Imagine a world without rules or guidelines to follow. Kids would say that’s great, no one to tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. A rational adult might hesitate with the answer knowing that in many cases it would have disastrous consequences.

• Imagine what would happen while driving to the State Meet if there were no rules of the road to follow.

• Imagine what would happen if everyone ignored traffic signals and signs.

• Imagine what would happen if the drivers in the opposing lanes of traffic did not stay on their own side of the center line.

• Imagine everyone having the right of way all of the time.

Those are but a few examples of why rules and regulations (Laws) are needed. Without them there would be chaos and carnage. The very same thing is happening in High School Diving. At various times coaches decide to put the rules aside. They ignore the traffic signs and signals in diving by not enforcing the rules pertaining to deficient, unsatisfactory, and failed dives.

In order to judge diving, rules must be followed. Each judge must have a standard for judging. If there is no standard, how can coaches say that they raise the standard at Sectional time? Without a standard how can one tell the difference between a good dive and a bad one, or between a good dive and a great one? Without a set standard there’s no difference.

In the article "Blurring the Lines" on this web site, here are some answers to the section under "You Decide". The State Champion came into the meet with a Sectional score of 397.35. He didn’t have a good sectional meet probably because there was no competition to inspire a better score. His score moved up at the State Meet to 430.05. The runner up finished with 419.65 down from 478.45. Third place was 418.35 down from 504.55. Even though these divers were sectional winners, it demonstrates the ridiculous scoring at various Sectional sites. The last place sectional qualifying score of 357.20 finished 8^th place at the State Meet. That demonstrates the judging was ridiculously high for every diver at most Sectional sites.

I have always argued that it doesn’t really matter what score the Sectional winner gets as long as the next places are scored properly. Since the next 32 places qualify by score, it behooves us to insure that all 15 sectional site competitors have an equal chance to qualify. Since the Sectional winners’ scores are extremely high, the results also show that the next place scores are also disproportionately high. That leaves the question of who missed qualifying to State because of these high scores? If these panels judged appropriately, that lingering question would never arise.

Many years ago Blick and I were influential in convincing the IHSA and Dave Fry to move to this system of qualifying. It’s a good system but it’s not working because coaches have become egomaniacs. They want their diver to make it to the State Meet. Many coaches refuse to accept the reality that their diver may not be good enough to make it there. To insure the diver makes it, scores are inflated. Coaches seem to do this to satisfy their own egos. They are not doing it for the divers. My hope is that I see the day our current system of qualifying to the State Meet works the way it was originally set up. If we can’t change this coaching mentality then this system will never work.

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