Place to dive over the summer

Question
I am 19 and about to finish my freshman year of college and recently took an interest in diving.  I have attended some clinics given by the school's diving coach, but am about to return home for the summer and would like to continue learning.  I live in the Frederick, Maryland area, and have been looking for diving pools/clinics but everything I have found is only for ages 18 and under.  Could you point me in the right direction?  Thanks.

Answer
Dave -

The problem you are having is common to people over 18. Most rec departments only offer diving to young kids. I am going to make some suggestions on how to find a coach that may be repetitive since I do not know where you have tried to find a place to dive.

The area where you live has 3 programs that I know of but you will have to drive a ways to get to them. The closest one I know of to you is in Germantown MD and a team coached by John Wolsh called Montgomery Dive Club. His website does not work right now but there is contact info by going to www.usadiving.org. Click on Clubs and then Find A Club. Enter MD for Maryland and his name will come up.

There is also a coach named John Appleman who runs the Dominion Dive Club near Vienna VA. Go to www.dominiondiveclub.com for more info.

The coach at George Mason University, Roland MacDonald, may be able to help you. He lives in Annandale VA. Go the schools athletic department website for his contact info. He runs Patriot Dive Club out of the college pool.

Try going to www.mastersdiving.org. This is a website dedicated to adult diving. Click on e-mail addresses and look for people in live in your state, contact them and maybe they know of a place you can dive.

www.flipnrip.com has a list of all kinds of teams. Click on teams and then at that page click on the type of team you want to find. An alphabetical list will come up.

www.divemeets.com. Click on Upcoming Meets. Look for meets that are close to you, click on the info page and see where the meet is being held. Go to that pool and try and find a coach.

Try www.aaudiving.org. Click on Diving Sport Contacts. When the map comes up, click on numbers 10 & 12. I think you will find Roland's name there and maybe some other programs.

My final suggestion if all else fails is to go to a summer diving camp for a week or two. The best ones are at the University of Texas in Austin and Indiana University in Bloomington. Go to their athletic dept websites to find more info.

Good luck in your search.