6B SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SWIMMING & DIVING
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2009
Diving deep with Jayhawks before Big 12 Championships
BY HALLIE MANN hmann@kansan.com
They use a trampoline, a tumbling mat and a harness system to practice. They aren't gymnasts, although some of them used to be; they are the divers on Kansas' swimming and diving team. Yes, they spend a lot of time jumping into the pool but that's not all there is to it.
THE GYMNAST TURNED DIVER
Junior Meghan Proehl was a gymnast for 12 years before she started diving. After spraining
some of the vertebrae in her neck when she was a freshman in high school, she turned to diving as an alternative.
Proehl said that being a gymnast made
Proehl
the transition to diving easier than starting fresh as a diver.
"The hardest part was trying to train myself to land on my head instead of my feet." Prohl said.
The trampolines allow divers to practice doing twists and flips before trying them on the diving board, Proehl said. This type of practice creates "air awareness" of your position, which, Proehl said, is crucial to having confidence when doing a dive.
"My favorite dives are from the inward category," Proehl said. "You jump off the board backwards but you flip forward and it just looks and feels really cool."
THE THRILL-SEEKER
The divers compete at different heights and on different apparatuses at each meet; the 1-meter board,
McMacken
3-meter board and 7-meter platform. For senior Hannah McMacken the higher the platform, the better for dives and flips.
"I like the thrill of it and it
gives me an adrenaline rush to do more complex dives," McMacken said.
McMacken's favorite dive is a reverse two and a half off of the 3-meter board; it's two and half flips backwards. On the 7-meter platform it's a different story, McMacken said. The Kansas swimming and diving team practices at Robinson Natatorium, which doesn't have a 7-meter platform, making training and competing in this event more challenging.
"I don't get to practice until I actually get to a meet," McMacken said. "It's hard to do an event without getting to train for it. I just have to thrive off of adrenaline and hope for the best."
Big 12 Championships February 25-28 Columbia, Mo.
THE REDSHIRT
The divers have been training all year for the chance to show off their moves at the Big 12 Conference Championships at the end of this week. Junior Allison Ho is just getting into the swing of practice again after redshirting last semester to study for the MCAT, but she said she felt confident going into the meet this week.
Ho said coach Eric Elliot was "not a slave driver or anything when it comes to training."
there's all that much pressure to perform perfectly for me," Ho said.
"There's not
For Ho, the competitions are a way to practice and get back into training.
At the Iowa State meet, Ho got her only chance this season to dive in competition before the conference meet. Ho's hardest dive is a two and a half tuck off of the 3-meter board, and she plans to use it as part of her regular league at conference.
"For me it's going to be abou trying to stay calm and focused at the meet," He said. "I'm just glad to be making
something out of this season."
THE CONSISTENT ONE
Ho
Ho may have just jumped back into the pool at the end of the season, but the other divers have been striving to fine tune and practice
their dives as much as possible before conference and NCAA championships. Sophomore Erin Mertz said that consistency can be the difference between winning and losing an event.
Mertz
"I'm trying to focus on technique and stay positive going into this meet," Mertz said.
Mertz said that the team has been focusing on repetition a lot more than it did earlier in the season. Mertz added a reverse two-and-a half twister dive to her routine during winter break and plans on using it for these last meets. This dive is two and a half twists and one and a half flips all before hitting
"Aat me I usually listen to music and just hang out with the other divers," Mertz said. "I just need to not over think things before I dive."
ter.
Mertz was named the winner of the Winter Community of Champions award, given by the Big 12 Conference and Chick-fil-A restaurants for her work with Kansas Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the Special Olympics.
THE COACH
Coach Elliott said the team was ready to go in competition and had performed well throughout the season. During this last week before the conference championships the divers will taper their training and work on getting out any problems in their routines.
"We had some really great performances early on in the season and now we're just trying to work on fine tuning our skills." Elliott said.
All of the diversqualified for the ZoneDiving
Championships at their first meet. The divers will go to Zone after Big 12 Conference Championships to try to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
Elliott
"We're in a really tough zone," Elliott said. "We just need to get mentally prepared for this level of competition."
After a season of training, the divers make their way into the "championship" part of the season. The four girls who make up the diving squad will not only be competing for points toward the team score, but also trying to beat their own scores from previous meets. At conference they will have to face tough teams like Texas and Missouri but the team and the coach said they were confident about this meet.
"We can hang with any of them." Elliott said.
Edited by Sam Speer
Erin Mertz
Hannah McMacken
Meghan Proehl
Allison Ho
records
3 Meter
PGA
1 meter
325.20 (Drury)
301.35 (USD/UNI)
281.03 (Nebraska)
215.55 (Intrasquae)
295.04 (lowa Sate)
282.98 (ASU)
290.10 (USD/UNI)
204.29 (lowa State)
Platform
237.10 (Missouri Inv.)
195.75 (Missouri Inv.)
190.35 (Missouri Inv.)
NA
Woods expects to make strong comeback from injury
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tiger Woods returns to golf this week to begin making his case for the one award he never dreamed he'd contend for: PGA Tour comeback player of the year.
Great. As if Woods wasn't intimidating before, the man who had everything — 14 majors, a Swedish bikini-model wife, a daughter, 155-foot yacht, two homes and a palace under construction on Jupiter Island — now has plenty of other things to play for.
Since limping off the 91st and final hole after winning the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines last June, Woods has gained a son, lost a sponsor, undergone reconstructive surgery on a chronically aching left knee and been reminded nearly every day how much the game is suffering without him.
"One of the great things coming back," he said last week, announcing the Accenture Match Play
Championship in Tucson would mark his 2009 debut, "is my bones aren't moving anymore.
"It's a very comforting feeling hitting a golf ball without your bones sliding all over the place," Woods added. "That's been very exciting to play that way, and I'm looking forward to the season."
Woods has been called golf's one man, economic-stimulus package, but how much he pockets, let alone the windfall he brings everybody else, was never much of a motivation. The only standard Woods measures himself against is himself, and the eight months off has made it easy to forget just how good he was.
Playing on one good leg essentially since he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee jogging at home after the 2007 British Open. Woods was on his longest ever sustained run of excellence. From that day in August through
The four years he invested with instructor Hank Haney were just beginning to pay the huge dividends they both envisioned. Woods' understanding of his own golf swing, always a strength, had reached the point where he was confident enough to make adjustments in the middle of a round, even between shots if he desired. He'd already dialed up his short game, throttled back his swing to take pressure off the knee and still was hitting the ball more consistently than ever.
the U.S. Open, he won nine times in 12 official tournaments around the world and finished no worse than fifth in the other three.
Woods still has all that, plus a full range of motion again and a new driver to boot.
"Expectations with him are off the chart," Haney said. "You would think that people would cut him a little slack for a couple of weeks. But I'm sure it will start right in."
The story of young Tiger taping a list of Jack Nicklaus' accomplishments to his bedroom wall, and then beating him to every one, is well known. In that sense, Woods is a victim of his own success. He wouldn't have it any other way. So much so that Woods did little to dampen speculation that he would pick up right where he left off.
"I'm as curious as you. Getting out and competing again, I haven't done that in a while. Hopefully, I can get into the flow of the round very quickly," he told reporters.
Granted, coming back for a match-play event seems to provide a cushion. On the other hand, Woods could wind up playing 126 holes during the week, and as many as 72 on the weekend if he goes all the way to the finale.
"I'd like to have that problem," he laughed, then turned serious a moment later and made clear he fully expected to.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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