BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Our new segment “Meet the Staff” is designed to allow the water polo community to learn more about who comprises the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) league staff. Our first segment features Commissioner Dan Sharadin who shares his passion for the sport of water polo. Keep checking back weekly as we feature the league staff throughout August.
As the first commissioner hired for the conference, Sharadin has been with the Collegiate Water Polo Association since 1990.
Involved in the sport since high school, he graduated from West Virginia University in 1979 with a Bachelor’s in Commercial Recreation and a Masters in Business Administration in 1981.
Following graduation he founded the non-profit organization, Young Athletes of America (YAA) to give the less athletically gifted an opportunity to play organized sports. One of the programs created through YAA was the Eastern Water Polo League (EWPL), a large multi-division structure that included teams from all over the eastern seaboard. Its success led coaches to question whether a similar structure would work within the collegiate ranks. Sharadin was asked if he would serve as part-time Commissioner of a small group of college teams known then as the Mid Atlantic Conference, for the purpose of providing basic services including scheduling and publishing a league program.
Since its inception, the CWPA has grown in size to become the largest water polo conference and the second largest collegiate athletics organization in the country behind only the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Today over 80% of all collegiate contests are played under the auspices of the CWPA. Sharadin now oversees a staff that has evolved from a part-time commissioner to five full and part-time employees and an organizational budget of nearly a million dollars.
