As I write this, I find many issues that are disturbing and US Diving still does not waiver from its planned course. The following represents some of these issues. Even though I have focused on some of the certification aspects, there are many more issues that don’t make much sense either.

     The issues of degree of difficulty changes present its own set of problems. Maybe the DD scale is not perfect for every dive but there was a good reason for going to the present system in the first place. This was based on the Axiale Rotation System presented by Mr. Robert Bollinger years ago. At that time we were trying to make DD's more objective. It appears that some coaches want to go back to the subjective era again. Along the same line is an opinion to make a different DD schedule for the ladies. Some coaches want to increase the DD on certain dives because they are harder for the ladies to do than the guys.I don’t see how this is beneficial unless the ladies are going to start competing against the guys. If all the ladies are using the same DD’s,  I don’t understand the logic.

    Certifications have become a topic for discussion by the PDCA and others. Why should a coach have to take Infant CPR? We don’t coach infants. Another unfriendly theme is defecating in the pool. Why do coaches have to know what to do in that situation? That’s something for the maintainance staff to deal with. Certifications don’t seem to mean a thing in US Diving other than the fact that you can’t be a member without them. I have been arguing this issue for the past two years and haven’t found a compasionate ear in US Diving. At the 98 Convention Janet Gabriel chose to justify the required certifications with outdated statistics and spread whatever statistical evidence she had over all clubs. One of the problems was that some of her more recent injuries were not even diving injuries. They were driving injuries. That’s right, divers being injured on the way to or from practice or meets. Do you have to be certified to handle driving injuries too? That may be just outside US Diving’s jurisdiction.

     If you have a lifeguard on duty, do you still need to have all the new certifications? US Diving says yes. I don’t understand that position because the end result is at least the same or maybe even better. The even better end is that now there are two people watching the diving area not just one. In my state, you can not guard and coach at the same time. More and more facility owners are placing guards in chairs during practice and for meets. It is becoming commonplace. This appears to be something that the Risk Management organizations want pool owners/operators to do: "be responsible for what happens in their pools".

     In my frustration dealing with some officers in US Diving, I re-researched Diving Safety and came up empty. I was surprised that there was less information out there then when I did it back in the late seventies, especially in this high tech information era. I kept tripping over the original studies and newer ones quoting the old statistics. Much of that data was taken from the original study and was over 18 years old. I was able to identify that backyard pools and pools where alcohol was easily available were giving the sport a bad reputation back in the 70’s as well as today. That's the confusion we must clear up. I have found that we are much safer now than we are depicted in US Diving's Position Paper. Yes diving into shallow water is still dangerous but diving for competition and recreationally in municipal pools is even safer than ever pictured before. I believe the reason is education of the general public and supervision by lifeguards and coaches. Maybe US Diving should make the appropriate changes in its "Position Paper" to reflect this recent information.

     With all of this in mind, I gave that information to US Diving and nothing has changed. I would have thought that they’d at least drop the mandates and encouraged coach’s certification but they didn’t. Some competitive sports are not only paralizing but killing their athletes and those coaches don’t have to jump through all the hoops US Diving wants its coaches to jump through. I can’t rationalize it to myself. Get all of theses certifications and then pay US Diving for the right to coach. How do you get deep water certified without going through the Red Cross Lifeguard class? Again more time and money spent for certifications that are not even related to coaching the sport.

     The above issue may be costing USD coaches and even divers. With the amount of time it takes to coach divers, many are not willing to put in the extra time it takes to get the required certifications. Many coaches have a real job and do this on the side just to help kids.  I’m sure many of them lost money coaching under US Diving. With the increase in certifications they will be losing even more money. If the organization wants to become bigger and better, it must entice people to join. The requirements are a huge draw back and are not enticing to say the least.

I am finding many coaches that don't understand the certification issue. They think we need all of these certifications to get good insurance coverage. US Diving only deals with one carrier. It shouldn't be too hard to convince them after all these years. Being certified does not make the Sport Safe or Unsafe. Reported Diving injuries do and again I couldn't find any recreationally or competitively from diving boards. Good coaching and supervision make diving a Safe activity. If Diving was such a high risk activity, how would we be able to get $1 million coverage plus the coverage for tramps, spotting rigs and third party coverage for your facility? All of this is costing you $50 because half of the USD fee is for insurance. The first million is always the hardest to get if the activity is truly dangerous. If we were that dangerous, we couldn't find affordable insurance anywhere. What most coaches don't realize is the same coverage can be purchased on the open market and for a fraction of what it costs through US Diving. One coach has already done that. If US Diving dropped the new requirements I am sure that many coaches would renew their membership, including myself.

     I find it hard to understand that the officers of USD are not up to date on current trends in the aquatic arena. I should put college coaches in that category also because of the type of usage their pool gets. These are also better facilities than most grass root people will ever operate in. Most grass root coaches know what it’s like to have to share a facility when the swim team practices. These are not separate pools; swimmers go back and forth under the boards during a diving practice. Many grass root programs have to share the facility with other groups too (water polo, syncro swim, rec swims and etc). They have to put up with many inconveniences or not have a program at all. That's the choice they have. Most of these diving programs can not use tramps, belts and the like because Risk Management won’t allow it. There is usually not enough pool time to do anything but dive. College coaches don’t have that problem and may never be able to understand what confronts the grass roots coaches on any given day.

     If US Diving is following FINA rules, then why is there a disclaimer in its own rule book that states US Diving doesn’t warrant the safety or accuracy of FINA’s dimensions? My understanding is that some architect wanted to build pools deeper for diving. FINA accepted it along with US Diving with no thought of the effect it would have on programs. In essence US Diving has three depth standards: one for new pool construction, one for sanctioned events and the last for grass root diving practices. The first two were for the elite divers and the last was for the rest of us. The depth for grassroot practices is that the pool meets state and local pool codes which is less than that of USD sanctioned events in most states.

      With many pool owners wanting to go into the water park business, diving may be phased out. Diving boards disappear and are replaced with water slides and other devices people can crawl on or swing from. Most of these things are in shallow water. The Safest part of the pool (the diving envelope) may not be in the design plans of these new facilities. Where will diving programs be if this trend becomes commonplace? Extinct! Non-existant! A memory!

     When you look at and understand all the issues that are floating around in US Diving, it should be obvious that they all pale compared to the potential loss of the sport. An analogy comes to mind here. “When you’re up to your ass in allegators, who cares how deep the water is?” This represents my feelings on the future of diving and the cretifications. Degree of difficulties, rotation of Regional or Zone sites, Certifications, Insurance, dive requirements, coaching levels and etc., won’t mean a thing if there isn’t a sport to apply them to. It's hard for me to understand that facility owners would want to eliminate the safest part of the pool (the diving area) and the safest activity there is (Diving; both competitive and recreational).
      I believe we, as coaches (members or not), should begin focusing on ideas to insure that we don’t lose the sport to what looks like the wave of the future (Pools that don't have a deep end or diving boards).  The place we should start would be with the depth issue. How deep is deep enough? Pool costs are directly related to volume (How big?), which dictates filter and pump sizes, water useage and chemicals. If it is true that in order for a diver to be able to safely strike the pool bottom with his/her head under the condition of no steering, that he/she would need in excess of 24 feet of water (and that’s just from a dive off the side of the pool). Why can’t we just admit that we just don’t know what that absolute safe depth is? Nobody really knows!  No Governing body has ever warranted the safety of the depths they adhere to anyhow for fear of lawsuits.

      We should operate in terms of the things that we do know.  We do know that adding another foot or so of water (10' to 11' or 11' to 12') doesn’t make that big a difference especially if the diver can not react appropriately to that depth. Let me use an example here. A diver practices in 16 feet of water daily. There is a meet this weekend and the pool depth is 14 feet. Both depths are well within the recommendations of most Governing bodies. That diver must be able to compensate for the shallower depth in order not to sustain an injury or make the decision not to dive in that contest. These should be the only two options for that diver.

     Some coaches will be dumbfounded when they read the above paragraph. No one seems to realize that divers have been making these adjustments for years and are still doing it today. Here is another example. A diver (any level or age) practices daily in a 10-foot deep local pool and in that state, the pool meets all codes for diving. That diver now decides to go to a diving camp for the summer. The camp pool might be 16 or 18 feet deep. At first, the diver runs out of air because he/she reacts underwater in the same manner as they did in their 10-foot pool. The diver eventually begins to go deeper and deeper so that by the end of camp, he/she is now pushing off the bottom after each dive. That diver now goes back to his/her local pool and wants to begin showing and/or practicing what was learned at camp. Are these divers injuring themselves? Apparently not, otherwise I would have run across those incidents in my search into Diving Safety. Do the coaches of these camps ask the divers the depth of their home pools or give them guidance as to how to compensate for the difference in depths? I think not. Most are so engrossed in the day to day operation and supervision of the camp that the above question may never come to mind.

     In an earlier search for answers, there was a statement that read; when the pool depths went from 8', 9' to 10 feet of water, incidents of injury caused by hitting the bottom dropped to virtually nothing. Am I advocating the 9-foot depth for a low board? The answer is no! I am quite comfortable with the Illinois 10-foot State code. This brings to mind something I saw in the last 2 Louganis Olympic Trials. They showed underwater shots of Greg and Bruce Kimball at entry. What was apparent to me was that both Greg and Bruce were already moving parallel to the pool bottom by the time their feet disappeared underwater. This has become known as steering away from the bottom. They were doing Reverse and Back somersault entries. This was at the Natatorium and its depth is 16 feet. Neither of these two divers is over 6 feet tall. If they are moving parallel to the bottom of the pool from the high board and 10-meter platform, there is still 10 feet of unused water space beneath them. This was also the reason I questioned whether our Governing Bodies are pricing pools out of the recreation business. US Diving went along with the deeper is better theory, without thinking of the effects it would have on its grass roots level.

     Once the diver enters the water and is completely submerged, how much deeper does he/she have to go to get a good score or a splashless entry? I believe that once the diver passes through the surface, like the Greg and Bruce example, the dive is over. Nothing else can be done to affect the dive or its score. The point is that if this is 6 feet underwater, then how much deeper do we have to make pools so that the diver can safely maneuver underwater? I do not believe that diving wells have to be 16, 18 or more feet deep. Who benefits the most from the deeper is better theory? The architect and the construction people who build those pools. That's how they make their living. If they make more money on deeper pools, why wouldn't they want to build them deeper? Who has the most problems? Everyone who is involved with diving including the owner/operators and that’s where we are today. US Diving programs will keep disappearing because organizations that can’t afford to build and/or maintain these deep pools will build one they can afford and may exclude diving in those plans. This should be an area best studied by our people in biomechanics.

        Maybe it would be wise to conclude that local pool code depths are acceptable for local Association Meets. After all these are the pools those divers have experience with.  This would facilitate the use of more pools for the Association meet rather than burdening the same people every time. Regional, Zone and National Meets would require US Diving's sanctioned depths and FINA would regulate International events. Basically this is already happening, it's just not spelled out that way in the Rulebook. Is there a difference between FINA and US Diving sanctioned depths? Yes there is. Look at the US Diving sanction and then calculate FINA's depth converting meters to feet. US Diving can not continue to endorse deeper pools and keep its grass root programs from disappearing. Something has to change and it must happen soon.

        We have two lawyers in the organization. I suggest that they use their expertise to come up with a way to protect the sport and its coaches from legal colleagues who may only be in it for the buck. Our people should be developing a program of Risk Management for coaches. How to reduce our liability. I never could understand the legal phrase, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." Yet lawyers will claim we were ignorant when we get hurt. Only when we are hurt do we agree with that mentality. We appear to be morons and are satisfied to be pictured as morons when we think we can put our hands into someone's deep pockets. Ignorance should not be an excuse when your own personal well being might be at stake. Accidents do happen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that someone is at fault. Certifications don't mean a whole lot when being sued. They do however hold you to a higher standard. The key is that neglegence must be proven. Being certified doesn't protect you from neglegence. A coach's job includes supervising divers. How can a coach supervise divers when using spotting rigs for tramp at the same time divers are using the boards? You can't do those two jobs concurrently yourself. You need another coach or everyone waits until you are finished spotting.

    Academia abounds in US Diving. This is a wonderful asset for the sport but it is always difficult to decipher what the heck they are talking about and then wait forever until it is put in a usable form for the rest of us. Instead of more certifications, why not retreat from that matter and focus on quickly processing this information for use by the membership. US Diving should get out of the Rule and Govern mode and rely on its membership to assist carrying out some of the solutions mentioned in this article. This seems to be a logical move since there are very few, full time, paid officers in the organization. Committee work also appears to take way too long and usually produces a watered down version of a great idea. When it finally is put into practice, many times it doesn't even remotely resemble the original idea.

If the basic certification process is going to be effective, it should include coaching related items. Carbs, diet and weight loss may not be appropriate for an age group coach. These topics will almost certainly bring out "the wrath of moms". Plus it is not what many consider diving related. At the college level and beyond it may be appropriate. Questions about types of landing mats, port-a-pits and even belts may not be appropriate for a majority of us who can't have access to those things.

        Because the certification mandate was in place months before any vote was taken, I believe that it tainted the whole process that came afterwords. The Mandated Certifications were announced in a letter from Janet Gabriel on July 14, 1998 with the deadline for doing so Oct. 1, 1998. The convention didn't take place until the end of October that year. Since there has never been a catastrophic diving injury in the United States and a committee reviewed the USOC mandate and interpreted to mean that it was intended for those coaches who aspire to coach at the International level, I would suggest that all certifications be dropped for all levels except as noted here. Until the situation warrants those certifications, all coaches should be required to get involved in spreading the Safety message in their area. US Diving should be directing any information for this.

US Diving should stop wasting the time and manpower needed for their certifications and focus those energies on clearing up the misconceptions pertaining to Safety and initiate a process of education that would enduce entities to continue to build facilities that contain diving equipment. This should be a priority item and the process should entail a sense of urgency before it's too late.

    The line that seems to apply at this time and should be considered by the officers of US Diving is: "Lead, follow or get out of the way."

Back To Current Topics