Dive Right In (7 page)

In reverse dives, the diver faces the pool but does
backward
somersaults. For inward dives, the diver’s back is to the pool and she does forward somersaults. Either way, Traci worried
that she might bang her head against the edge of the board. She said this to Sophia when the coach described the dives.

Sophia said, “Most divers worry about that at first. But when you come off the board, your momentum carries you away from
the edge so that you aren’t going to collide. Watch.”

For the first time, Sophia actually demonstrated dives to Traci. She started with a reverse one-and-a-half somersault in a
tuck position. She did an approach and hurdle. As she sprang from the board, she did a tight backward roll, coming out and
entering the water with barely any splash. Traci noticed two things: first, that Sophia was a really great diver and second,
that Sophia missed the edge of the board by a couple of feet.

“Awesome!”
Traci whispered. “I didn’t know how good you are!”

Sophia smiled as she dried herself off. “See how far I was from the board? Also, I arched my back as I started up, which got
me into the somersault. Now I’ll do an inward one-and-a-half somersault in the pike position.”

Sophia stood at the end of the board with her back to the pool and her heels off the board’s edge. Bending her knees deep
and swinging her arms up, she jumped high off the board and outward. She bent at the waist and kept her legs straight until
her forehead almost touched her shins—a perfect pike—then spun in a forward somersault, toward the board. But, as with the
reverse dive, she missed the edge by plenty, straightened into a beautiful come-out, and plummeted into the water smoothly.
Traci and the other girls applauded. It was an amazing dive.

Traci began working on inward and reverse dives and soon got over the fear she had felt. It was clear that if she took the
time to visualize each dive before she started it she’d stayed out of danger. She was far from perfect, but she sensed that
she was making progress.

Traci was now doing four kinds of dives: forward,
backward, inward, and reverse. She had learned the straight, tuck, and pike positions. She was managing pretty well with one-and-a-half
somersault dives and improving with two-and-a-half somersaults. Thanks to Margo’s leg exercises, which Traci did every day,
her legs were getting noticeably stronger and she was able to get more height when she left the board.

“You’re not ready for three-and-a-half somersaults,” Sophia said, “but you will be before too long. I’d like you to start
working on twists. But before you do, I want to see you do some work on the trampoline. Put on your sweats and meet me in
the exercise room.”

A somersault involves “rolling” forward (or backward), while a twist is like a dancer’s pirouette or a figure skater’s spin
on an ice rink. The most difficult dives combine somersaults
and
twists. These dives score the most points when divers do them well, but they are also the ones that are most likely to be
done badly.

Traci wasn’t worried about twists. She was comfortable with them from gymnastics. Some of her balance beam dismounts and some
of her vaults had
included twists. She knew how to get a twist started by turning her upper body to the left or right while she was in the air.

As Traci warmed up on the trampoline in the exercise room, Sophia came in with Margo. Traci felt a tingle of nervousness,
which always happened when she knew Margo was watching her.

Margo didn’t say anything as Traci went through some maneuvers on the trampoline that included twists and somersaults. She
did single and double somersaults with twists. At Sophia’s request, she then did somersaults with one and a half and two full
twists. Although Traci hadn’t done this kind of thing in some time, she felt at ease doing it—or she would have, if Margo
hadn’t been following every move with that sharp, critical expression on her face.

When Traci had finished, Sophia said, “Give us a minute, Trace.”

She and Margo moved away and talked for a minute. Then they approached Traci.

Margo said, “Traci, you are finished with this group.”

Traci stared at the coach. Was it possible that Margo was kicking her out?

“Starting next time,” Margo went on, “you will be working with me and the more advanced girls.”

Sophia beamed at Traci, who felt like she had just won a gold medal.

T
raci couldn’t wait to tell Valerie about her promotion. Since Valerie had started with her new coach, the two friends hadn’t
seen much of each other outside of school. But Valerie was in when Traci called that evening, and she invited Traci over after
dinner.

As soon as the girls were in Valerie’s room, Traci burst out with her good news. Valerie smiled, but the smile was weak.

“Hey, great, Trace. Congratulations. I’m really happy for you.”

Traci said, “I’ll see Carly more now. Of course, I’ll also see more of Margo—in fact I’ll see her all the time, because Sophia
mostly works with the younger divers, but actually, I can handle Margo. The main thing is, I’ve been making good progress.”

“Definitely,” Valerie said, and looked out the window.

Traci looked closely at her friend. “Val, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

Valerie sighed and flopped back on her bed. “I’m all right. I mean, I’m not sick or anything. But I’m not doing so great lately.”

“Why?” Traci asked. “Don’t tell me it’s your new coach! I thought he was supposed to be fantastic! You mean he isn’t?”

“Oh, he’s okay, but I’m not sure how good I am,” Valerie said. “The other people in this class are unbelievably good, and
I don’t know if I can cut it. I’m not as great as I used to think I was.”

Traci shook her head. “I don’t believe it! You’re a fantastic athlete! You were the best one in our class by a mile!”

Valerie stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah, right…
our
class. But that was just a bunch of kids. I see that now. In this group, I’m at the bottom. They do things I don’t believe
I can ever do. It’s been… I don’t know
what
it’s been. I figured I’d always be in control, that nothing would ever get me down. Well, guess what? I was wrong.”

“Wait a second!” Traci stood up and looked down at her friend. She’d never seen Valerie look depressed or beaten until now.
“Remember a few weeks ago? I said that I was going to quit, and you told me to hang in there, that I wasn’t giving myself
a fair chance? Does that sound familiar? Because here we go again, except now, you’re playing my part.”

Valerie shook her head. “This is different. You were starting in a brand-new sport. I’m doing what I’ve been doing all my
life! I’m just finding out I’ve been clueless all this time! Now that I compare myself to first-class athletes, I see I’m
nothing special.”

“I don’t believe it!” Traci insisted. “You say my case was different. It was in some ways, but in other ways, no. The fact
is that you made a big jump, too, just like I did.

“I know, diving is a different sport, but still, when you move into new level of talent, it’s going to be a shock. You were
used to being numero uno. In Jeff’s class, everyone looked up to you. Jeff kept going on about how you were the greatest ever,
and we all naturally felt the same way.
I
sure did! Now, all of a sudden, you’re not the best.”

Valerie turned her head away, but Traci didn’t stop.
“I’m going to say what you said to me a few weeks back—and I know it’s true. You’re selling yourself short, and you’re letting
the sudden change get to you too much. And you’re giving in way too easy.”

Valerie only sighed. “If you saw these guys, you’d know. They’re out of my league.”

“You think they started that way?” Traci asked. “You think they were all-stars when they were in diapers? I bet when they
started in this class, they went through what you’re going through now. And they shook it off and got back to work and got
better.”

She sat down next to her friend and spoke more gently. “That’s what you’ll do, too. You’ll get up off the ground and suck
it up and get to work. You’re a fighter, and you’re an athlete. You’ve got talent and drive. And I do
not
believe that you’re going to just walk away from the thing you’ve been working toward all your life. I bet that in a few
weeks, you’ll remember today and say, ‘What was I thinking?’ You’ll
laugh.
You’ve hit a little bump in the road, that’s all. You didn’t hit a wall.”

Finally, Valerie sat up. She looked at Traci with a small smile. “Listen to you!” she said. “I’ll tell you
one thing: Being in that class has sure changed your attitude. You’re a lot tougher than you used to be.”

Traci was pleased. “You think so? Well, good, then. And I think the same thing will happen to you. You have what it takes.
Wait and see, you’ll get past this. When this coach said that you could go to the top, he knew what he was talking about.
Just hang in there.”

Valerie laughed. “All right, all right, I’ll hang in there, just to keep you quiet. Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Traci replied, satisfied.

T
raci decided that working with a more advanced group of divers had its good and bad points. On the plus side, she was with
girls her own age, including Carly. Once the other girls saw that Carly had forgiven Traci, they were friendly. She often
went out with some of them for a snack after workouts. Also, Traci found she liked working with divers who challenged her
to improve. When she was challenged in this way, she
did
improve.

On the minus side, it could be discouraging to see how much better some of these divers were. A few could do dives that were
far beyond anything Traci could manage, at least at this time. A three-and-a-half somersault inward dive in the pike position
with a twist, for example, was a dive Traci could only dream about performing.

Even though Traci no longer thought that having Margo watching her all the time was a bad thing, exactly, it did make her
uncomfortable. She mentioned it to Carly one day after a workout, when they were with a group of girls. Most of them laughed.

“Sure you’re uncomfortable,” Carly said. “That doesn’t make you different. We
all
are. But, when you think about it, it’s a good way to feel. It keeps us on our toes so we don’t get too casual and mess up
dives because our brains are elsewhere. That’s one reason why Margo is such a good coach: She will never let you get too relaxed.”

“Is relaxation so terrible?” Traci asked.

Another diver named Rachel said, “Relaxation is okay, but being
too
relaxed isn’t, if you want to do your best.”

“What are other reasons Margo is so good?” Traci wanted to know.

“For one thing,” said Carly, “she doesn’t miss a thing. She spots the tiniest flaw in a dive. You probably understand by now
that even little mistakes mess up dives. It’s not like some other sports, where you can adjust in the middle and things may
come out right. In diving, when you make a mistake, you’re out
of luck. If it happens in competition, well, you’re done. Margo never lets a mistake go by. She has a great eye.”

“Anything else?” asked Traci.

“She really cares about us,” said Rachel “We know she’ll be there for us, whatever happens.”

Traci wanted to hear more about this, but the others wouldn’t go into details. Carly spoke for them all when she said, “You’ll
find out one day. Margo doesn’t like us to talk about these things.”

After Traci had been with the advanced group for a week, Margo told her, “Today you’ll start on a three-meter board.”

Traci had been thinking about this and dreading it.
Three meters!
That was almost ten feet! She was afraid that she might get up there and freeze in panic. She would humiliate herself in
front of these girls and never be able to look them in the face again. She thought about talking to Sophia about her fear.
But she didn’t see much of the other coach now.

She noticed that Carly was standing by herself and went over to her. “I’m supposed to use a three-meter board today.”

“Great!” Carly said. “You’ll be fine.”

Traci leaned forward to whisper so nobody else would overhear her. “You don’t get it. I’m scared about that height. What if
I can’t do it?”

Carly said, “Whatever you did on the one-meter board, you just do the same thing. Visualize the dive. Focus. Concentrate.
Don’t let yourself think about
anything
except the dive, the things you have to do.”

When Traci didn’t seem convinced, Carly sighed. “There’s no magic trick, no secret. Either you can do it… or you can’t.
Just go up and do the
same
approach, the
same
hurdle…. Okay? You’re a good athlete and a good diver, and I’m sure you’ll do great. But saying that is the only help
I can give you.”

Traci saw that Carly was right. She remembered the first time she’d been on a diving board and what Sophia had said. Carly
was basically telling her the same thing. She managed to smile at Carly.

“I’ll be all right. Thanks.”

Margo told Traci that her first dive from three meters should be a forward one-and-a-half somersault in the tuck position.
“Remember,” Margo added, “you don’t have to worry about getting a strong jump for
height, because you have enough height to begin with. Any questions?”

Traci shook her head and climbed slowly to the higher board. As she reached the top, she looked down. The water seemed to
be a long way away. Margo and Carly were watching her, and they were too far away to be of any help. She was on her own.

Traci did what she always did on the lower board. She closed her eyes and visualized the dive, took a deep breath, and started
her approach.

She was surprised to find that habit took over. She did her hurdle and jumped, leaning forward to start her somersault. She
went into her tuck, bringing her legs up to her chest and grabbing her shins, and straightened out as she plummeted toward
the water.