California · CIF · 2025–26
Things the data turned out to know.
Every figure below is computed from the season data, not typed in by hand. Each one says what population it is true over, and which files it came from, so you can check it, and so it can never quietly go stale.
One district, every pool
Clovis Unified fields water polo at all 5 of its comprehensive high schools — boys and girls.
Buchanan, Clovis, Clovis East, Clovis North, Clovis West — 12,987 students between them — each field both a boys and a girls varsity team. The only two Clovis Unified secondary schools that don't are a continuation school and a community day school. A sixth campus, Clovis South, opens for 26-27 and is already listed with both programs — it doesn't appear in the federal school registry yet.
True over: Clovis Unified School DistrictFrom: the federal school registry (NCES, enrichment) with the MaxPreps team data
- 5
- comprehensive high schools
- 5
- fielding water polo
- 12,987
- combined enrollment
How rare is it, really
A third of the schools MaxPreps covers field water polo.
653 of the 1,729 California schools MaxPreps covers fielded a varsity water-polo team in 2025-26 — 37.8%. Read that denominator carefully: it is schools MaxPreps covers, meaning schools with athletics programs it tracks. It is NOT every high school in California, and this is deliberately not a statement about how many California high schools play water polo. We cannot honestly make that one: the only statewide registry we hold is NCES, and it is disqualified for participation rates — its private-school layer is a respondent subset missing roughly a quarter of in-scope schools, including real water-polo programs like Loyola, Mater Dei and Francis Parker.
True over: CaliforniaFrom: the MaxPreps school list (MaxPreps Schools sitemap, exact-key join)
- 653
- schools that play
- 1,729
- schools with athletics
- 37.8%
- participation
Not every pool has two teams
33 schools field boys water polo but no girls team. 31 do the reverse.
Most programs come in pairs — 589 schools field both — but 64 run only one. That asymmetry is why this site has a boys/girls switch rather than one blended map: a school can be a water-polo school for half its students and not the other half.
True over: California, the 2025-26 seasonFrom: the MaxPreps team data (25-26 per-gender divisions)
- 33
- boys only
- 31
- girls only
- 589
- both
Two calendars
Southern California girls play in winter. Everyone else plays in fall.
Boys water polo is a fall sport statewide. Girls water polo is not: the Southern Section, LA City and San Diego play it in winter, while every northern section plays in the fall. Two girls in the same state, same sport, same year — different seasons.
True over: CaliforniaFrom: the season index
- winter
- SoCal girls
- fall
- NorCal girls
- fall
- boys, statewide
A lopsided map
The Southern Section has 271 water-polo schools. The Los Angeles City Section has 22.
California's ten CIF sections are nothing like equal. Southern Section alone accounts for 42% of every water-polo school in the state, while Los Angeles City Section fields 22. They still each crown their own champion.
True over: California, 2025-26From: the MaxPreps team data
- 271
- Southern Section
- 22
- Los Angeles City Section
- 7
- sections playing
Where the pools cluster
San Diego has 22 water-polo schools — more than any other California city.
Academy of Our Lady of Peace, Canyon Crest Academy, Canyon Hills, Cathedral Catholic, Chula Vista Learning Community Charter, Clairemont, Del Norte, Francis Parker and more. Measured over the 653 schools that fielded a team in 2025-26, by the city each school lists.
True over: the 653 CA schools that played in 2025-26From: the MaxPreps team data
- 22
- San Diego
- San Jose (19)
- runner-up
Seeded from MaxPreps and not yet reconciled against official CIF records. Where a fact draws on the federal school registry it says so. That registry is used only for enrichment, because it was audited and found incomplete for California’s private schools. How the data works