Update from Head Water Polo Coach John McBride -- December 2024

Dear Bucknell Polo Alumni, Parents, and Friends,

Let me begin by wishing you all a happy and safe holiday season with friends and family!

The campus is quickly becoming a ghost town as finals wrap up this week and students return home for the winter break. As I mentioned in my most recent correspondence, the men’s team matched its seed at the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Championships with a fifth-place finish at the U.S. Naval Academy. While a championship is always the goal for Bison Polo, I am extremely proud of this young team.

The regular season was filled with challenge after challenge, testing our resolve with four one-goal setbacks and three two-goal defeats. But the team never quit and never complained all year. The culture was one of the best I have been a part of here at Bucknell, and the team never rolled over in any game, no matter how tough or disappointing the results were. With continued hard work and growth, the future of this team looks very bright and I am eager to see what we can become. There is a lot of talent on the roster, and it is an honor and privilege to coach them.

I want to thank seniors Matt Ryckman, Jack Bruce, Shay Gillearn, and Hasan Mogultay for their contributions to the Bucknell Polo program. We wish them well in their future endeavors once they graduate this spring.

In my last letter to you, I mentioned how strong our conference has become and that water polo on the East Coast can compete on a national scale. While they didn’t win it all, Fordham fell to USC in the national semifinals in overtime to finish the year 32-1. Their performance, evidence that you can play polo at the highest level on the East Coast, will help programs like ours attract stronger recruits. We look forward to adding strong new talent to the Bison roster and being a part of the rise of water polo on the East Coast.

Upon return to campus in January we will begin the traditional segment of the women’s season, and we are anxious to see what this young team can do. Half the roster is underclassmen, including four sophomores and six first-year players, but I am confident that we will push to perform beyond our expectations. Our first competition will be at the Princeton Invitational on January 24-25, and our first home event will be the Bucknell Invitational on February 8-9. We hope to see you in Kinney Natatorium for those matches.

I’d like to conclude by just thanking our supporters. Whether family and friends or alumni, you have been there for our program, cheering us on at competitions and supporting us financially. If you have not had the chance to make a gift to one of our programs this year and would like to do so before the end of the calendar year, you can support the women’s team here or the men’s program here.

See you on deck in 2025!

John McBride
Head Water Polo Coach
Bucknell University
jwm035@bucknell.edu

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