The Olympic trials have started and I've started watching them, looking forward to the Big Event in Paris next month. So far I've only seen swimming and diving, and it makes me feel so glad that our kids got into diving. Swimming is boring!
We kind of fell into diving, literally. Ned's good friend Matt was on the Davis Diving Team. Ned must have been 8 or 9. He would go to the pool with Matt, watch him do his dives and then copy him. He enjoyed it so much that we investigated his joining the Davis Diving Team, under coach Brett Evans, who told us that he had once been on the Olympic Team.
Brett was a charismatic coach who worked well with all ages of kids and got the best out of them. Ned took to diving like...well, a duck to water. It wasn't long before all five kids were on the team and I was spending most of my afternoons sitting poolside inhaling the chlorine and watching bouncing bodies. Ned was the best, by far, and we were so disappointed when, after several years, Brett decided to stop coaching for free and would only coach if you paid him, which we couldn't afford to do. Ned didn't do well with the replacement coach and we ultimately stopped going to diving.
I always felt kind of smug, listening to my friends who had spent the whole weekend at swim meets, because their kids would be competing in several events and so had to stay the whole day.
With diving, you drove in age groups. They told you about what time your group was diving and when your group finished, you could go home. I loved that.
All the diving parents learned to keep score and to judge diving. Walt and another judge once collaborated: "You count the somersaults and I'll count the twists." (I didn't say we were good judges!) I was the team publicist and even managed to get them on the local TV news once.
Brett had one of the best kids' diving groups in the state and we drove all over the place to compete. Ned once dove against Greg Louganis, right after Greg had won his silver medal. Ned had won his age group (I believe it was 10 and under) and Greg had won his in this fun meet, and at the end of the event all the winners of each age group competed against each other kind of for "best in show." I know that you'll be surprised and disappointed to hear that Ned did not beat Greg in that event.
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