A deep dive into public pool access

BY MINOU ONO Staff Reporter

There are very limited options for swimming in Redwood City after Herkner Pool, the only public pool, was shut down last year. Consequently, the quality of the Sequoia water polo team is negatively affected by the lack of pools near Sequoia. Herkner Pool, located in Red Morton Park, was only a mile from Sequoia. It was demolished during the summer of 2021 to build a new senior center and a YMCA. The Sequoia YMCA currently on Hudson will move to the new location once it is completed. The new YMCA will include pool facilities, but they will not be public, and the construction is estimated to be finished by the summer of 2023.

Due to the fewer number of pools in Redwood City, there are also fewer water polo clubs. Since Sequoia students do not have the same access to water polo clubs, there are very few students on the water polo team that play outside of school.

“We had 15 [players] last year and only four of them played club,” boys water polo coach Eric Bittner said.

“You can see the level difference is massive between those who do and do not play [club water polo],” Bittner said.

One JV player, Aiden Braddock, mentioned that some people in JV had never played water polo. The girl’s team faces similar challenges.

“One or two [girls play club water polo], if we are lucky,” Coach Hailey Amato said. “We have two girls on varsity who have never played water polo before.” closing affects other Sequoia water sports, such as swimming. Redwood City used to have resources for people to learn to swim. At Herkner Pool, they had swim lessons and other resources for the community to learn to swim.

“We’re a really new team,” Amato said.

Because the team is less established and smaller than many other sports, coaches are trying to grow the size of the team. However, the process has been difficult, given the steep learning curve that water polo poses and the reluctance of people to join the team.

“[Water polo] is definitely a sport that I feel like people are really uncomfortable trying,” Amato said.

Unlike most other sports, to play water polo, there are some basic skills you have to be able to do. If you cannot swim, you cannot play.

“Since water polo relies so much on swimming, trying to start when you do not know how to swim makes it a lot more difficult. So kids are just inherently less likely to try it out. Because they cannot do the basic thing,” Bittner said.

“I learned to swim at the pool at Red Morton,” Callie Hogrefe, sophomore and varsity water polo player, said.

Herkner Pool also used to run a swim team program called the Redwood City Sharks. The Sharks team was started in 1963 and had been parent and volunteer run for the past decade. With COVID-19 and Herkner Pool shutting down, the Sharks are not currently running, according to their website. The Sharks were one of the few opportunities for kids to swim in Redwood City, but with them gone, there are even less.

“I used to swim for the [Redwood City]

Both coaches also mentioned how hard it is to coach students who have no background in water polo or swimming.

“If they had grown up playing [...] we would have a better starting place than we normally do,” Amato said.

On the other hand, the situation in Menlo Park differs from Redwood City. Both coaches believe that kids starting to play and learning to swim early on can lead to much bigger and more skilled teams.

“[The kids in Menlo Park] have all had swimming lessons and started knowing how to swim from a much younger age,” Bittner said.

Along with water polo, Herkner Pool

Sharks during the summer,” Hogrefe said.

The lack of pools, especially public pools, makes it difficult for swimming and water polo clubs to survive.

“There have been a couple [water polo] clubs locally that have not hung on,” Coach Hailey said.

“Most people on varsity [swimming] swim for PCCA [a club team],” sophomore and former club swimmer Victor Delvat said. “Having more people in swim clubs could [...] improve the level of the team.”

PCCA is a team based out of the Peninsula Community Center in Redwood City. At only two miles away from Sequoia, it is the closest swim club.

“You can tell the difference [between those who swim club and those who do not],” Delvat said. “I swam for two years for PASA [a club team] in Palo Alto,”

Two Sequoia students, Delvat and Braddock swam at pools more than nine miles from Sequoia, one in Palo Alto, one in Portola Valley. With most swim clubs being far away, a lot of students don’t have access to these facilities. Many students do not have someone that can drive them to and from practices more than 20 minutes away, so they don’t swim at all. These are the results of closing public pools near Sequoia.