If you are a currently registered undergraduate or graduate student at Yale University and know how to swim, you are eligible to join the team. We do not host tryouts or cut anyone who has a desire to play, so whether you are looking to play water polo at a competitive level or simply looking for a space on campus to try something new, we encourage you to check out one of our practices. As a group, we are very close and often have social events outside of the pool each semester, so if that's what you're looking for, we'd love to have you on the team.

Not a problem. We have guys who have been playing for their whole lives, ex-swimmers who realized there's more to aquatic sports than staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool, and people who are learning how to egg-beat and starting from scratch. All that to say, we don't judge and are just looking to meet anyone ready to dive in.

All students are eligible to join the team right away (pending your club sports waiver), and the team usually hosts a short preseason of two practices a day before classes start each Fall. This is a great opportunity to either shake off some rust you developed over the summer or to participate in a water polo crash course and learn plenty of drills, techniques, and strategies. Don't worry if you can't make it for whatever reason; join whenever you want, but keep in mind we play in tournaments starting in September and you definitely won't want to miss the Fall season.

During the CWPA fall season, the team holds practices in the Kiphuth Exhibition Pool (located in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium basement). We split pool time with the Varsity Swimming and Dive team as well as the Women's Water Polo team, so practice times are TBA for Fall '24, but practices will be 5x a week in-season (through October) and then go down to a more relaxed 4x a week training during the off-season.

Our program can generally provide you with whatever time commitment you are looking for because we are a club sport. You can show up to as many or as few practices as you like, but during competition games, we play to win, so minutes in the game strongly depend on your attendance while taking into account effort and abilities. Regardless, everyone has a great time as we are all exciting to play and travel to other schools. We have mandatory practice for two hours on Sun, Mon, Tues, Thurs, Sat while we are in season (roughly through October) while off-season training is limited to 3x a week. We typically travel to 3-4 tournaments during the fall season, and we usually get 15-20 guys per tournament.

In short, there is no Varsity Water Polo Team. Thus, we offer the highest level of competition in the pool on campus, so while we are a club and all are welcome to join, the priority of the team is to compete and win. This means we train intensely in-season during the fall while balancing teaching water polo throughout the year to newer players. While all are welcome to join at any point during the year, the fall season is definitely the most fun time of the year as we travel frequently to other colleges for tournaments and make some of our favorite memories as a team. The fall tournaments provide a great opportunity to pick up water polo again or for the first time.