A Short Summary of the Safety Material

There were two reasons for re-researching the Safety of Diving. These reasons were:

1. 1) Diving boards are disappearing from swimming pools across the country, which would have a direct bearing on those of us who coach the sport at the grass root level.


2. 2) The belief that US Diving appears to be way out of line with its Certifications and was placing unwarranted requirements on its grass roots coaches.

The above two reasons seem to be procreating the disappearance of the grass root coaches.

The approach of the investigation was focused on the recreational side of diving because these are the pools where many grass root coaches operate their programs. These would be park district pools in my area or municipal pools in various other areas of the country. US Diving has its own statistics and because access to them was not available, no comments were made for the competitive aspect.

The summation is very simple and straightforward. I could not find any concrete evidence to support the notion that recreational or even competitive diving was causing diving boards to disappear in swimming pools around the country. Statistical evidence was very scarce to say the least. Later studies still used the statistics from almost 20 years ago. We have come a long way since then with no recognition of that fact.

In the second article, I discovered that the reporting of statistics was flawed. NSPI is an organization that regulates residential pools where many diving board accidents have occurred. When NSPI puts its statistics in with others through the Consumer Products Safety Commission (NEISS), Diving really doesn’t look too bad. Take away the NSPI diving accidents and diving looks even better than US Diving’s own Position Paper shows.

As a coaching body, it is our duty to get this information out. Safety should be a concern to all of us. Even the US Diving Safety Committee was caught up in the mis-information. Diving is safer for the participants then sitting in the bleachers is for the fans.

Update 6/5/2000

For the past 7 years, the research in Illinois did not find any diving injuries from the use of diving boards. The National Swimming Pool Foundation has not found any in the literature for the last 5 years.

Remember that the search I did was from the recreational aspect. When diving boards disappear, it is not because of the injuries competitively or recreationally because there are none.

Update 7/20/2000

Diving boards are not disappearing because of Safety or Insurance issues. They seem to be disappearing for 3 basic reasons.

1. A change of focus in the swimming pool industry where there is a desire to build leisure pools (Water Parks). Owner/operators seem to feel that patrons need to be entertained. The general objective is that they want to increase their revenues. Making money is the bottom line.
2. Diving boards disappear when older facilities are upgraded. Pool owners find that when they upgrade facilities, their pools may or may not be covered under the grandfather clause. Either way they do not want to risk potential lawsuits in the future.
3. Cost! It costs a lot of money to build these deeper facilities. This refers to the initial cost of construction along with filter and pump sizes, chemicals and the water to fill them. Then there is the cost of upkeep. It becomes a very expensive project. When they build, they build pools they can afford to operate and maintain.

Update 5?27/2007


4. Risk Managers came into existance to manage the risks associated with swimming pools. Now they continue to seek removal of all risk associated with diving boards. What that means to coaches is that diving boards will continue to disappear and maybe even at a quicker pace.

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