"The older an athlete becomes, the better they used to be", all you have to do is listen to them for a while. I would like to assure the reader that is not the case with this writing. I was a good diver but not a great one. With any coaching maybe I could have been great but for most of my diving career there was no diving coach. I considered myself fortunate to have parents who filmed some of my meets over the years. I studied those films to compare what I was doing with those things that known good divers of the time did. This will be a discussion about the diving boards and facilities in the days of yore and obstacles that had to be dealt with in order to compete.

I became interested in diving at Elmwood Park High School in Illinois. It was a new pool and I would participate in the evening open swims. At that time the diving board was made of wood and covered with burlap. It was 16 feet long and had a stationery fulcrum. The pool had two boards and neither was completely level. One slanted up and the other slanted down. I can remember doing can-openers trying to make the splash hit the ceiling. I also remember shorting out a light that was directly over my landing area. The wood board was not one that lasted very long and was subject to splintering even with a varnish covering. The replacements were newer wooden boards but the burlap was eventually replaced with a sandpaper stick-on for the non-skid surface.

After a couple of years of playing around on the boards, I somehow got involved in a Grammar School meet held at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. The pool was smaller than at Elmwood Park. It was 20 yards long and 5 lanes wide. The depth posted was 9 feet deep but was only 71/2 to 8 feet where good dives would land. Most pools of that era had a "V" shaped bottom. The ceiling seemed relatively high but by my junior year we were able to jump high enough to touch it. The gymnasium floor was the ceiling of the swimming pool. The diving board was 14 feet long made of aluminum that was riveted together. It was called a Lifetime Aluminum board. That board had either a sandpaper stick on surface, which was eventually replaced by a painted surface with silicone sand added to it before it dried. Anyhow, the meet was a good experience for me and I placed 4th behind a future Olympian. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would be accepted there to get an education and dive.

It was at Fenwick where I first experienced the lack of uniformity and differences in facilities and equipment. In fact, I feel blessed to have participated during the time of the greatest revolution that the sport has even seen. What I mean is that every pool I went to was a learning experience in compensation. We didn’t have a diving coach to help us like the kids today have. Occasionally a college diver would come back and help but most of the time we would be coaching ourselves. You always had to compensate and react to the differences presented to you at a meet. Diving boards were not the same length or thickness. Depths of the pools were different also. Some pool bottoms were made of glass tiles, which were extremely sharp and slippery. Many ceilings were low and some had concrete beams protruding down directly over the end of the board. Even the lighting and water clarity hit both ends of the spectrum. Nothing was consistent. With all of these factors, you learned to compensate or you didn’t compete. The idea of not competing ever crossed any of our minds. To demonstrate, I will try to use some examples that actually happened.

We walked into the pool at Lane Tech in Chicago. The wooden diving board was 10 feet long and six to eight inches thick. None of us could bend it however one of their divers did. Unbeknownst to us, we were doing platform takeoffs to complete our dives. Austin High School had a burlap covered 14ft wooden board and there was a beam extending across the pool directly in front of the board. The pool was 8ft deep. When attempting 5111 straight your arm would hit the beam as you were trying to twist. St. Philips High School had a similar beam and when my teammate did a front 1½ somersault he caught his feet on it as he came over the somersault. Needless to say he didn’t make the dive. I believe that he was lucky that he didn’t rotate further and hit his head on the beam. It was common in these pools to see divers catching handstands on the bottom or doing really early saves to avoid crashing into the bottom. There was a college event meet at DePaul University where we had our first exposure to the high board. It was something of a scare learning to do dives up there for the first time ever and just before the competition. We all learned enough dives to compete in that meet. My first exposure to a Buckboard was at an invitational. It was very springy for that era and was made of metal slats that were bolted and screwed together. It not only bent down but also flexed side to side which seemed unusual at the time. The screws that held the end of the board together were rough on the feet especially for back takeoffs. It was one of the best of boards for that era.

At various times a friend of my dad would take me to a company called Flick Reedy near O’Hare Airport and we would dive off the high board. It was a wooden 3-meter board and was uphill. I learned a lot of dives there because the water temperature was around 90 degrees. It seemed that if you crashed into really warm water it didn’t hurt as much. I remember trying to convince myself to do a back 2½ somersault there for the first time. I compared it to my back 1 1/2 somersault. I could see the board at the end of one somersault and then kick out and see the water. I figured the 2 1/2 was similar except for the additional somersault. I didn’t have a coach at the time so I was a little shy in attempting it. Because of the warm water I figured if I just spun in a triple it would give me some idea of what to expect. Finally I made the attempt and it worked. I saw my spot 3 times before hitting the water and felt there was room enough for a kick out, like the back 11/2. Without hesitation, I went back up and threw the somersault. I saw the board twice and when it just about disappeared the second time, I kicked out. That’s when I got scared. I didn’t immediately hit the water like I was anticipating. There was a little time before that happened. I kept looking for water but never saw it when the dive came down. I did however hold position for the entry and went in headfirst successfully. Eventually I went through the same process learning the Reverse 2 1/2. The warm water temperature seemed to enhance my bravery.

The differences in equipment and facilities never allowed for planning what dives you would be performing at meets. You just didn’t know until you got there and got used to the boards and facility. I can remember playing at practice by taking one group of dives and trying to do them in all positions possible. By my senior year we were spinning in 2 ½ pike and triples tuck. It got to the point where you might regularly be doing a front 2 ½ ss tuck for meets in nice pools and then come to a pool where you had to do something else like a double.

My first exposure to the dura-flex diving board was at Portage Park in Chicago. Their pool was built for the Pan American games in 1955. The diving well was 8 lanes wide, 25 meters long, 16 feet deep and had 2 low boards 2 high boards 16ft long separated by a 5 and 10-meter tower. I was a lifeguard and the only diver who worked there. Everyone else was part of the swim team. My first dive into the 16-foot deep diving well gave me a big surprise. I went as deep as I usually went and then tried to push off the bottom. I was maybe 10 feet down and out of air before I realized my dilemma. Needless to say it was scary to think you might not get to the surface in time to breathe again. I swore at the De Paul meet that the high board was as high as I was willing to go. A couple of summers later, I found myself lifeguarding on the 10-meter tower. I watched these little kids running off and having a ball. That got me to thinking, if I had to make a save, would I go off or run down the ladder like the chicken I was? That embarrassment by the little kids started my tower career. My first tower meet was held at Lake Shackamack in Indiana. It was the Junior Olympic Outdoor NationaIs. It was interesting because the diving area was on an "L" shaped pier. It had a low wooden board that was up hill covered with burlap and then a 5 and 10-meter tower also with a burlap covering. I don’t know how deep it was but there was not a defined bottom. It had a gradual change from silt to mud. A couple of times I had difficulty getting back to the surfaced because my feet and legs up to my knees went too far into the muck. While struggling to get my legs free I could hear a suction sound as my feet got free. I could only hope not to pass out before making it back to the surface. Eventually I finished a distant second to John Vogel. He beat me by over 100 points that day. The next summer at the same place we competed and I was still second but by less than 2 points.

I also remember that we once had both an indoor and an outdoor season. During the outdoor season the weather didn’t always co-operate. It could be rainy, windy, cold, cloudy and downright hot. Contests either went on or were cancelled and I don’t recall many that were ever cancelled. Nowadays there really is no outdoor season because divers and coaches don’t want the inconvenience of running contests under those conditions. One thing that it did was made us appreciate the nice days but I believe it made us mentally tougher when we competed in less than perfect weather.

As a graduating high school Senior, I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going to go to college until August of that summer. Portage Park hosted the National Championships. It was at that time I met a coach that was interested in my diving. I accepted and went to Iowa State University. I didn’t realize it at the time but everything I experienced in high school would come in handy for college meets. Having practiced on a dura-flex board all summer, Iowa State had one of those Lifetime aluminum boards in maybe a 9 ft depth pool with the opaque glass tiles on the pool sides and bottom. It was in the basement of their State gym and seemed more like a dungeon than a 20-yard pool. Eventually that board broke and a buckboard was its replacement. Our meets were conducted in the girl’s pool, which had the dura-flex board. It took most of the warm ups to get used to the different ride. At one point I was one of a few in the country making a forward 3 ½ somersault on the low board. The best I could do was finish near a 45-degree angle at entry.

Most people would have guessed that college equipment would be pretty good but that was not always the case. The University of Kansas had a 5-lane 20-yard pool 9-ft deep. The ceiling was so low that I could easily palm it on my hurdle step. I was afraid that if I jumped too strong I would hit my head on it. The reverse dive was required for that contest and I usually did it pike. It had to be changed to straight because of the low ceiling. I smacked the ceiling hard with the front of my body and as I came down the dive went in vertical. I thought I would get a decent score but the referee called it a failed dive because he felt that I used the ceiling as an assist to complete the dive. My next dive was a double somersault tuck. During the warm ups I decided that I could cut off the top to avoid the ceiling and still complete the dive. I was doing lots of different twisters but couldn’t use any of them because of the low ceiling. Instead, I did a front dive full twist narrowly missing the ceiling.

We went to the University of Minnesota, which proved to be a unique experience. Over the high board the ceiling was cut out to allow divers extra room to jump up without hitting anything. The lights were placed on the walls at ceiling level and pointed down to the pool. Every high board dive entered the box above it. It was scary because it was dark up there. All of the spotting techniques you learned were useless because of the darkness. You’d disappear from sight in the box and then reappear for the kick outs and entries. You had to rely on feeling your way out of the dive.

The Big Eight Conference meet was held at the University of Oklahoma. The pool was 50 meters by 25 yards with the diving area at the half way mark similar to the University of Illinois’ pool. The building was like a barn with steel rafters. The high board was strategically place between the rafters so as to not interfere with a dive as long as it went straight in front of the board. The pool was 11ft deep with a round drain cover that was raised 3 inches from the bottom and held stationary by a bolt and nut in the center directly beneath the end of the high board. One year a tennis ball covered the protruding nut because divers were hitting the cover and getting hurt. It was my junior year that Iowa State finally opened its new pool in Beyer Hall. It was also the first year that I had a diving coach. The new pool was 14 feet deep with 2 low boards and directly across a high board. It was like being in heaven compared to the other facilities I had been in.

Upon graduation it appeared that my diving days were over at age 21. I worked for United Parcel in Chicago and then the Chicago Park District for a while. Then I got my first teaching job at Mundelein High School. I was lured there by the promise of a future indoor swimming facility. After 7 years of teaching a pool seemed to be out of the question. I started searching for a place that had one and eventually was hired by High School District 214 and was assigned to Arlington High School. There I taught mostly swim classes and was allowed to coach diving. It was almost 10 years since I had been on a diving board. I figured it would be in the best interest of the kids if I would dive again to refresh my memory with the various intricacies for performing dives. I had a separate diving well 12 feet deep with 2 low boards and a high board all dura-flex. Over time I was able to redo all of the dives I once used in college. At one point I felt that I was doing them better than when I was in college. Somewhere in this time frame the dura-maxiflex came into existence. I was able to master the use of it and the differences between it and the older dura-flex model. I competed in the Masters Nationals in 1981 at Park Ridge and retired from diving as Masters National Champion on the low board, runner up on high board and 3^rd in the tower event. Eventually the cheese board came out which I never had a chance to use. Even the divers of that time had difficulty with it because of the longer depression stage for loading the board with energy.

From the time I started diving at Fenwick until my junior year at Iowa State we always had to watch out for the swimmers. Diving in a 5-lane pool meant that you had to squeeze your dives between the swimmers’ sets. Whenever they stopped at intervals we would get a few dives in and then have to wait for the next opening. This also happened during the warm ups for meets. It wasn’t reasonable in a 5-lane pool to set aside one lane for the divers with the number of swimmers that were on the team. When doing back take-offs we relied on each other’s judgement so that we didn’t pose a safety problem.

The reason for writing this was not to toot my own horn but rather to show the kids now that they have it much better. We have standards that regulate the equipment and there isn’t much difference when competing in different pools. The biggest area divers now need to compensate for is in acoustics and depths. There is not much deviation in board levelness even though some facilities use precise laser levels for this purpose.

In conclusion even with all of the variances of equipment and facilities of that era, I can not recall hearing anything about catastrophic injuries occurring to competitive divers. It was an era of compensation for competitive divers and appears that we were much safer in those facilities than anyone one could imagine now. I miss those days but I would not recommend going back to them.

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