Just a few years ago, the county had just two diving coaches for all of its public high schools. That number has doubled to four this season. Those four coaches — Bettie Hudson, George Ranney, Megan White and Herb Cables — oversee a sport that continues to grow in popularity among Gwinnett athletes. The coaches worked with 110 divers this season,

The team, led by world champions Robert Newberry and Matthew Helm, also includes Nicole Ng, who has been diving for just four years.

Megan Balkenbush got off the plane to visit Florida International, and when she saw palm trees, she knew she was in the right place. It wasn't hard to figure after one year at the University of Wisconsin.

In diving, USC freshmen Michael Hilde and Kenny Jenkins were first and second, respectively, both days in the one-meter and three-meter springboard.

In a rare occurrence, the (Penn State) Lions divers failed to win at least one diving event. Ohio State diver Mitch Richeson picked up wins in both the one- and three-meter board with season-high scores of 391.28 and 364.28, respectively. Penn State was led by sophomore Adam Pierce who placed second in the one-meter (325.95) and third in the three-meter (345.45).

“I almost dropped out of college,” Coben said. “My sister called me, and she was like, ‘What are you doing? That's pretty stupid.' She convinced me to stay in college. It's pretty amazing, because she was only 11 years old.”....Kids say the darndest things, and so do our elder statesmen. Coben's coach at the time, the legendary Dick Kimball, told him “to get his head out of his ass.”

" Springboard diving is refreshing in the sense there are no timeouts, no seventh-inning stretches and no halftime adjustments... It's all about midair mechanics. If the body parts aren't exactly where they're supposed to be in the middle of a dive, there's not much a diver can do except hit the water and hope the sting wears off by the next round. "

UCI's Sophomore diver Anton Slobounov shattered his own record twice. Slobounov performed flawlessly in the men's one-meter diving contest with a score of 326.33 and in the men's three-meter diving match with a score of 316.13.

Diving Canada is pleased to announce that because of its ability to secure special junior development funding from Sport Canada, ten young divers will be able to attend the upcoming World Cup in Athens. The World Cup represents the final qualification event for countries trying to qualify positions for the 2004 summer Olympics. It is expected that the best of the best will be competing at the World Cup. "The chance to witness workouts and competition performances of the world's best divers in the Olympic pool is an opportunity of a lifetime for our best age group divers. Their understanding, approach and commitment to the sport will be profoundly affected.", more

.. And coach Jane Figueiredo has never been happier."Now I finally get a chance to coach," she said, smiling. "Yulia came in good. So those who were looking at this team would just say `She's good already. You don't have to coach her.' more