Junior Abigail Leder slices forward in the water, palms smacking the ball and intercepting yet another goal. On the side of the pool, coach David Leder shouts directions, watching as his daughter passes the ball back to a teammate.
A year ago, David Leder would not have anticipated coaching both varsity and JV girls water polo teams. After previous coaches Ryan Hume left to coach boys’ water polo and Alek Dendall resigned from Lynbrook, Lynbrook’s athletics department found themselves in need of a coach for girls’ water polo. A few weeks before tryouts, athletics director Jennifer Griffin reached out to David Leder and asked if he would like to be the team’s coach.
David Leder’s water polo history dates back to his own time at Lynbrook, where he played on the water polo team. After four years in high school, he played one year at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
“A friend of mine at the time talked me into it,” David Leder said. “I wasn’t the fastest swimmer. I had never done swimming before that, but I started playing. It was actually not more complicated than that.”
His coaching career began after his son, Benjamin Leder, graduated from Lynbrook in 2025. Due to his flexible job as an online marketer, David Leder started coaching the water polo JV teams, eventually finding himself coaching both girls’ water polo teams.
“Even when he yells, it’s usually out of motivation,” sophomore Aanya Malthankar said. “He’s very encouraging.”
While David Leder coached, his daughter Abigail Leder made her mark as a goalie.
“She’s very nice and very energetic,” junior Kalea Iwamoto said. “You can see all of her energy, especially on the field, because she’s our goalie and she yells a lot.”
Being a goalie makes Abigail Leder a critical player, as she is able to see everything from the net and call out where the ball is in order for her teammates to gain possession again.
“She’s an important communication factor,” Iwamoto said. “It’s easier for her to communicate everything because she can see everything, compared to us, where we can only see a few things, or maybe we don’t know exactly what’s going on.”
With a father and older brother that played water polo before her, Abigail Leder found herself following in their footsteps. Originally a field player, Abigail Leder eventually evolved to become a goalie.
“I definitely wasn’t the best field player,” Abigail Leder said. “I would just get injured every game. I like being goalie because I love training legs; I love the satisfaction when I block a goal.”
Father and daughter have faced several bumps along their sports journey. Whenever Abigail Leder misses a save, she often takes it hard on herself.
“Being a goalie is tough emotionally because if somebody else misses a pass or doesn’t swim fast enough, it may be a goal, but if a goalie misses a goal, then it goes in,” David Leder said. “You can see it sometimes, when she misses a shot and it goes in, she takes it hard.”
Abigail Leder has also expressed this sentiment, but looks on the brighter side for the season with her father. This season, they plan to work together for new workouts, like potential goalie training with the boys’ water polo team. As the season progresses and Abigail Leder enters junior year, they look to overcome difficulties with collective effort.
“My job as a parent, which is similar to my job as a coach, is to guide them towards their own goals,” David Leder said. “If my team’s goal is to win this game or to get better, my goal is to help them, just like with my kids and my daughter.”
