

“I am very fortunate to have had excellent coaches in the past and I want to pay it forward and help grow the community,” Lee said. He and the rest of the coaches are all volunteer coaches.

Each practice focuses on three main teaching points: shooting, passing and fundamentals. 20 kids signed up for the water polo clinic and each week they showed up with eager and persistent attention.

Lee and the coaches only expected a handful of kids to join, but their expectations were exceeded with an average of 18 kids per practice.

“We had some talk about even trying to start a high school club team. There was a lot of interest from both the parents and the kids for the sport of water polo to stay and grow in the state of Minnesota,” Milton explained.

“We are hoping to generate interest and hopefully start a couple teams that can start playing each other. And maybe somewhere down the line get a team to the Junior Olympics, that would be huge for this area,” Lee said.

A second round of practices will take place in the spring of 2024.

Marty Fischer can be reached at fisc6793@stthomas.edu.