Sun Devil water polo alum Catherine Simko reflects on her several transitions over the last few years, and how water polo equipped her to go from player to coach, Master's student, and worker at the same time.
Simko found her passion for water polo at Capistrano Valley High School, and brought it to ASU in 2015. In her redshirt freshman season, she notched eight goals while providing steady defense for the Sun Devils, and received ACWPC All-Academic honors for her excellent performance outside of the pool. She found the back of the net four times during the next season and added eight steals. While committing four years to the Division I team, she double-majored in Psychology, and Linguistics and obtained a minor in Criminology. Within a month of graduation, she had started her job in law enforcement.
After spending a year focusing on her career past college, Catherine decided to pursue her Master's in Forensic Psychology at ASU. Katie, the current co-president of the women's club water polo team at ASU, reached out to Simko about joining the team for the year, and she accepted the invitation. In her first and only year, she served as one of the two captains and highlighted her season with six goals in a 13-1 victory over #19 Penn State in a Women's National Collegiate Club Championship matchup.
The commitment to the club team was clearly different. While Catherine spent upwards of 30 hours per week at practice, rehab, weights, and studying plays for the Sun Devils, the club team's schedule is eight hours of practice per week and three or four travel tournaments in the spring. On top of this commitment, though, she noticed how so many of the club players are all involved in various student organizations, have jobs, and take on the responsibility of running the whole club as students.
With a head coach vacancy opening up after the season, the team spent some time searching for the best candidate to lead the team. Simko helped in the process but realized early on that she wanted to be the next head coach.
"How much longer are we going to pretend like I'm just going to help them find a coach, and I'm not just going to do it. Because I really want to do it," Catherine remembered a conversation with her girlfriend.
During her time on the Division I team, she spent multiple summers coaching her high school's freshman/sophomore water polo team. She grew the desire to be the type of coach that she had wanted in high school, and now had the opportunity to do it for these girls that she had just spent a year playing alongside.
"I didn't want to leave them with anyone else," Simko stated. "They needed somebody that understood them, wanted the best for them, and wanted to push them to go back to Nationals."
As if the transition from Division I player to Master's student/club player wasn't enough, the transition from player to head coach put another opportunity to learn in front of Simko. Pairing up with an assistant coach that had played on the club team for four years gave them both a chance to build off of each other.
"She understands more of the club than I do, and I think I have more water polo experience than her, so the combo of the two is nice," Simko said.
The learning curve of coaching a team has been there, and while the team has been patient with Catherine, they still look up to and expect a lot from her.
In her only season, she delivered on those expectations, as the team claimed the 2022-23 Southwest Conference championship and qualified the team into the National Championships as the third seed, where they managed to finish fourth at the national championships ending their season with a victory over California.
Recently on Tuesday, June 24, Simko was named Southwest Divison coach of the year for leading the club team to a third-place finish nationally, with three athletes earning first-team honors.
Simko thanks the Division I team for equipping her to face any obstacle.
"I couldn't do my job if I didn't play water polo at ASU, there's just no way. The physicality, the mental toughness, the hard work, doing all of those things for four years… I don't think there's anything I couldn't do, and it's because of that," she reflected.
Simko found her passion for water polo at Capistrano Valley High School, and brought it to ASU in 2015. In her redshirt freshman season, she notched eight goals while providing steady defense for the Sun Devils, and received ACWPC All-Academic honors for her excellent performance outside of the pool. She found the back of the net four times during the next season and added eight steals. While committing four years to the Division I team, she double-majored in Psychology, and Linguistics and obtained a minor in Criminology. Within a month of graduation, she had started her job in law enforcement.
After spending a year focusing on her career past college, Catherine decided to pursue her Master's in Forensic Psychology at ASU. Katie, the current co-president of the women's club water polo team at ASU, reached out to Simko about joining the team for the year, and she accepted the invitation. In her first and only year, she served as one of the two captains and highlighted her season with six goals in a 13-1 victory over #19 Penn State in a Women's National Collegiate Club Championship matchup.
The commitment to the club team was clearly different. While Catherine spent upwards of 30 hours per week at practice, rehab, weights, and studying plays for the Sun Devils, the club team's schedule is eight hours of practice per week and three or four travel tournaments in the spring. On top of this commitment, though, she noticed how so many of the club players are all involved in various student organizations, have jobs, and take on the responsibility of running the whole club as students.
With a head coach vacancy opening up after the season, the team spent some time searching for the best candidate to lead the team. Simko helped in the process but realized early on that she wanted to be the next head coach.
"How much longer are we going to pretend like I'm just going to help them find a coach, and I'm not just going to do it. Because I really want to do it," Catherine remembered a conversation with her girlfriend.
During her time on the Division I team, she spent multiple summers coaching her high school's freshman/sophomore water polo team. She grew the desire to be the type of coach that she had wanted in high school, and now had the opportunity to do it for these girls that she had just spent a year playing alongside.
"I didn't want to leave them with anyone else," Simko stated. "They needed somebody that understood them, wanted the best for them, and wanted to push them to go back to Nationals."
As if the transition from Division I player to Master's student/club player wasn't enough, the transition from player to head coach put another opportunity to learn in front of Simko. Pairing up with an assistant coach that had played on the club team for four years gave them both a chance to build off of each other.
"She understands more of the club than I do, and I think I have more water polo experience than her, so the combo of the two is nice," Simko said.
The learning curve of coaching a team has been there, and while the team has been patient with Catherine, they still look up to and expect a lot from her.
In her only season, she delivered on those expectations, as the team claimed the 2022-23 Southwest Conference championship and qualified the team into the National Championships as the third seed, where they managed to finish fourth at the national championships ending their season with a victory over California.
Recently on Tuesday, June 24, Simko was named Southwest Divison coach of the year for leading the club team to a third-place finish nationally, with three athletes earning first-team honors.
Simko thanks the Division I team for equipping her to face any obstacle.
"I couldn't do my job if I didn't play water polo at ASU, there's just no way. The physicality, the mental toughness, the hard work, doing all of those things for four years… I don't think there's anything I couldn't do, and it's because of that," she reflected.