At the offset of the 2014 CSU water polo season, freshman equine science major and rookie water polo center, Deborah Haley, expressed confusion as to how to get her horse into the pool.

“We had our first practice Monday night and everybody else had no problem getting their horses into the water,” Haley said. “Some were doing cannonballs and jumping off the diving board, but mine wouldn’t even go in the shallow end.”

We here at The Water Closet Weekly were intrigued by Haley’s inquiry and decided to investigate. Within a period of 72 hours, our beat reporter Montana Jones had bought a horse, acquired a wig, joined the CSU Women’s Water Polo Team, completed an intensive, three week training course and learned to swim.

“It was a rough couple months,” Jones said. “I drowned like four times.”

After years of intense training and an equally intensive disregard for all other editorial assignments, Jones finally returned home to explain water polo. Insofar as we understand, water polo at CSU is played by two teams of 14 players, each with their own horse, save for the team’s goalie, who has three. The goal of the game is to submerge the other team completely. This is made difficult however, because every player is required to keep their eyes shut while shouting “Marco.” The game is refereed by Temple Grandin from atop a cow, sporting a black and white striped polo shirt.

When the first CSU Women’s Water Polo Team’s home game rolled around, The Water Closet Weekly staff was right there in the bleachers to support our second favorite beat reporter. It was important to us that we attend the game, as we like to consider ourselves a family here, which is why we’re always putting Jones’ articles on the refrigerator and yelling at him on Thanksgiving.

12 exhilarating hours of yaying and neighing later, CSU came out on top, beating Harvard with a final score of 14-7. After congratulating Jones on his triumphant victory, we remembered that this article was originally supposed to be about Deborah Haley, who first asked how to make a horse get in the water over 20 years ago.

“Oh yeah,” Jones said. “Whatever happened to her?”

Deborah Haley then emerged like a phantom from the shadows of the nearby locker room. “I’ve learned a lot over the years,” said Haley, her hair white and her skin wrinkled. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it play water polo.”

The Water Closet Weekly is written by Niles Hachmeister, Patrick Hoehne, Chris Vanjonack and Andrew Walker and can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com. Look for the WCW online at waterclosetweekly.com. Please help us find it, it’s due back at the rental agency by 5:00 pm.