An athlete and a pair of Estevan Sharks Water Polo Club coaches swam away with awards from the Saskatchewan Water Polo Association Awards recently.
Charlotte Andrist won the U14 Girls Athlete of the year and coaches Mona Hack and Tania Andrist won the coaches of the year for their work on the various teams, announced at the Water Polo Saskatchewan banquet Saturday in Regina.
“I was really surprised,” said. Charlotte Andrist, one of a family of water polo players.
“I've been doing it my whole life, It's a really fun sport, all the people are really nice,” said Charlotte Andrist.
It was Charlotte who brought her mom into the sports, according to the younger Andrist, and her younger twin sisters followed her into the sport also.
“Growing up, I got put into water polo because a couple of my friends were in water polo,” she said. “I needed a sport for the winter, so mom got into it after me.”
Hack said her and Tania Andrist have grown a lot as coaches over the past few years in the sport.
“We've just really grown as far as how we play our kids and what we want to see from our kids,” Hack said. “It' not about winning, it's about wanting to develop the kids and seeing them grow.”
Andrist said that she and Hack grew in confidence as coaches also.
“We feel we're as entitled as the other coaches to be there, even the ones that have a lot more water polo experience,” she said. “This year was a year where there was confidence in lots of times where we'd be splitting up. There'd be our boys team playing and our girls team playing on different sides of the pool, trying to coach our teams. And there was a real confidence in both of us. It's ok. We actually do know what we're doing. And it showed. We had really positive results this year.”
Also helping was getting the trust with dealing with the same players over previous years.
“We've be coaching a lot of the same players over the past three year years already,” Hack said. “They know how we coach and what we live to see.”
Both coaches Hack and Andrist have a few more years left as coaches as both have children in the level they're coaching.
“I think we'll stay with it for a little longer,” Hack said.
