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(Front Row) Jon Valentine, Nicole Hughes, Eduardo Brites (Back) Pavan Ananth and John Roquet
Jon Valentine is director of the water polo team. He was also looking for social opportunities “beyond just the bar scene” when he joined the club in 2001. He ran into the water polo team’s founder, Sean Fitzgerald, who convinced him to come by the team’s practice the next day. “I had a moderately strong swimming background,” Valentine said. “I’d swum summer league at a neighborhood pool growing up, but once I started playing, I came to appreciate and enjoy the physical demands and competitive nature of the sport as well as the strong social nature of the team.”
Evolution of the Trout The water polo squad underwent some early stumbles, Valentine recounts. “When we began [in 1998], we were primarily a team of former swimmers with no water polo background who started learning the game on our first day of Trout water polo practice,” he said. The team lost every game during the first few years of tournaments. “However, we hung in there,” he said. “Fast forward to an international IGLA tournament in Sweden in 2015 where we took home the gold medal.” The team now welcomes players of all levels — novice, intermediate and advanced. 18
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“The competitive level of the team ebbs and flows over the years, but we always strive to take a competitive team to every tournament,” Valentine said. “That being said, there’s always room for swimmers on our team who are brand new to water polo and would like to learn the sport.” Water polo is also becoming more common at the high school and college levels in Georgia, which is leading to an influx for Rainbow Trout players post-graduation, according to Valentine. “Also, since our team is known nationally as one that tries to find balance between competitive play and social interaction, we tend to welcome a lot of players from elsewhere who move to Atlanta for career opportunities,” he said. “Over the years, we’ve become a better team with a more diverse group of players from many different backgrounds.” That diversity is reflected in members’ age, race, gender and LGBTQ-and-allied identification. “All of this has made us a stronger, more competitive, and more socially engaging team,” Valentine said. Lastinger agreed that Rainbow Trout has broadened its reach in recent years. “With the more visibility as a team we’ve gotten over the last two or three years, it’s become adaptive to women who are straight,