Why Our High School Pool is Struggling: A Deep Dive into the Issues

Redwood High School’s Frank Bell Community pool desperately needs repair, and aquatic students deserve a safer, better space to train and thrive.

By: Ariana Lopez

While Redwood’s Frank Bell Community pool is a valuable resource for students, it’s starting to show signs of age and wear. The pool is outdated, and many students believe it’s time for an upgrade to ensure future generations of water polo players, swimmers, and divers have a better experience.

With hopes for a more modern, well-maintained pool, students are advocating for improvements that would provide a safer, more efficient space for practice and competitions. Allowing athletes to reach their full potential.

Swimmers rely on water quality to ensure a safe and healthy experience. According to Zealuh, maintaining appropriate water quality standards is crucial for athletes. Clean water helps prevent the spread of waterborne illnesses and enhances the overall swimming experience.

Brett Peterson, ’25, is a swimmer and water polo player on the Redwood varsity team expresses his frustration with the pool. He says “A lot of the tiles on the sides are chipped. There’s a lot of rust everywhere, sometimes I’ll cut my fingers when I grab the wall to flip over.”

“The gutters are usually pretty nasty and they’ll get clogged a lot, which causes the pool’s quality to go way down,” Peterson said. “It gets super murky and disgusting. There is hair everywhere.”

“Our pool isn’t even within regulation for CIF swimming, it’s underneath the regulation meter, so it’s short. When we have divers, or the girls and varsity swimmers, it’s even worse for JV (Junior Varsity).” Peterson adds on and says, “Sometimes they have to go six or seven in a lane because the pool is so small. It’s just not able to fit as many people for meets.”

Peterson expresses his gratitude and says, “It’s what we got, but it’s a little hard to work with sometimes.”

With a pool limited with space, it’s frustrating for the athletes especially when against the clock, pressed for time on meet days. “When we need to start the meet really soon, we’ll have to do JV and varsity together, and that gets hectic because we might have ten people in the lane. Or when other really big schools come like Bakersfield or Fresno schools, it gets really bad too,” Peterson said.

“The pool heater works sometimes. Around last year, our heater broke and we had to go to Mt. Whitney to practice at 5:30 in the morning because their heater was working, which was not a fun experience.”

Peterson says, “And then when it doesn’t work, it really impacts our swimming because basically when our muscles get a lot colder, it’s a lot more fatiguing and painful to swim for long distances.”

“I would want a better pool for our school. I don’t think it could happen for my year, but especially for the next generations and new swimmers, it would definitely be very helpful. Peterson said. “We are quite often the best swim team and water polo team around, and being able to have nice amenities and the nice pool would definitely increase our play.”

Michelle Palma, ’27, a swimmer and member of Redwood’s Girls Varsity Water Polo team, communicates how their “lane lines and our tarps are pretty up to date, but usually the heater is the only problem.”

“For warm-ups, it just depends who gets to warm up first, sometimes it’s varsity and JV girls but sometimes we will end up having to squish up all together,” Palma said. “The JV girls compared to the Varsity girls is huge, so it’s all very cramped.”

Palma says, “For some reason, there is always lunch, like leftover trash in the pool such as chip bags. Sometimes they do a good job at cleaning up, but other times you’ll just find gum all on the sides of our gutter and really nasty stuff at the bottom of the pool, it’s just gross.”

Palma says, “I wish we had a bigger and better pool. Regarding training it most definitely would be better and effective especially for coaches.”

Von Borowicz, ’27, a swimmer and JV Water Polo player, doesn’t hold back, saying, “Basically, our pool is just terrible. It’s really, really old and it’s all cracked, and the water’s gross.” He mentions the cleanliness issues, saying “There’s bugs all the time, the gutters are disgusting because there’s trash, and I think there’s been rats in there before.”

Borowicz also points out how the pool gets crowded during meets. “Meets are pretty packed because the deck’s pretty small too,” he says, adding that they have to use the area by the wrestling gym to store their gear.

Despite these issues, Borowicz still pushes through. Because the pool is so small, they often have to practice at different times, sometimes splitting practices with other teams. Borowicz says, “We have to do two practices, one team always has to go in the morning from six to eight, so that’s kind of rough.”

Borowicz remains optimistic about his team’s abilities, saying “It’s just old, that’s really all. It’s old and not new.”

“But it doesn’t affect us because we’re still the best, so that’s good.” However, Borowicz acknowledges the need for a better facility saying “It would be nice to have a nicer pool, because we kind of need a nice pool.”

Giselle Hernandez, ’28, a JV swimmer, reveals her frustration regarding broken equipment. “The fin around the heel parts are broken, which sucks,” Hernandez says.

“The heater doesn’t work sometimes so the pool is very cold,” says Hernandez.

Hernandez adds on and says, “Having a not functioning heater affects our training because we are all freezing as soon as we stop and it’s uncomfortable.”

Hernandez says, “The pool size is small, so for warmups during meets we all have to warm up on the same side so there can be up to 10 people in each lane at the same time.”

“I would like a better pool for better practices that are more efficient,” Hernandez said.

Former Varsity Boys Water Polo Coach Major Rogers discusses the many challenges the pool faces, highlighting issues with its upkeep and its inadequacies for training athletes at a competitive level.

By addressing some of the general maintenance issues Mr. Rogers says “The pumps have a history of going out. The floor and the walls are chipping. It’s just been in disrepair, probably for the last 10 to 15 years.”

When asked about the pool’s regulation status, Mr. Rogers shares that the pool falls short in size requirements. “It’s not up for regulation as far as size-wise. I think we’re about six, seven, eight feet away from it being a regulation pool, which is wild because we’re probably sending more athletes off to college to play water polo than anyone in town.”

The athletes are training in a facility that doesn’t meet the standard size for competitive events, forcing them to adjust when they compete at a higher level.

Mr. Rogers also notes the overcrowding issues, especially for water polo athletes. He says “It’s always overcrowded, we have one of the largest, if not the largest water polo program in the valley.” The pool’s space constraints have created a situation where athletes are forced to practice at early and late hours, sometimes from 6 AM to 8 PM, due to a lack of space.

Mr. Rogers also points out that when the pool’s heater broke down, it had a significant impact on training. “The boys had to practice at 5 AM at Mt. Whitney while it took them three months to fix the problem.” Mr. Rogers said. Making the athletes have to adapt to a facility that isn’t always reliable.

Ultimately, he sees a need for improvement, “They need a better pool, the town needs a better pool.”

Mr. Rogers strongly advocates for a better facility, mentioning, “They really should just build a giant community pool, every other town does.” He emphasizes how much a larger, regulation-sized pool would benefit the athletes and the community, allowing for more developmental opportunities. Saying, “It would prepare them for the next level of competition and it would allow better development.”

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