2008 Woodie Awards
SCSU divers earn NCC weekly honors
Travis Weldon
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Sports
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Junior Ross Eiden knows this more than anybody. He underwent knee surgery last season and was forced to watch his team compete from the pool deck.
How has he rebounded? For starters, he has already qualified for nationals and was recently named NCC Male Diver of the Week for his performance in North Dakota Nov. 17.
One Year Removed
This is Eiden's second time named Male Diver of the Week. He was awarded the honor Nov. 6 when he placed first in the Husky Invitational.
He qualified for nationals in the first meet of the season, even though he was medically redshirted last year due to an intramural soccer injury early last season.
"It was terrible. Worst experience of my life just sitting on the sidelines," Eiden said. "Watching the team and not being able to go to nationals, because I had qualified for nationals two days before I did it."
Despite tearing his ACL and chipping his femur, the Rosemount, Minn. native came back right where he left off.
"He knew that this could be a potentially career-ending injury," said diving coach Nate Brisley. "Any time you are talking about blowing out your knees in diving, you have to take a serious evaluation whether you can realistically get back in."
Eiden went through the evaluation and decided he wanted to get back on the springboard
"For him to be as dedicated as he was with the physical therapy he had to go through, putting all that work made him realize how much he loved the sport," Brisley said.
Goofing off
Eiden never thought about diving before a random day in gym.
"I was goofing around in gym class and was doing flips and stuff and one of the phy. ed. teachers who was the high school swimming and diving coach he saw me doing that, and he said 'come over here,' and said, 'you're going to dive.' I said, 'OK.' He was a big guy. I thought I was in trouble," Eiden said.
He said he was not very good when he first started, but being taught by a high school coach for six years helped him get to where he is today. Getting involved took special effort for Eiden
"It's not one of those sports that you do as a kid. When you are little, they don't have 'little league diving,'" Eiden said. "I could do back flips and stuff on mats so I enjoy doing that so I kind of had an air sense. So I tried it and it was a blast."
Psych-out
Eiden's air sense had helped him place first with a score of 272.7 on the one-meter springboard.
Scoring is based on a panel of judges that rate the dives on a 10-point scale. The athletes dive six times off the one- and three-meter springboard. The total score is added up from all the judges and all the dives.
Eiden totaled a 264.9 three-meter diving score - good for third place in the event.
Before attempting a new dive, Eiden tries not to over-analyze the dive.
"I try not to think about it too much because then I kind of psych myself out. So I generally focus, relax and go," he said. "During warm-ups, if one little thing is going wrong, (Brisley) will say 'on this dive, make sure you pick your head up.' That's the only thing I think about. When I do it, I just think about that and nothing else. Pick my head up and the rest comes natural."
As the season progresses, Eiden uses every practice and meet to get ready for nationals March 12-15.
In a sport where every little fault is magnified, senior diver Kendra Willis tries to eliminate every mistake.
That attitude has earned her Female Diver of the Week for the North Central Conference.
Willis scored a 250.9 and took first place on the one-meter springboard Nov. 19 in North Dakota, beating the national standard by five points, and is now qualified for nationals on the one-meter.
Gymnastics
A native from Neenah, Wisc., Willis got into diving when she was a freshman in high school.
"I wanted to be part of the swim team because my brothers were and I really liked the head coach," she said. "I used to be a gymnast and he suggested that I should try diving. I started and loved it from the beginning. I think gymnastics is a good overlap to diving."
Willis left gymnastics the next year in favor of diving due to the strains on the body gymnasts regularly take, but credits her gymnastics background for her success.
Chuck-it
It is human nature to have a fear toward anything new. For Willis, the fear sticks with her until she tries a new dive for the first time.
"I think as you get older and more experienced, you realize (deep breath) 'OK,'" she said. "And I kind of have a 'chuck it' mentality, just get the first one off, who cares if you smack (the water) or if it's bad, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just get one off so you know how you can kind of do the dive."
Many people have the fear of landing hard on the water. That is not the case with Willis.
"I don't have a fear of smacking anymore," she said. "I've smacked so many times that I know the worst that is going to happen. You will lose your breath or tears will come out for a while, but life goes on. It's the same thing as a football player getting knocked down all the time in practice."
Critical eye
According to diving coach Nate Brisley, Willis is always looking for ways to make her dives perfect.
"I'll say that was a really good dive, but they will say 'but did you see this...' Sometimes I have to just tell them 'that was a good dive, be happy with it,'" Brisley said. "It's a good thing too because (she) is always striving for the best. If (she) gets that 7.5 (score from a judge), she is always looking for that eight."
Willis said she feels the same way about herself.
"Sometimes, I may do the start right, but I don't come out right and the finish is really bad," Willis said. "(Brisley) looks at it is as an improvement because I got the start right, whereas I look at it as not an improvement because I couldn't put it together. Instead of accepting the 'good' of the dive, I kind of look at the bad aspect of what I need to work on."
Full-out
Willis is currently working on a 'full-out,' which is one of her goals for the season. A 'full-out' consists of a two-and-a-half summersault with a twist off the three-meter springboard.
She has done lead-ups to a full-out, which is two somersaults and a twist off the one-meter. Lead-ups help divers get used to the rotation before trying an extra half summersault to complete the dive.
"She is close. The things that we need to do is evaluate if that big of a dive for Kendra is worth going after in this point of her career," Brisley said. "With a full-out, we will check back on it from time to time and if she has the rhythm and the timing down one day, we will pop it in."
Brisley said Willis has a talent matched by few female divers at the Division II level in the country.
"Her specialty is back twisters. She does them probably as good, if not better than anyone else in Division II," he said.
Willis, Ross Eiden and the rest of the divers are in action at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Halenbeck Hall for the Husky Invite.