Dear Diving,

Standing at the end of the mint green, one meter diving board, looking over the silent crowd to calm your nerves and hearing your name and dive being announced over the hushed crowd awaiting the diver to do something amazing. 1,2,3,4 steps it takes to reach the end of the board, then hurdling yourself up to do multiple flips and twist and then entering the previously calm water trying to make as little of a splash as possible. Rushing to the top of the water to hear the crowd roar with cheers and excitement. Looking over to the judges to see how perfect or imperfect you completed the dive.

If there’s one secret to life it is passion; passionate love, passionate hate, passionate hope, passionate joy. Mine happens to be passionate love, Passionate love for the sport I play. To me diving is unlike any other sport, you have to be fearless and do things that make you uncomfortable or things that scare you, have good control over your body and take good instruction. Not only that but diving is one hundred percent on your own, unlike any other team sport where people can carry the team, not everyone has to be good. In diving if you mess one little thing up, its on you. Forget to point your toes, there goes a point, your tuck or pike isn’t closed enough there goes two points, you don’t look confident on the end of the board there goes half a point. No one can make your score higher other than yourself.

Some people play a sport because their parents make them or they want to be more fit but I dive because I fall in love with the sport. I honestly have no idea where I would be if my mom didn’t sign me up to dive at the Ymca my 5th grade summer. My elementary best friend and I decided it would be something fun to do over the summer so we did it. A few weeks later we walked into the YMCA pool area smelling the strong smell of chlorine and feeling the dampness in between our toes. Once we got settled we learned how to do a four step approach. As we got more comfortable with that we got to go on the board and try it with a dive. 1,2,3,4 and then a simple front dive, that is where I fall in love with the sport, something about cutting through the ice cold water was amazing and I just didn’t want to stop.

From then on I grew as a diver, I started my high school diving career next, I will never forget the day I found out I qualified for regionals. I was put in a dive meet at tecumseh high school, my favorite pool to dive at, I wasn’t told this was a meet I could qualify for anything so I didn’t really care about it. I walked into the warm, orange and black pool area where I see divers warming up and coaches getting their dive list all ready to turn in. The bleachers to the left of me were filled with parents and friends from all different school wearing black and orange, red and white, blue and white, and all different colors from different schools. I get in line to warm up and probably have the worst warm up of my life. I was feeling really bad about this meet already. The meet started and my first dive was a 104c (two front flips in a tuck position) 1,2,3,4 my height was amazing. I threw like i was smashing a building and held tight onto my legs and popped my legs out of my second flip, POP! was the noise my feet made as I landed perfectly horizontal to the water. The next 5 dives I had to do were equally as good, I made the first cuts in 3rd place, and my coach was really excited, for some reason she wouldn’t tell me! Then I had to do 5 more dives, these dives were not my strong ones either but for some reason I did them really well. All of a sudden the meets over and my coach runs over and tackles me to the ground and she screams “You made it to regionals!”. I was in complete shock, no one had been to regionals in 6 years at bedford and I was the first girl since then! That feeling was the best in the world and thats why I strive to do well in diving so I can keep getting that feeling!

Through diving I have meet some amazing people but there’s one person who I’ll never forget meeting. John Wingfield, an olympic diving coach since 1998. I was at a diving camp at Indiana University at the outdoor pool where we were all warming up to go through our first session of diving for the day. Our coach for the day was John Wingfield, at the time I had no idea who he was, he walked into the pool area wearing a white olympic diving hat with a blue polo and khakis on. He had a very approachable personality and the way he coached us that day was outstanding and he somehow had a way about him that made him seem like he wasn’t as important in the diving world as he really was. He truly is an amazing guy and coach and I’m so blessed I got to meet him!

Passion; A powerful emotion, such as love, joy, hatred, or anger. That one word explains a lot when talking about something you love. My passion for diving grows everyday, and in the future I hope my strong passion for this sport pays off.

Sincerely,

Logan