Risking Death to Play Water Polo

Starting a water polo team in a nation that has only 13 swimming pools was one problem. The Taliban was another.

Since the inception of Afghanistan's first water polo squad in 2008, three players have been killed in combat—and a fourth, who guarded the pool during practice, died after stepping on a landmine just off the pool's perimeter.

Yet team members remain determined to bring "swimming football," as the sport is colloquially known, to their war-ravaged nation.

Afghanistan desperately needs heroes, said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeremy Piasecki, the team's coach.

“Hundreds of people attend our practices — hundreds — you don’t see that anywhere,” he said. “This country is craving something good, something to look forward to, something to cheer for."

With that in mind, the team has set its sights on qualifying for the 2016 Olympics. To get there, they will travel to Los Alamitos this fall to train with the American Olympic athletes and trainers at the Joint Forces Training Base pool.

It's an uphill climb. When Piasecki held tryouts three years ago, none of the 26 men he chose had ever played the sport.

“I don’t know if we will make the 2016 Olympics," he said. "It would be a dream beyond anything I could ever imagine. But what we are really trying to do here is create heroes in Afghanistan. We want athletes to gain culture, experience and education and bring it back to their country. We want the country, its people and children, to have something to dream about, something to aspire to.”

Coach Worked as Contractor With Afghan Army

Piasecki, who played and coached water polo in Southern California, got the idea for the team while working a civilian contract job with the Afghan army.

He found an abandoned swimming pool at a base east of Kabul — but it was filled with trash. Workers cleaned it up, added water, and the team began practicing.

Slowly but steadily, the team has improved. Ten players will soon travel to Southern California for additional training.

But there have been setbacks, including the four deaths. Piasecki took the losses hard.

“If I would have just made this project happen more quickly, these athletes would not have been killed fighting the Taliban, or even been in a war zone for that matter,” he said.

Of the three athletes killed in combat, only one's name has been released—Mohibreham—because officials fear the Taliban will gain access to the information and go after the players' families.

The Taliban isn’t exactly anti-water polo, Piasecki said, but it is anti-freedom.

Mohibreham, who was about 27 years old (like many Afghans, he didn't have a birth certificate, so his age was just an estimate from his family), hailed from the wartorn village of Shahi.

Unifying People

Piasecki hopes the team can overcome the adversity, and even expand. His goal from the beginning was to start a women’s team too. And so, after gaining official approval, one woman will join the 10 men on the training trip to the United States.

“Sport is something that unifies people all over the world, something that has the potential to bring a country together,” he said.

As proof, he cites Afghanistan’s Rohullah Nikpai, who in 2008 defeated world champion Juan Antonio Ramos of Spain in Taekwondo to earn the country’s first Olympic medal.

“The day he came back, there were no attacks," Piasecki said. "Everyone filled the streets to catch a glimpse of Rohullah. The people of Afghanistan wanted to be in his presence almost like he was a god. It was amazing: This one guy wins a medal—not even a gold medal—and the fighting stopped."

Piasecki hopes the water polo team will become Afghanistan's next Rohullah.