When Julie Sweeney ’26 first took up water polo, her experience was far from fun. She joined a practice with her older brother Max ‘23, who had already been playing for a few years.
“The first practice I ever went to, I threw up and cried in the bathroom because it was so hard,” Sweeney explained.
After her initial practice, Sweeney’s parents forced her to go back. It was her second time in the water when she fell in love with the sport.
“I met some really amazing people, and they really made it click,” Sweeney said. “It was the people who made me fall in love with water polo.”
She joined Trojan Water Polo Club (TWPC) and never looked back. With seven years of play under her belt, Sweeney has built a passion and talent that has propelled her all the way to Brown University, where she’ll compete as an attacker on their women’s water polo team starting next year.
Not all of her skill was molded at TWPC. While she has great memories of the club, she knew that if she wanted to pursue water polo in college, she would need to play in a more competitive setting. Going into ninth grade, she decided to transfer to a stronger water polo club called Santa Barbara 805 (SB 805).
The club is notoriously high-achieving. Twenty-five members of the club committed to play in college in 2024, and eleven are already committed to a college in 2025. Their coaches are some of the best at the high school level, and the club often competes nationally.
Since switching to SB 805, Sweeney has become more dominant and skilled in the pool. In 2023, she was chosen to be a member of USA’s 2023 Women’s Cadet National Team. That same year, she helped SB805 earn gold in USA’s Junior Olympics Platinum Division, the highest ranking for her age group.
“Julie is a phenomenal water polo player,” said Max. “She has one of the best catch-and-shoots I know; she’s always got her head on a swivel, and she’s great at steals. Her passes are on point, putting the ball right where her teammates need it.”
A major issue with switching to a club in Santa Barbara is commuting to practice. Julie is required to train with the club 2-3 times a week, but the drive to a club located over 120 miles away from school presents a major challenge to Julie’s day-to-day life.
“I leave school at 1:15 and just drive up to Santa Barbara. We want to leave earlier to beat traffic, because if it gets bad enough, it’ll end up being a three-hour drive and that really sucks. I either do my homework in the Santa Barbara Public Library or in the car. Then I go to
practice, then we come back home. I’ll normally be home at 10:30.
In addition to putting on clinics at SB 805, Julie’s had to constantly email college coaches, get on phone calls, and answer messages from various coaches and recruits around the country. The college recruitment process was incredibly taxing for Sweeney, but the decision to commit to Brown wasn’t hard.
“I fell in love with the school when I was visiting with my brother. Then when I went on my own visits to Brown, I met the whole girls’ team, and I really fell in love with them.”
Whether at Chadwick, Santa Barbara, or Brown, Sweeney’s future is bright. Her talent and dedication have led her down a ten-year journey that will only get better in Providence.
“I’m really looking forward to playing on the East Coast, and [exploring] that different culture because I feel like I’ve only ever played against California girls, so that’ll be fun,”
“And not having to drive two hours to practice will be great.”
