diving in DC
Question
Hi! My family will be relocating to the Washington DC area from the West Coast. Looking for year round competitive diving for my children. Ideally at a facility with platforms and springboards, but a minimum for year round would be 1 and 3m springboards. Also looking for a summer dive team, either through a swim club or through a neighborhood pool hoa team/facility. (Prefer both 3m and 1m, but 1m is good too).
Have completed searches on the usa and aau websites and found year round teams in Oakton, Arlington and Alexandria. Any teams that I am missing in the greater DC/Northern Va area (Maryland in not an option). Particularly looking for something in Herndon/Reston, Ashburn, Woodbridge/Springfield. Or any new pools being completed in Northern Va?
Anyway to conduct a search for diving boards/teams in HOA neighborhoods, or country/summer clubs by area? or park and rec centers?
Any search tool for finding neighborhood/ summer club teams?
Answer
You will be moving to a metro area where diving is very large in numbers and has excellent national level coaches so should not have a problem finding a program you like. You may have to drive farther than you want to find the best facilities though. You mention that Maryland is not an option but unfortunately, that is where the best pools are.
The only two facilities I know of that have the best springboards and all the platform heights are found in the Bethesda/Rockville area (Montgomery Aquatic Center) and in Germantown. All the rest of the pools in D.C., North VA and Maryland have only springboards.
Your best place to start is with the Montgomery Dive Club run by Doug Beavers. He is the most experienced coach in that area. Contact him and tell him where you are moving to and what is the closest pool to you. I am sure he will know.
Summer league diving is very big in that area but I do not know much about it. Doug will know I am sure.
Here are ways to find pools and clubs, some of which you know already but a few you may not:
www.usadiving.org - Click on join USA Diving and then Find A Club. Enter Maryland or VA and a list of teams will come up. The only one listed in Maryland is Dougs program.
www.aaudiving.org. - Harder to navigate to find teams since it lists all sports.
www.divemeets.com - Click on Find and then Pools. The pools are listed by state are ones that host major meets and will have a team. Also click on Teams and huge list of programs will come up. Look first under AAU Diving for teams by state. Click on the teams name for contact info. Scroll way down to USA Diving teams and do the same thing. If your kids want to compete in diving, you will need to become familiar with this site as it is the most popular in the US for registering for events.
www.swimmersguide.com. - Easy to use website that identifies pools world wide. Just enter the info and look for pools in your neighborhood. It will say if the pool has diving boards or not. This site is mainly for people looking for pools to do lap swimming and not for diving programs but is a good source for finding a pool near you.
If you start with Doug Beavers for information, I am sure he will send you in the right direction.
Good luck in your search. Hope all this helps.
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