Saint Mary’s College, which has always been looking for ways increase the student experience, recently expanded their programs in Spirit, Dance and Band, created a new program in Nursing and added four new teams to their intercollegiate athletic program: Men’s and Women’s Swim teams and Men’s and Women’s Water Polo teams.

    When Saint Mary’s President Roger Thompson was hired in 2024, he had previously worked at schools like the University of Alabama, Indiana University and the University of Southern California, all with prominent swim teams. Soon after his hiring, the idea of starting swim and water polo teams at Saint Mary’s came to him and he raised the idea with Mike Matoso, Saint Mary’s Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics.

    “Roger really got the idea his first July here when he saw the Orinda Moraga Pool Association swim meet and that was when he began to understand how big aquatics were in the Lamorinda community,” Matoso said. “His first question was whether we had ever looked at this before, which we had not seriously done. I've always thought it would make sense to have an aquatics team and water polo team in this community. President Thompson was the one who really pushed me to look into it to see if it [was] something that we could add to our athletic program.”

    Matoso put a group together to look into all of the details and what it would entail to start up these teams. “It was really me and three of my deputy athletic directors and senior associate athletic directors,” Matoso said. “We just sat down and I gave them tasks. For example, Ken Rancifer (Associate AD for Administration) did a lot of the leg work in figuring out where we would practice, compete, getting a conference affiliation and basically figuring out how everything is going to operate. In my nine years here, it is probably the most positive thing that we’ve ever released and it has been overwhelmingly positive in the community.”

    Don Heidary, who with his brother Ron, the co-head coaches and founders of Orinda Aquatics, are institutions in the aquatic community, very much welcomed the announcement: “When I heard Saint Mary’s was adding these programs, it was, without question, positive and exciting news. For somebody that's been in the sport for a long time, I’ve seen the trend going in the opposite direction, where schools are cutting and limiting programs. To see Saint Mary’s going the other way in initiating a program is great to see, but the thing I think is most pronounced is how excited they are about it. I had the opportunity to meet with two people in the athletic department early on, when they were looking for community feedback, and I could just sense the excitement and energy and motivation that they had in bringing aquatics to Saint Mary’s.”

    A former Arizona State swimmer named Grant House sued the NCAA and the five biggest athletic conferences in the nation and they reached what has become known as the House Settlement on June 11, 2024. Now each school is able to make payment to athletes for their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). There are 200,000 athletes and 350 schools in Division I and 500,000 athletes and 1,100 schools across the entire NCAA.

    With the House Settlement, schools as a rule are not looking to expand their athletic department but Saint Mary’s has been the exception. “No one in the country right now is really adding sports, so we went completely against the grain with this idea of adding sports during this time,” Matoso said. “We've been working on and discussing it for probably about five months and really running through the process of whether or not it would be feasible and then trying to figure out how it would work.”

    For Matoso, that entailed looking for the support as well as looking at pool space and pool time and how everything would be run: “It took about five months to get to the point where I think we're really comfortable that we can do this and be successful and in early September concluded that we were going to go full-go with it and then made the public announcement on Sept. 10.”

    Matoso availed himself of many sources to ensure the viability of adding swim and water polo teams at Saint Mary’s. “We talked with a number of people in the community as well as USA Swim and USA Water Polo and we got more and more confident that we could be really successful here. My thing is that if we’re going to do this, I want us to be good at it. Adding four teams is a lot and it’s increasing my department by about 20 percent so it’s a lot to chew off.”

    With the House Settlement, there has been a number of swim and water polo teams that have been dropped by some colleges due to budget issues and the NCAA is now forcing athletic departments to drop a number of their athletes by setting roster limits. That means that there will be no shortage of college athletes entering the transfer portal looking for new colleges to compete for. 

    “We will be carrying the maximum number allowed by the NCAA which will be 30 for each of the swim teams and 24 for each of the water polo teams,” Matoso said. “Many of the student-athletes that had been swimming and water polo programs take such a big hit were really excited that an institution like Saint Mary’s was going to now add these sports and really invest in trying to make these teams become successful.”

    Saint Mary’s began looking for head coaches in September and made two hires in early November. First was Stephen Loomis, who will be the head women’s water polo coach. Loomas, an All-American player at Pepperdine who played a number of years in Europe, was an assistant coach for the USC women’s water polo program for the last two years.

    Their second hire was Ellie Monobe, a Cal graduate with 13 years of coaching experience, who will be the Gaels men’s and women’s swimming head coach. Monobe was most recently the head coach at Pepperdine where she was named the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPIC) Coach of the Year in 2025.

    Monobe will have two full-time assistant coaches and Loomis and the Men’s head water polo coach will each have full-time assistant coaches.

    “We're always looking for the most talented coaches but they also need to fit within our community, which is important,” Matoso said. “I’ve been here nine years now and I know what that embodies and entails.”

    The men’s and women’s swim teams will be joining the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Women’s Water Polo team will compete in the Golden Coast Conference and the Men’s Water Polo team will compete in the West Coast Conference.

    With the teams beginning in the 2026-2027 year, Saint Mary’s has already begun attracting student-athletes, according to Matoso: “At this point, our goal is to bring some athletes in at mid-year. We’ve set up an inquiry sheet for people to fill out if they are interested and we have already had over 100 kids inquire about the programs and that number should continue to grow as the roster limitations will force a number of athletes to look for other schools to attend.”

    Heidary also sees this as another opportunity for the local swimmers to continue their careers: “We have a lot of kids that go back East, but we also have a number of kids that want to stay in California and the number of options in California are fairly limited. You've got larger schools like Cal, Stanford and USC, and then a handful of smaller schools. To have another Division I option in California just opens up another door and a great opportunity for kids locally that want to continue competing in college and may not want to go back East.”

    With the new teams, a new pool will be coming as well, which will take some time to get completed. “We're looking to create a 50-meter pool that will be specifically built for competitive swimming,” Matoso said. “The designers that we have been working with have created some of the top pools in the country. We are looking to move as quickly as possible through design and fundraising to see when we could start building the aquatics center which will include locker rooms, team rooms and seating for at least 1,000 spectators.

    “It’s still to be determined as to where the teams will be practicing and competing until the pool is finally in use. The plan at this point will be to use a combination of our rec center pool and the Campolindo High School pool.”

    The location of the pool is not official yet but one spot that is being considered is somewhere at the front of the campus, possibly near the tennis courts area and then they will reconfigure that entire area. 

    Once the pool is completed, Matoso does not want its ultimate use limited to Saint Mary’s. “I want to make it clear that it is also going to be a very community-based pool. Once we started to look at it, we came to realize how central aquatics are in Lamorinda. The one thing that we discovered was the need for another aquatic facility in the area, and how difficult it is for water polo and swimming teams to find pool time. We are creating an Aquatic Leadership Council to bring together external supporters. This is going to be a facility that will be first-class that people can come to utilize and enjoy. That’s why it was a really important for me that we have a community-based facility that will allow access to the local clubs and teams and the general public.”

    Heidary echoed that sentiment: “Being in the community and having community support, I know Saint Mary’s wants to embrace the community in terms of use, and the high demands for aquatics on the facilities that we do have. It will definitely be a blessing to the community to have a new state-of-the-art facility.”