When Nick Mancini was cut from his high school baseball team his junior year, he decided to try diving instead. He found it was something he enjoyed and had a natural talent for, so he stuck with it, participated in a camp over the summer and is now one of two members of Syracuse’s diving team.

Kirsten Thomas, SU’s only other diver, started her diving career jumping off bridges and into pools with her friends. When she got to high school, she intended to try out for swimming but tried diving and stuck with it.

‘I was always competing with the neighborhood kids, who could do what,’ Thomas said. ‘I would throw crazy stuff that I would never do now.’

This mismatched duo – Mancini, a freshman, and Thomas, a senior – has nonetheless grown quite close. Though SU head coach Lou Walker tries to be there for the divers, it’s difficult, particularly at meets when the swimmers need his attention as well.

‘We support each other,’ Thomas said. ‘We also help coach each other, look for things to improve each dive. Constructive criticism goes a long way. We definitely give it back and forth to each other. I really like it. I like the fact that he’ll just tell me, ‘You need to do this.’

‘No sugarcoating,’ she added.

Mancini mentioned he and Thomas also seek out guidance by watching divers on YouTube, and they rely on their TiVo to help them improve old dives and learn new ones. Unfortunately, they’ve been having some problems with their TiVo of late.

‘Right now we don’t have TiVo. It’s broken,’ Mancini said. ‘We’ve spent the past three weeks in practice trying to fix that so we can see what we’re doing.’

Without the TiVo, Thomas is using her newfound time watching other divers and focusing on fundamentals in the pool. Specifically, she’s trying to improve her board work and getting her arms through, which impacts the momentum of the dive.

Both divers have to keep their mentality positive.

‘It’s really a mental game,’ Thomas said. ‘I’d say at least 75 percent of diving is mental. Your body knows what to do, but it’s really overcoming that fear in your head.’

She also wants to work on getting past a bad dive instead of dwelling on it and letting it affect her next one.

Mancini also tries to stay positive. In his two years diving in high school, he put a lot of pressure on himself to perform well. This year, he discarded that mentality and was able to get through his first meet, the Syracuse Invitational in mid-October, without too much trouble.

The two divers are going to need to be optimistic, as both are trying to increase the degree of difficulty of their dives. A higher ‘DD’ will potentially allow them to score higher, if they are able to execute.

Deciding between more challenging dives, in which they are apt not to do as well, and a more familiar dive presents a difficult trade-off.

‘Personally, I like a combination,’ Thomas said. ‘If you do all high ‘DD’ dives in a meet, that’s a lot of stress on you to make every one.’

For Mancini, the challenge comes from a lack of experience. Before coming to Syracuse, he had never competed on a three-meter board, so he has only mastered dives on the one-meter. He appreciates the taller board because it gives him more time in the air.

Walker is already seeing progress in the newcomer to the sport.

‘It’s his first year and he’s learning and coming along,’ Walker said. ‘He likes it, and he’s not afraid, which is kind of the key for a diver.’

He feels similarly about Thomas, who is a four-year veteran on the team and has come a long way since her bridge-jumping days.

‘She’s seen improvement of the course of the years she’s been here: the skill level and the effort and the energy she’s put in,’ Walker said. ‘She’s realized the benefits of this program.’

alguggen@syr.edu