I am a lowly grass roots coach that lives within 3 hours of the Indianapolis training site. Since its establishment I have not traveled to that site or taken advantage of the expertise that is there. I really don't see the worth of six hours on the road when kids can practice locally without the added expense and dangers of that long drive. I don't believe that any of the coaches in my area have taken advantage of this opportunity either.

When the training site idea was first conceived, it was supposed to be self-sufficient. That meant that it wouldn't cost US Diving anything. It would operate on its own and support itself. That's not happening. It has cost US Diving a lot of money so far. The whole idea was to find and train medal contenders. It was going to be a place where the medal contenders would practice together under one coach. That wonderful idea has produced only one medal contender thus far.

Just a short time ago, that training site had a team (Starz) that competed in US Diving against teams like mine. That seemed rather unfair since US Diving was underwriting the training site and the coach. The administration was supposed to put a stop to that kind of thing. Maybe it did but it just doesn't look like it. It has come to my attention recently that the training site coach has been blocking out (purchasing) pool time in those area facilities. At the surface this may not seem out of the ordinary but this practice has effectively put a local coach out of business. This coach has divers and wants to coach them but can't find pool time because the training site coach bought up all of the time in the area. Again, US Diving in its infinite wisdom has stepped on and killed a grass root program. It left these divers without a place to practice because they didn't want to be coached by anyone else. An observation of the second training site leaves me skeptical of the whole training site concept. Our technical director and the original training site coach indoctrinated the new coach with certain expectations which leads me to believe that we will have two training sites doing the same thing as described above. This might be something for coaches to consider when training sites are established in or near their area.

After accusing the National Governing Board of ignoring the age group divers, I have come to realize that I was wrong and would like to apologize. During the process of writing this article I realized that US Diving is catering to an age group system which is comprised mainly of kids that live in the training site area. This is contradictory to original purpose of the training center but it is the reality of circumstances. With a second training site US Diving will spend a few hundred thousand dollars to keep these age group sites in operation. Unfortunately the return on all of that money will be the same as in the past…NOTHING. I wonder what kind of program I could run if I had a few hundred thousand dollars? Better yet, what could our top coaches produce if they had that same money at their disposal? I guess we'll never know because the NGB will continue to waste your money on an idea that hasn't worked and in all probability will not ever work.

Now the future holds the promise of a new National Training site. A lot of questions arise in a cloud of uncertainty. It leaves one to wonder who will be that National Training site coach? Any coach with some type of job security would definitely think twice about leaving that security to run this new site. If that is the case, who would be left to take that job? My guess is that it would be our technical director. He would come out of retirement, be paid as the technical director and then paid again as the National Training center director/coach. This could put him in control of the best divers in the country. What a way to come out of retirement! It would be highly unlikely however that he will take the job if it turns out to be another age group program.

Since there has been talk about our divers not practicing together or practicing enough, another question arises. What would the profile of the Elite National Training Center divers be? If the divers are expected to practice 6 to 7 hours a day and 6 or 7 days a week, it doesn't look like it will include any age groupers or for that matter even college divers. The divers that would work out at the National Training center will have to have a lot of free time to fill the above schedule. This leaves us again with divers who have no diving eligibility left and/or don't have a job. Their job will be to practice with the rest of us paying the bills. The problem I have with all of this is that it will cost a ton of money for 6, 8 or 10 divers. Why is there that need to have 3 training sites for those few kids? How can anyone justify spending so much on so few? One site would be plenty and a lot cheaper. Who is going to pay for all of this? To me this is ludicrous because it's like building 3 churches for a congregation that will fill less than one of them. All of this money will be spent with no guarantee that we will better our place in the diving world. For the last 7 years the focus has been on these older divers with little success to show for it. Training sites and their coaches will not make a difference in the outcome in our quest for medals. A change in the focus will make the difference.

It is interesting to highlight what the National Governing Board has done as opposed to what it intended to do. The following may demonstrate this notion.

1. It wants to be all-inclusive yet we continue losing clubs, coaches and divers because of the unwarranted requirements.
2. It wants to be a world power again but can't get money to fund international trips. Sponsorships have fallen again so funds are very limited. This looks a lot like what happened under the past president.
3. Training sites have turned into US Diving sponsored age group clubs instead of elite training facilities.
4. Elite divers don't even want to train at these sites.
5. The training sites will draw divers from the immediate area. To think that a diver and his/her parents would move into the training site area is a pipe dream. There is no guarantee of success.
6. Upper level divers have become disenfranchised with US Diving and called for its dismantling. These are the divers that have been the focus of US Diving all along and now they are rebelling.
7. Countries that are more successful than us don't restrict the age group levels like US Diving does. Junior divers in other countries don't have limited dive lists to choose from. They do harder dives and appear in International meets unlike our divers.
8. We will see different divers from other countries in major meets because that's how they get experience. US Diving keeps the same older diver focus and hopes someone will rise to the task. That hasn't happened yet.

These are but a few of many examples that to me demonstrate that the leaders of US Diving have lofty goals but can't seem to make them work. Normal people would notice this, re-evaluate and then develop a new course of action. Our leaders instead cling to the plan they proposed saying that it will work if it's given a chance. The question is how much more than seven years does it take for this plan to be successful? My guess would be that the sport will fade away before we are successful under their plan.

Another issue that confuses me is the selection process for the divers who may be fortunate enough to utilize these facilities or represent us Nationally and Internationally. Are the best divers being selected or are the ones with the hardest dives being selected? The results of a recent meet raised this question in my mind. A young lady moved into the top spot in a contest because of the difficulty of one dive she performed. Was her score reflective of how well she performed that dive or was the score inflated because it was the most difficult dive any girl has done? Again a question of ethics arises. A judge should independently score a dive based on its performance (how well it is done) only. The degree of difficulty is the risk factor for doing that dive. The judges have no business inflating scores because one diver does harder dives than another. That's the purpose of having the DD charts.

The question really is "Are our best divers really our best divers?" If the above occurred during the Tom Gompf, Frank Gorman or Ron O'Brien eras, they would have never been champions. We appear to be at the brink of choosing divers based on everything but their performance. If this is the case then we should consider setting up that once recommended committee to select the divers to represent us. It can't be any worse than inflating judge's scores for that purpose. At least the divers will know the committee chose them and they weren't screwed out of it by questionable judging.

Do we need training sites for the purpose of improving our medal status? The answer is no! We need more coaches who can recruit and coach diving. Coaching should be the focus of winning medals. Unfortunately the present NGB mentality and the existing coaching ego may prevent us from making any headway in the future.

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