Senior Mada Montgomery, started her water polo career as a freshman, initially just to have some fun. Little did she know, she would pursue this later in her high school career.
“I decided my freshman year that I would try it at Huron, because my sister had also played it for Huron,” Montgomery said, “ I decided that I’d just have it for fun as a second sport, and that definitely changed.”
As her passion grew, she knew that playing in college would be in her future. With this ideal, she took the initial steps into the recruitment process.
“So water polo, there’s not that many schools in the country that have it,” Montgomery said. “I know I want to major in engineering, so the school needed to have engineering. Then, I just emailed every single one of those schools.”
Once she figured out which schools she preferred, she needed to make sure the school fit her athletic and academic goals.
“A lot of it is the vibe of the team and the campus,” Montgomery said, “And a lot of that comes from going on a visit.”
She went to camps and programs to help her get better at polo and have a better chance at getting into collegiate polo.
“I’ve gone to a couple college camps,” Montgomery said. “There’s a program called the Olympic development program and that’s something that I did that was really beneficial.”
During this process Montgomery has gotten a ton of support from her family since they had gone through this process with her sister.
“My sister played volleyball in college, so she was definitely a big help on the side of knowing what the recruiting process is like,” Montgomery said. “My mom did a lot of stuff with her, so it was really great to have both of them who had already gone through the process.”
She has currently not gotten any offers since she has to get into the school before being offered onto the team.
“For water polo, a lot of the schools that I’m really interested in are academics first,” Montgomery said.
After going through the whole process Montgomery learned a lot.
“The process is scary,” Montgomery said. “ It’s a long process, and you are gonna want to go to schools and be really excited about schools that just end up not working out.”
