Noelle Brena never set herself up to be the dive coach for Columbus High School, but here she is four years later, and she still feels it was a good decision.
“Each year gets better with the team, and it’s a lot of fun,” Brena said.
Under the direction of coach Karen Waters, Columbus High School has an established swim program with a reputation for producing good athletes and serious competitors. However, CHS did not have a separate dive team. According to Brena, a student project brought the idea of a dive team to the forefront, where it was embraced as a possibility.
“There was a student, Lauren Duncan, who did her project on the topic of diving,” Brena said. “It was so well-received that the prospect of having a team was talked about. Coach Waters knew me through my daughter and kind of said, ‘Hey, you could be the coach,’ and here I am.”
Now a resident of Columbus, Brena said she grew up all over the place. She began diving as a sport at the age of 10 and was an earnest competitor throughout high school and college. When the opportunity to coach a high school dive team came about, Brena jumped in with both feet. She possesses a vibrant, outgoing personality that is well-suited for encouraging young athletes.
Five athletes participated in the program the first year including its visionary, Duncan, who was a senior. The team is co-ed, and diving is considered a winter sport. A benefit for the Blue Devils swim program is that a dive team’s points during a competition are added to the swim team’s score, which boosts the overall points in a meet.
Athletes on the dive team must learn and be able to execute five different dives from the five categories in a competition: forward, backward, reverse, inward, and a twist. The dives are performed from a one-meter (the distance from the board to the water) dive board. If divers do not have all five dives in their skillsets, the divers may participate in exhibition dives.
Since the CHS program is still young, it hasn’t experienced a lot of growth in numbers but has seen athletes reach their personal goals. Just prior to this swim season, one of the three CHS divers achieved the five-dive plan. That diver is Emma Hatala, who is a senior and has been with the dive program since the first year it was offered.
Hatala made the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer’s All Bi-City Swim Team last year. She enjoys diving but is quick to point out it isn’t like the diving learned at the neighborhood pool.
“It is a lot harder mentally,” Hatala said. “So much of what you have to do is preparing for the dive on a mental level. It is really different from any other sport.”
Her coach agrees. Brena thinks one of the biggest challenges to learning to dive competitively is to overcome fear.
“I’ve always said boys do well in this sport because they are the backyard barbecue divers,” Brena said, laughing.
She goes on to explain that guys sometimes are better at taking a risk, and beginning as a diver takes the mental ability to overcome the fear of being injured. Each dive requires skill and technique. According to Brena, those two aspects come with time and practice, but the fear element has to be worked on right from the start.
While no experience in diving is necessary to join the Columbus High dive team, Brena notes there are some backgrounds in other sports that lend to becoming successful divers. Competitive swimmers already have a respect for water and the conditioning required to compete in water sports. Surprisingly, gymnastics is high on Brena’s list of activities that produce good divers.
“Gymnasts have learned to prepare mentally and are really good at taking risks,” Brena said. “They also have a great command of their bodies’ movements, body awareness, which is what divers have to learn. It’s all done by feel, and that is very similar to gymnastics.”
This season, Brena’s main goal is to have all of her divers be able to execute all five dives in a meet. Laney Edwards, 16, is a junior at CHS and joined the dive team last year without any competitive swim experience. She has three of her five dives down and is looking to have the other two within a few weeks. Columbus High sophomore Olivia Hinton, 16, also joined the team last year and is working on adding three more dives to the first two she has learned.
Some coaches might have a more competitive attitude about their teams, and while Brena definitely has a competitive spirit, she really is just focused on two aspects going into her fourth season as the Blue Devils dive coach.
“Technique and safety,” Brena said. “I want them to learn the techniques and be safe. That’s the main things.”
Laughing, she shrugged her shoulders and added one more item to her agenda.
“Well, and to have fun,” Brena said. “They should be enjoying this because this is something they can do for practically forever.”
Columbus Valley/December 2016
Columbus High School Dive Team
Columbus, Georgia
Written by: Beth Welch
Photos by: George McDuffie
