For anybody who might have missed it, peel through the results of the men’s 200 free relay between Virginia and Duke from this weekend in Durham, and you might notice some unfamiliar names on the Cavaliers’ ‘E’ relay.
Carl Buergler, Colby Shinholser, Jordan Sacks, and JB Kolod combined for a 1:41.41 (averaging 25.3’s). In normal circumstances, that would be a laughable time for a major Division I program; in these circumstances chalk me up as impressed. That’s because those four are all divers. The splits included a 23.42 leadoff from Carl Buergler and a 24.54 anchor from JB Kolod. (Shinholser’s goggles fell off, and he still split a 26).
For those who have never tried putting their divers in a race (though, we’ll see it from time-to-time in intrasquad meets where points and lane-fillers are at a premium), those are pretty impressive times. Especially Buergler’s 23.42.
Kolod himself could (should) be an All-American on the boards, and his obvious athleticism will play a factor in that. I swam for two years with a swimmer/diver in high school, though at that point his swimming took off to the point where it was no longer worth burning an individual event on diving. I coach a diver who this year has begun coming to swim practice and has swum a few races for us as well (and scored a few points, at that).
For anyone who would brush this off as unimpressive, don’t underestimate the value of divers stepping up like this on the psyche of a team. That’s the sort of thing that can really build the “team-first” mentality and show unification between two groups that can sometimes be at odds.
Virginia would win the dual meet 153-140 after exhibitioning the last several races.
Word on the street has it that McCrory lead off the 200 FR with a 21 in an intersquad meet. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The age of being able to compete in dual sports at the collegiate level is over. The time necessary to be a competitive swimmer in a D1 school is astonishing, or for any D1 sport for that matter. Divers lift weights, have dry land training, then in the pool time. Their degree of difficulty is so much higher now then just 15 years ago its mind-boggling. When these guys and gals miss, it can be ugly. There just isn’t time anymore to cross train and still be at the top of one sport or another. My hats off to ALL COLLEGIATE ATHLETES who study, train, compete, and represent their school in the most positive yet competitive forum out there –… Read more »
Congrats to Coach Bernadino for being creative and giving the divers the chance to do something different !( this compliment coming from a Wolfpacker, no less!).
This also brings up the topic of swimmers who were great divers and vice versa.
Two who come to mind are former USA diving executive Todd Smith, who in the mid-60’s , did both sports first in Nebraska and then in Minnesota where he did the impossible by winning the state championship in both diving and the 100 backstroke!( he also was starting fullback for the football team!) Former child TV star Tony Dow , Wally on Leave It To Beaver was a nationally ranked swimmer and diver in the late 50’s.… Read more »
I swam with a girl in high school (not the one mentioned above) who swam and dove all four years, first person in Texas to make the 5A State Championship meet in both in the same year, so we were told. Jennifer Rodriguez. Pretty impressive.
After a Friday and Saturday Iron Cross double-double (1000, 200 fly, 500 in both dual meets), I was also entered in the C 200 free relay on Saturday. I was exhausted, and was out-split by the diver (24.3-24.5). While the rest of the team was doing team warm-down, I was getting yelled at by the head and assistant coaches for a good 10 minutes. I was told to shut up even when I brought up the fact that I was coming off two consecutive years of scoring at D III NCAAs.