AAU vs. USA

Question
In gymnastics it seems if you want to compete in college you do USA, is it the same for diving. My daughter just finished her high school season and we are looking at clubs in the Atlanta area some are AAU and some are USA and we don't know if this makes a difference to get on a college diving team.

Answer
Cheryl -

Here is the difference between these two organizations along with my advice on what you should do regarding your daughters pursuit of diving:

USA Diving is the National Governing Body of club diving and is under the auspices of the United States Olympic Committee. This means a diver must be a member of USA Diving and compete in their meets if they wish to represent the US in international meets and qualify for the Olympics.

AAU Diving is a secondary sports organization for diving. They have invitational meets where if you make a certain score based on your age group, you can then participate in their national championships.USA Diving has a much more extensive system to make it to nationals based on how you place in a major meet and not your score.

In regards to college coaches, they mainly look at how a diver does in USA Diving meets in the spring and summer especially their sophomore and junior years. They do take into consideration AAU meets but not as much as USA Diving.They are also very interested in high school age divers who can compete at the senior level. AAU has no senior level as their age limit is 20.

When you first start out in diving, some coaches will have a diver register with AAU Diving for insurance purposes and not competitive ones. If they show good ability and desire to compete, they would then have the diver register with USA Diving (more expensive than AAU)and compete in more advanced club meets.Many teams are both USA Diving and AAU clubs. Some are only one or the other. I would choose one that is both.

In the Atlanta area, the best program and pool is found at Georgia Tech. John Ames is the coach there and has an excellent age group program. There is also a good coach at Emory University but the pool is not as good. The pool at Georgia Tech is considered one of the best in the US. This facility hosted the 1996 Summer Olympic Games diving events.They also have an excellent dryland training area - something else college coaches are looking for a diver to have experience in.

You and your daughter have an excellent opportunity to find out what a USA Diving meet is about next month by attending two important meets at Georgia Teach. On March 5-7. they will be hosting the USA Diving Region 7 Meet. All the best divers age 18 from the south will be there trying to qualify for Junior East Nationals. The following weekend (March 12-14) at the same pool, they will host the NCAA Zone 'B' national qualification event. All the best college divers in the south will be there trying to make it to the NCAA Division I National Champs. If you a can, I would highly suggest going to them and get a first hand look at what it would take to get the attention of a college coach.

Here are some websites that can help you with your decision:

www.usadiving.org

www.aaudiving.org

www.diverstocollege.com

www.flipnrip.com

www.diving.about.com - Excellent articles about high school and club diving

www.divemeets.com - Click on Upcoming Meets. Scroll down and look for the above two mentioned meets for more info. Just look for "Atlanta" under the city and the two meets in March will be right there.If you end up pursuing diving seriously, you will be using this website quite a lot. Registration is free.

Sign up for a free college recruiting newsletter by e-mailing [email protected]. An excellent source of finding out how the college recruiting process works.

Good luck in your search