Captain King Keeps 'em Flying

Mannerisms become much more pronounced when the divers mount the 10-meter platform. Boggs slaps specks of grit from the soles of his feet. Rick McAlister, the 1973 NCAA champion, perhaps the only male collegiate champion in any sport ever to be coached by a woman, dries his hands twice before a 3� somersault. These seem sensible reactions to the increased possibility of injury when falling from 33 feet, but King, in an aside, says they are more often signs of concentration than fear. "I've been teased about my twitching and how I squirm and hitch my suit," she says, "but it's just that you can recognize when you're ready, so you wait. You've got a dive in your muscles, the program for it in your nerves, and somehow there is a moment you know it's going to happen."

Diving from the tower means a punishing impact. "Be tight," calls King. "If you're limp, that water will tear you apart. I want you rigid, like the shaft of an arrow." McAlister, the heaviest of the divers at 185 pounds, does a reverse 2�, holds his form all the way and lands on his back. As he surfaces, a towel thrown from the tower floats over his head. Jaw set, unused to errors, he climbs back up and dives again, opens too late and lands on his stomach. King holds her middle and rocks for him. "You'd better go on to the next while you're able," she says.

Says Boggs, "The only thing left to do is hit the tower."

Rich Leopold, a junior, performs his first-ever reverse 2� from 10 meters. "The first one of anything is petrifying from up there," whispers King. She is Hushed with her diver's success, reliving the anxiety and relief. "After 18 years of this, I wasn't afraid of landing wrong or getting the wind knocked out of me. The scary thing in learning a new dive is never having felt the kinesthetic sensations of those particular movements. I pioneered some dives and before I tried each one I thought, 'There has got to be some reason why no one has ever done this before.' The real fear is of that blankness, of the unknown."

Like a good performer in any discipline, King loves to see a resolve in her divers, a wholehearted trying without the influence of irrelevancies such as caution, yet she says, "It's not human nature for a diver to will himself to new dives. You need someone you have confidence in to push you, to know when you're ready to do things you've never done before."

McAlister joins King. Asked if it is psychologically wearing to constantly banish thoughts of error and injury, he shakes his head. "A confidence comes from the diving itself," he says. "You get used to living on after a mistake...."

His words trail off as he watches Bourland inch to the edge of the 10-meter platform, assume the starting position for a reverse dive in the pike position, then pause and walk away.

"It's just like the springboard," comes King's amplified voice. "The same mechanics once you're in the air. You've felt this dive."

Bourland returns to the edge and stands, toes out in space, waiting.

"You cannot imagine it standing there, but in the air your body will know what to do," says King.