Team Bowman

They were known as “the brothers.” 

At the time, senior Luke Bowman was a freshman and MVHS alum ’19 Coby Bowman was a senior, both on the Varsity Boys Water Polo team. While on the same team, the Bowman brothers recall messing around in the locker room before practices and games as some of their most fun times together. 

First entering the Bowman family through their father, who played at Fremont High School, water polo was passed down to older brother Coby, and afterwards to Luke. Coby believes that his father’s involvement in the sport as a high school student was only half of the reason why he tried the sport, the other half being that he was simply bored of swimming and soccer, the other sports he was involved with at the time.

“Swimming was super boring — you just look at the bottom of the pool for two hours,” Coby said. “I thought that I could transfer to water polo pretty well because I was a decent swimmer. I also wasn’t really feeling soccer at the time so I just dove into water polo — literally.”

However, water polo proved to be more difficult than Coby previously thought. Getting used to the exhausting practice schedule and what he says was tough treatment by coaches was “the hardest thing [he has] ever done.” He recounts coming home after practice and going straight to sleep, having no physical strength to even complete his homework. Still, Coby describes the reward of completing each vigorous practice as “a super cool, big accomplishment” and acknowledges the importance of the friendships he created with his teammates in helping him adjust. 

Upon seeing Luke gradually lose interest in soccer, Coby persistently nagged him to join club water polo. Although Luke was only in seventh grade at the time, Coby wanted his brother to join early so that he could become a more skilled player by the time he was in high school. Once both brothers were immersed in the sport, Luke would show up to his brother’s club practices and play with the older kids, which he believes accelerated his improvement.

“At first, [Coby] was my idol and mentor,” Luke said. “However, [as] I started to get better, he was my competition and I was always trying to match up to his level. I think I really surpassed him in skill level when he already graduated high school, so I didn’t really get to show out in our games together.”

Nonetheless, Luke feels that the sense of competition resulted in both of them becoming better players. Coby agrees and adds that he never went easy on Luke during practices, trying to “put as much force on him as possible” as he felt it was the best way to improve at the sport. Coby also recognizes that Luke’s early start at water polo and quick muscle development caused him to be bigger, stronger and ultimately a better player.  In fact, Luke’s teammate and junior Ryan Tang admits that when they first began playing together, Luke “was five inches taller and probably had 100 pounds on [him],” initially intimating him a great deal. Because of this, Coby had known from the beginning that Luke would eventually surpass him in skill-level. Despite that, Luke notes that an advantage about playing the same sport as his brother and father is the fact that they were able to create such a strong bond. 

“We 100 percent got closer,” Luke said. “Being on a sports team with [my] brother, we did bond a lot more in the pool and socially at home. We talked about [water polo] a lot and we’d go workout together outside of school, so that got us really close. We’re always training together and spitting wisdom between us.”

Luke shares that the sport can be demoralizing at times due to the immense amount of pressure and desire to constantly improve, but that he was fortunate to have Coby always recognize when he was demotivated. Helping him through his bad days by going through plays or training extra after practice made Luke appreciate their tight bond even more. Despite experiencing occasional hardships when playing, Luke’s unmatched resilience is what Tang attributes to him being such a valued player for the MVHS team. 

“Luke has always been one of our team’s main motivators [who] is always there when we’re in a tough situation, trying to bring us up or get us out of a hole that we’ve dug ourselves,” Tang said. “He always keeps a positive mindset and that’s something I really appreciate about him.”