District 214 water polo club wants time at new Prospect pool
Members of a Northwest suburban water polo club think Prospect High School's new $13 million pool is great; they just wish they could use it.
Students in the District Unified Water Polo club, made up of players from Northwest Suburban High School District 214 teams, have been eager to jump into Prospect's new pool since it opened last August.
But not quite yet, say district officials, who want to work out any kinks at the 27,000-square-foot natatorium before opening it up to anyone besides in-season athletes and physical education students.
What makes the state-of-the-art Prospect pool so appealing is that it's a "double deep" pool, with depths of 12 feet at both ends - an ideal setting for water polo, club members say.
Right now, polo players practice at Wheeling High School's pool, which is more shallow.
The club, run by District 214 coaches, is the off-season training program for boys and girls water polo players from the district's six high schools.
Water polo is a spring sport, while boys swimming happens in winter and girls swimming in the fall. That means many practice water polo in their offseasons and during the summer.
Laura Burkhalter of Arlington Heights, whose daughter plays water polo, said some 60 girls now using Wheeling's pool for water polo practice want to use the new Prospect pool only on Tuesday nights, Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings, when in-season high school teams are not using it.
"After spending $13 million on a pool, it seems ridiculous that those pool waters should ever be still," Burkhalter said.
Jen Delgado, District 214's spokeswoman, said it's district practice to limit the use of a new pool during the first year of operations to IHSA-related activities and physical education classes.
She did say the water polo club would be able to use the Prospect pool in the future.
"Because of the size and complexities of a pool, we are always learning new things during the first year, which allows us to make adjustments as needed to improve operations and assess the stability of the structure," she said in a statement.
In 2014, Buffalo Grove High School opened its $11 million pool, which also has depths well-suited for water polo, Burkhalter said. But she says it's hard for the club to get practice time there because it is also used for park district programming.