Good Morning,

I wanted to give you all some information about dive dual meets. As you are aware, we have our first dual meet tomorrow night (weather permitting). Here are some basic facts. NVSL (governing body) only permits each team to compete 32 divers in total at each dual meet. As such, some divers will not be able to compete in each meet. Now that’s ok, we have a number of divers on vacation each week. So far this week, I am aware of at least seven (7) on vacation or otherwise away. That would still leave us with 46 divers (although roughly 12 divers have not told us of their availability yet). This is why I have been really wanting everyone to respond with availability. We do need to know.

In any event, each week, we will likely wind up with more divers than slots. The first couple of weeks it’s a little easy to choose. We have a great number of new divers who don’t quite have the required number of dives ready to dive. As an example, if your diver is a freshman diver and hasn’t been able to complete an unassisted back dive, that diver is really not ready for a dual meet. This is why the coaches have been working so hard with our divers to help them be able to legally compete all required dives.

What can you do to use this as motivation for your diver? I remember Mason having to learn a back dive in one afternoon so he could compete in the meet. Many other divers have the same story. Not being legal to compete does motivate and sometimes overcomes the completely non-sensical notion of throwing your body blindly and backward of a board into water. That said, we will dive some divers who will fail a dive from time to time. They will have hit the dive  in practice but mistakes do happen in a meet and many of our divers are very new. In the end, we are trying to make this a positive and confidence building event for our divers.

Coach Samson will send an email after practice today with the names of the divers participating in the meet tomorrow. Whether your divers name is on the list or not, they are invited and expected at practice Tuesday AM. We need to alert you today so we can make sure those who need a ride can get one to the meet.

You know your divers the best. We want this to be a positive experience. If you think it is motivational to them to know the better they do the more they will compete than let them know. If you think it will cause anxiety or nerves, no need to tell them. Our coaches will continue to coach and teach to prepare them to become the best divers they can be, which will best prepare them for meets. In the end, everyone who has legal dives will compete in a meet or meets this season.

Happy to take any questions,

Joel