Why Water Polo Players Wear Caps

Rising up as an aquatic athlete in southern California, I educated year-round. So though my highschool water polo profession was short-lived, it felt like I had devoted my life and my physique to the game for for much longer. I joined the water polo crew with the concept that it could be identical to competitive swimming (which I used to be additionally doing on the time), however with a ball. Flawed. Not like swimming, water polo is a really, very bodily sport. A lot in order that if a participant’s security cap comes untied, the referee will cease the sport and ask the participant to retie it.

Permit me to clarify. As a result of water polo is a contact-driven sport, there’s loads of alternative for damage. One unintended elbow or lunge to the face might lead to a coach pulling their participant from the sport for worry of a attainable concussion, which is why security headgear is so vital.

Usually, water polo security caps are fabricated from a thick materials with onerous, plastic casings on both aspect of the helmet to protect the ears within the occasion of a collision. You will additionally discover that the protecting ear casings have holes in them. This design retains the water out and makes it simpler for gamers to listen to. A participant securely fastens the helmet by merely tying the strings right into a knotted bow beneath their chin. Like swimmers, gamers additionally put on a swimmer’s cap to protect their hair beneath the protection helmet. This offers the headgear a safer match and helps rule out the potential of hair pulling (imagine me, it occurs).

Physicality apart, the protection cap additionally acts as a participant’s jersey, displaying each their crew identify and quantity. This isn’t solely helpful for these exterior of the pool just like the referee and coaches, however for the gamers, too, as a result of the vast majority of the time, your teammates’ our bodies are submerged underwater. Just like different sports activities, goalies put on a unique coloured cap from their teammates so as to make them even simpler to tell apart.