Best candidates to be SEALs? Water polo players

SAN DIEGO — The Navy SEALs are looking for a few good water polo players.

The Navy, seeking to beef up the ranks of its special operations force, commissioned a $500,000 Gallup study last fall to determine who might be the best candidates to become future SEALs. Topping the list were water polo players.

It turns out that a person who spends hours a day swimming up and down a pool battling for control of a ball has about twice as good a chance of passing the Navy's rigorous SEAL training program as other people do.

If a water polo player also happens to be a pretty good chess player, his odds of making it through training triple.

The SEALs are widely regarded as among the toughest and smartest members of the military. The Navy has struggled in recent years to meet the unit's increased recruiting goals, leading to the study.

Others who have a leg up when it comes to making it into the elite force that operates in the sea, the air and on land include triathletes, boxers, lacrosse and rugby players, and swimmers and wrestlers. Still others are skiers, snowboarders, mountain bikers, rock climbers and those who practice the martial arts.

SEAL recruiters are now targeting high school and college athletes from such programs.

"If we get those guys, they are tuned to sort of the right frequency, and they'll get through at a higher rate than Joe Average," said Capt. Adam Curtis, director of SEAL recruiting.

In Southern California, the Coronado-based Naval Special Warfare Recruiting Directorate has established ties with University High School in San Diego and Del Norte High in nearby Poway. Water polo players from the latter school recently attended a SEAL fitness challenge, where they did exercised under the direction of combat-veteran SEALs.

Among them was Cole Rogers, a star water polo player at Del Norte. The 15-year-old, who also plays on an Olympic water polo development team, came away impressed.

He was considering going into the Air Force but said he's thinking about the SEALs now as well.

"Navy SEALs, those people are strong," he said. "I don't know, it seems really healthy."

It's good news for the SEALs, who like other military branches have been trying to increase their ranks by about 15 percent or about 500 members. Curtis said the expectation now is that the goal will be achieved by 2013.