It’s not just football players from the Coachella Valley who will be playing sports in college. Several other high school athletes heading to universities on athletic scholarships signed letters of intent Wednesday.

The group is led by Grant Stein, who will be playing for USC’s six-time consecutive national championship water polo team on a partial scholarship.

“I first verbally committed to USC on July 31. I’ve known since probably my freshman year of high school that I wanted to go to USC and play on a top Division I water polo team,” Stein said. “Michelle, my sister, went there (and played water polo), and my brother-in-law went there (and coached water polo), and I know the coach, (Jovan Vavic) well. He knows how to win and he pushes his players to the max and gets the most out of his players.”

Also from Palm Desert is Emily Garczynski, who has been promised a spot on the water polo team at Long Beach State as a walk-on.

“It kind of just happened, I went on the official visit and I fell in love with the campus,” Garczynski said, “and the coaches were awesome, and I couldn’t picture myself going anywhere else.”

For La Quinta High School three athletes finalized well-established plans on signing day Wednesday, the first day high school athletes could sign for soccer, track, cross country and water polo.

Megan Huebner will be running cross country at Vanderbilt. Brielle Leon will be playing soccer at Michigan State. Brenda Barriga will play soccer at Cal State San Marcos, an NAIA school.

The smallest school in the desert, Desert Chapel, will be represented at the college level by Charlotte Green, who is headed to Baylor on an equestrian scholarship.