Amid fears that collegiate water polo programs will be cut during the Covid-19 pandemic, Westcliff University has gone the opposite route. The Irvine, California school announced the hiring of a new men’s water polo coach on Wednesday. The team will compete as an NAIA program and will begin competition in the 2020-21 school year.
Westcliff University announced this week that Preslav Djippov will become the new head coach of the Men’s Water Polo team, which is scheduled to begin play next year.
Djippov was the club men’s water polo head coach at USC before taking over the women’s water polo program at Columbia University, where his team won the New York State Division Championship in 2017.
A women’s varsity program is also listed on westcliffathletics.com but no further details were available on the site as of this writing.
The two new teams would bring the total of women’s varsity programs to 68, and men’s programs to 54, including ones that have been announced but have not yet begun competing.
