Athlete of the Week: 10 questions with Seren Uzkan, New Trier water polo

Seren Uzkan is a senior for the Trevians who will continue playing water polo for Loyola Marymount University next school year. She also swims and used to play basketball and volleyball for New Trier.

1. Do you have any pregame rituals or superstitions?

On the drive to the game, I definitely listen to Pitbull. I turn it all the way up because it gets me pumped up and ready to go. And that’s pretty much it.

2. Why is Loyola Marymount a good fit for you?

It is my dream school. I took a campus tour and it was checking off everything — it’s a medium-sized school, but big enough to see new people every day, it’s in California, close to beach, and mountains are also there. And then when I went on campus everyone was so nice. I felt included and like I belonged there. I met some of the teammates, who were super nice and super inclusive. I felt like knew them for a while. Also I really love the coach; he’s a really great guy.

3. When did you start playing water polo?

I started sophomore year. I tried freshman year but then COVID (pandemic started). I have a friend and we have these morning intramurals before the season to get people introduced to the sports. She said I should come (try water polo) and I didn’t even know the sport existed. I said OK, let’s try it out. Everyone was so nice. I liked the environment a lot.

4. What do you enjoy about the sport?

I love it. it’s so fun. I played a lot of other sports and I think it’s a combination of basketball, wrestling, it’s just so unique — a combination of all these different skills.

5. If you could try another sport, what would it be?

I would do gymnastics. It’s just amazing to me to watch people flip in the air like that. It probably takes a lot of discipline too and getting over fear of doing something dangerous too.

6. What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not competing?

In-season, recently we’re doing a lot of team bonding. I think it’s helped a lot. We hang out with each other a lot, going out to dinner after a game or just meeting up and going to a beach. We have a lot of team sleepovers too; those are fun.

7. What is your dream job?

I would love to have a job where I could travel all over the world and help rehabilitate animals into the wild and help rescue animals.

8. If you’re in Walgreens with a couple bucks, what are you buying?

I think I’m going to buy probably gum — I do chew a lot of gum — and maybe like slime or a fidget toy. Those are also fun.

9. What’s something people don’t know about you?

Not a lot of people know that I’ve been skiing since I was 3 or 3 1/2 years old. My brother (Eren, 15) and I will go on extreme trails, double black diamonds. — a lot of powder skiing too, that’s a big one for us

10. How is the season been and what can this team accomplish?

The season has been going really, really well. I’ve really had a lot of fun. I think we are hoping to win state. I think that would be really cool, but I’m sure every team wants to do that. Over the past couple weeks, we’ve started to gel a lot more and create environment of working really hard, not cutting self off swim sets and things like that — really working for it.

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