Feature with Sam McGregor

Three-time Olympian and current president of the Dubbo Water Polo Sam McGregor has made an incredible contribution to the Australian Water Polo community and continues to push the sport to expand in Dubbo.

Darwin born Sam McGregor started playing Water Polo at the age of 12 in Dubbo, where he would give Water Polo a go after watching his sister play. After making the Kempsey Water Polo team, Sam was fortunate enough to meet the Swinnerton family; which hosted and looked after him in Sydney so that he could have an exposure to playing games and learning more about the sport.

In 2001, Sam boarded at St Joseph’s college in Year 11 to gain this exposure through NSWIS training. In the following year, Sam was asked to enter a Junior RS Program which was run by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Program in affiliation with his school in Canberra (UC Senior Secondary College Lake Ginninderra) and to complete his final year of schooling. Developing highly through this AIS program, Sam was then selected for the national team for the Unicom Cup in Hungary of which he was the youngest player on the team.

“In 2002 we were lucky enough to have a Junior RS program start up, so I went down there (Canberra) doing Water Polo from a few times a week to doing it twice a day, every day and I just improved a lot from there,” he said.

“The following year whilst playing overseas one of the clubs offered me to go and play in Spain. It was a wonderful opportunity, so I thought I would go over there and give it a crack and ended up doing five seasons in Spain at different clubs.”

In his rise to the top, Sam made his Olympic debut at the Athens 2004 Olympics, played in the Beijing 2008 Olympics and captained the Aussie Sharks at the London 2012 Olympics; an experience that Sam continues to cherish.

“It was wonderful, it was sort of a dream come true but always wanted to go to the Olympics but had no idea that it was going to be for Water Polo, I guess I just loved the idea of playing for my country,” he said.

“I was lucky enough to be captain for one of them very humbling experience to be able to lead the boys out. The opening and closing ceremonies atmosphere was unbelievable. 100,000 people yelling, screaming and cheering you couldn’t hear someone talking from 2 metres away. An experience that will stay with me forever.”

Life outside of the pool has allowed Sam to give back to the sport, where is currently President of Dubbo Water Polo club and continues to grow the sport in the Central West Region.

“One of the good things about Water Polo is the experiences you get to have out of it more than anything, playing with your friends and mates. Also, being able to experience a different culture and another language; they’re the things I really take away from my time playing,” he said.

“Every single game doesn’t work without several people being involved and helping out so it is great to be involved in that side of it these days and we are lucky as a sport that we have so many wonderful mums, dads and volunteers to keep the sport operating.”

To help push the sport to the Central West Region, WPNSW will once again head back to Dubbo for its U14s Girls State Championships as well as running free Macquarie Sports Clinics to increase participation; which continues to be beneficial for the club and the community.

“We noticed last year at the Macquarie Clinic that probably about only half of the participants were Dubbo Water Polo Club participants and the other half were [people who] came along and gave it a try so it is a great initiative and certainly gave a lot more exposure than we [Dubbo Water Polo club] are doing on our own so it is fantastic,” he said.

“It is really great for a place like Dubbo to host a high-quality event like this not just for our sport Water Polo but for the local city to see what the game looks like at a high level. In terms of getting the maximum use out of the facilities and stuff we have here even though we are five hours from Sydney, we have an Olympic size swimming pool and is totally capable of hosting an event like the State U14 Champs.”

Sam’s substantial impact to Dubbo Water Polo has helped the club take a step closer to becoming more of a professional club.

“Last year we had modified games but this year we are running an actual opening competition and then a round robin style games every Tuesday, so we have already taken one step closer to be a more professional club,” he said.

“The goal of the club is to grow steadily and sustainably. On a sustainable model kids coming down having a great time learning how to play it gets really hot here [Dubbo] in December and January so it is a good excuse to get in the water. Hopefully we can tap into the regional athletes that want something different to do and obviously people who are still swimming and getting them involved as well. “