The senior, swimmer, and varsity water polo goalie, Matthew Ramirez, was a beast during this water polo season. He was mentioned more than once in the Daily Republic. He’s been playing on the Armijo water polo team for three years.

At first, he didn’t think he’d play water polo. He was already on the swim team, but a few friends told him he should join water polo. “There wasn’t much that prepared me but swimming alone. I knew what some people didn’t know,” Ramirez said. Water polo is a competitive swimming that requires upper and lower body strength. He said swimming gave him strong legs to play water polo.

His proudest moment is his first tournament this year because he said, “it was when I saw the biggest improvement in the team.” He and the other water polo players made it to sections. “My team motivates me and helps me see what I can do.”

“I like my team because we can be fun at any moment,” Ramirez said. He doesn’t think a team should be serious all the time, but try to have fun playing the sport. “I learned that we can’t everything too seriously,” he said. “We also learned to have fun together to make it more interesting so we’re not bored.”

After this year, Ramirez doesn’t plan on playing water polo, but would rather focus on school. He hopes to go to Montana or Chico State.

His advice to those thinking about joining sports is “to definitely keep your options open because you wouldn’t know what sport you want to join until you’ve been to a couple practices. You should be friends with the team or join a sport together.” Finally, don’t forget to “join water polo and swim!”

He participates in Leadership at Armijo. In his spare time, he does community service, hangs out with friends, and plays sports for fun. “I would change how sports get funded because it seems that the most funded aren’t doing well while the least are doing better.  Funding should spread around more,” he said. Ramirez’s role models are his mom and his older sister.