The Girls Water Polo Team outside City Hall on September 28 after speaking at the City Council meeting.
This September, Culver High’s water-based sports teams got the news that The Plunge, the community pool in which they rely on for practice, would have to close for 6 weeks of maintenance occurring December 19th to January 31st. This was especially hard for the Girl’s Water Polo team to hear, since the closure would take place right in the middle of their 8-week winter season. To remedy this, the Girl’s Water Polo team members attended the September 28 City Council meeting and advocated for their pool by delivering a series of powerful and emotional speeches. After hearing their argument, the City Council quickly moved to accommodate them, postponing the closure until after their season.
At one point, an indoor pool had existed on CCHS’ campus, but it was shut down in 1991. In 2017, the science building was built on top of it, closing down the pool permanently. Since then, every day after school, aquatic sports teams have had to walk seven blocks to The Plunge to practice. The Plunge also has an annual 2 week maintenance period which typically occurs during the Girl’s Water Polo season. Although both these factors can be frustrating to the Girl’s Water Polo team members, it typically isn't too detrimental to their overall training. However, this recent proposed prolonged closure would take away not only a place to practice, but their needed area to hold important CIF games.
One of the Girl’s Varsity Water Polo captains, senior Julia Gordenstein, worried that this decision may have been based on broader gender discrimination.
“That doesn't happen during the Boy’s Water Polo season. They haven't had any disruptions to their sport,” said Gordenstein. “I also think this would never happen to a boy’s football team or boy’s baseball team, I feel like all these sports are given their own facilities on campus and we are not even given that.” She then went on to emphasize the need to keep Girl’s Water Polo especially represented and heard since they already struggle to recruit members. “We should be empowering women to do sports, and Water Polo is already a male dominated sport, you know? Especially at our school we don't have a lot of girls on the Water Polo team.”
Because of this, the team decided it was necessary to go to City Council and urge the postponement of this closure. Eight team members delivered powerful speeches while the other girls supported them from the audience. In their speeches, they brought up emotional topics like growing up with the pool, the hours of work and preparation that would go to waste due to the closure, and the shortened time they would have to spend with family should they have to relocate to a farther pool.
Their arguments were so compelling that City Council members immediately addressed the issue, even sending mayor Freddy Puza to consult Plunge management. Following this, Girl’s Water Polo got the exciting news that the Plunge closure would be moved to May. “We are very happy about that and we really obviously appreciate the City Council's effort. We know they have a lot of issues at hand and that this is probably not their most important, so we really appreciate them making an effort,” said Gordenstein.
Furthermore, it spreads the message that anyone can make change. “We made a big effort, we went to city council and released a few articles. So if you want something to happen, go for it, even if it's like a small thing you know it means a lot to us. We put in the effort and it made a change,” said Gordenstein.