Diving

Question
Hi I recently decided to part my way from playing basketball, starting out in the 3rd grade. I decided to part my way from this sport due to lack of interest. I have recently became really interested in the competitive diving sport, watching it alone is beautiful. I am a junior in high school. Having a long tall athletic built body has been told that I would be successful.  At this age and this late into high school and with your knowledge would you consider it to be too late to start in this sport for me to be successful? Also before the season begins in winter for high school should I consider doing private lessons? If you are able to provide any other advice for me that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer
Hi Natalie -

No I do not think it is too late for you start diving, especially for the high school season.That would be a good place to start understanding competitive diving. After the season is over, you could then decide if you want to do club level diving. You need to find out where the closest USA Diving or AAU program there is to your city.

Go to www.usadiving.org and then click on Membership and then Find A Club. Enter your state and a list of teams will come up. I would arrange to visit the ones closest to you and watch some practice sessions. Ask about their Learn To Dive Programs. Summer would be an excellent time to learn about the sport. I would suggest joining a small group workout consisting of divers your age. You will learn the sport better in a group situation rather than private lessons. Group practices with other high school divers is way more fun than privates.

You can also try aaudiving.org to find teams. Also go to divemeets.com. Click on Find and then pools. Scroll down to USA and look on the far right hand side for your state. If you find a pool in your town or near to it it will mean that have hosted meets. If they have hosted meets, you can be sure there is a team using the pool for practices. Under Find you can also click Teams. A huge list will come up. Under AAU Diving, you can find a team by clicking on it's name for contact info. Also farther down the page look under USA Diving. There is also a section on high school teams so you may want to look there also.

Good luck and start looking into the sport as soon as you can. And don't miss Olympic Diving this August. The USA has an excellent team this year.