By Anne Ruisi Photos by Jordan Wald
It’s said it takes a village to raise a child, but at the Levite Jewish Community Center, it takes a family of diving enthusiasts to coach the Dive Club—specifically Helen Smith and her daughters, head coach Kirsten Thomas, and assistant coaches Bailey Avina and Monica Hackney. “I started as a volunteer dive coach 30-plus years ago,” Smith says. It then evolved into a family endeavor over the years as the girls dived on the team while growing up, just as she had in her youth. “Then they became coaches, and Kirsten runs the (LJCC’s) athletic program,” she adds.
Thomas, affectionately known as Coach K, works full-time as LJCC’s athletics and aquatics director. Her mother and sisters are volunteers. The women, along with Sam Slaughter, who is not a relative, work with about 35 youth ranging in age from four to 18.
Many were swimmers who became interested by watching the divers practice. “Usually, they get fascinated by the diving boards,” Thomas says. “When they see that we’re practicing, a lot of kids ask, ‘Hey, is this a dive team?’ That’s when they end up getting signed up.”
Others, like six-year-old Alex Frenz of Homewood, became interested after taking swimming lessons at the J, his mother, Laura Frenz says. “I like diving and flipping,” Alex adds.
Prospective divers, no matter their age, must be able to jump off the diving board in the deep end and swim unassisted to the ladder on the side of the center’s outdoor pool before they can join the team.
It’s especially exciting to see the very young divers qualify for the team, Smith says. “When they’re that young, to be able to swim to the ladder, it’s like, oh, my heart melts,” she says of watching them accomplish that challenge. “Yes, wait, yes, you can take a breath. You’re not going to drown. It is great to see them do that.”
Divers practice for 90 minutes every Monday through Friday during the season, which this year runs from the last week of May through the end of July.
During practice on a sweltering afternoon a few weeks ago, a group of elementary school-age children form a line to take turns diving off a low board and splashing into the water. There were a few grimaces when a diver is unsatisfied with their performance, but most smile and grin as they break the surface.
After a dive, the divers quickly get out of the water and patiently wait in line to take another plunge. There’s no tomfoolery at practice—horseplay is not allowed. “We want to make sure the kids are safe and thriving,” Smith says. Dive instruction begins with the basics, like takeoffs and the approaches, like “putting your arms out and leaning into the water,” and approaching the dive using front and back jumps and front and back dives, she says.
Once they learn the fundamentals, the divers build on those basic skills and become advanced, learning more difficult maneuvers, like front somersaults.
Normally, after learning those fundamentals, the longer a diver has participated, the more likely they are to have those higher diving skills performed with a higher degree of difficulty and accuracy, Smith continues.
And it’s a joy for the coaches when the divers conquer their fears and learn those skills to develop confidence. “We celebrate every jump, every accomplishment,” as their divers progress, Avina says.
Diving meets are held throughout the season against four other teams in the Jefferson County summer league: Magic City Diving, the Country Club of Birmingham, Vestavia Swim and Dive Association at Wald Park and Shades Cliff in Bluff Park.
The season is nearing its end, and the LJCC team has won two meets and lost one. Unlike a swim meet, the divers aren’t racing against a clock but striving for an overall calculated score. The more difficult the dive, which is measured in its degree of difficulty, the higher the score.
Divers love being on the team and working with their coaches. “It’s fun. I just dove right in,” says Leo Burton, a Mountain Brook eight year old. “I like Coach K, she’s really fun.”
While the mother and daughters coach, the family’s third generation is participating, Thomas says. Two of her nieces and a nephew, Annalisa Avina, eight, Alesandra Avina, 11, and Grayson Hackney, six, are diving on the team.
While some might think spending so many hours with relatives might be too much of a good thing, the coaches love their family time. “We very much enjoy spending time with one another and spending time coaching, Smith says.
There’s also the satisfaction of seeing the community brought together to support what’s an individual sport in what are essentially team competitions. “It’s very, very community based, which is always a fun aspect,” Thomas says. “It’s beautiful. We all love working with the kids, and by the end of the summer, they go from not knowing how to dive to competing and doing well.”
For example, an eight-year-old girl in her first year of diving came in second place at a recent meet against Vestavia Hills. “Everything just clicked,” Smith says.
“To see your diver do well in a meet, it’s like your heart just goes out to them because they’ve worked so hard, and they’re achieving so much.”
