Air Austin : Coach Helps CSUN Divers Fly Through Conference With the Greatest of Ease

The Cal State Northridge pool has earned a national reputation among divers as the place to be.

It’s not the water or the freshly painted walls that attract divers from all over the country.

They come to dive for Coach Van Austin.

Austin, a diving coach for 26 years, has led many competitors from CSUN, UCLA and the Los Angeles Diving Team to individual championships. Austin coaches all three, but there has been no conflict. The Bruins are a Division I team, and the L. A. Diving Team, which includes divers aged 7 to 64, competes on a separate amateur circuit.

Last year, his eighth at CSUN, Austin was named Division II coach of the year.

Austin, 44, dove for Illinois in 1960 and 1961, but never won any championships or earned much prestige as a diver.

“I was awful,” he said. “The pool is only 7 1/2-feet deep and I was more concerned with not hitting the bottom of the pool than in perfecting the dive.”

There’s another reason Austin never became the kind of diver he has turned others into. His hometown, Herrin, Ill., had no pool.

Austin rode his bicycle 12 miles over a dirt road to the pool in Frankfurt, where he taught himself to dive.

“I would bring books on diving to the pool, and before trying a dive I’d read about it,” he said.

When Austin was a senior in high school, a pool was finally built in Herrin. He watched every day as the hole was dug and the cement poured.

Austin spent his summers coaching the pool’s diving team, and four years after it opened, he said, Herrin divers took first place in a state-wide competition.

Austin has had similar success as a coach ever since.

His secret: Train for subconscious reaction, and do it in a positive, up-front manner.

Most coaches tell a diver, “Don’t duck your head”-- after the dive. Austin tells a diver, “Keep your head up.” And he gives the instruction just as the diver is going up for the dive.

“The subconscious mind doesn’t respond to negative suggestions,” Austin said. “And when an instruction is given after the dive, as a correction, something is lost by the time he gets back up to do the dive again.”

Roland King and Blair Nogosek, two CSUN divers, note that a dive consists of 15 to 20 learned moves. Divers must remember, for example, to keep their legs together, keep their arms in line with their body, keep their legs extended, point their toes and look for the water.

Austin said that a diver has 1 1/2 seconds in the air to complete the various moves. The routine parts of a dive, therefore, need to rest in the subconscious. In a competition, a diver can then concentrate on the single most important part of the dive.

At the beginning of the season, Austin has the divers do “bulk diving”--at least 100 dives a practice. Bulk diving helps to break divers of fear, he said, and to concentrate efforts on subconsciously learning dives.

There is some proof that Austin’s system works. The CSUN men’s swim team has won the NCAA Division II championship the past five years, and each time the divers have scored many of the winning points.

Last year, four CSUN divers--King, Nogosek, Kevin Moller and Eric Morris--scored 97 points, enough to finish in the top 12 nationally without a single point from a swimmer.

That unofficial competition has given the four returning divers, all All-Americans, something else to strive for.

“This year we want our points to put us at sixth place,” King said. “It’s kind of fun to see how well we would do just on our own.”

A senior, King won the national championship on the 1- and 3-meter boards last season. King’s diving has also figured in the swim team’s 5-0 record this season. Yet King doesn’t have the look of a national diving champion.

“He is a large diver,” Austin said.

King, who is a stocky 5-9, said, “Generally, quality championship divers are leaner and more aerodynamic looking, so you’re a little more pretty in the air. The thinner you are, the less splash you make.”

He may not be the Mikhail Baryshnikov of the diving board, but King makes up for his lack of grace with the strength he acquired in many years of wrestling and playing football at Encina High in Sacramento.

He suffers from epilepsy, and any injury to his head could cause serious complications to the condition.

In diving, King’s hands break the water first, preventing direct impact on his head. And as for the possibility that King might hit his head on the board, Austin said that the risk is minor.

“I see about 12,000 dives each week,” Austin said. “Of those 12,000, maybe two or three divers will clip the board with their foot. Maybe once every two or three months someone will hit their hand on the board. And a head injury only happens once every few years.”

Even though the risk is low, the CSUN team has a standing joke: When a diver comes too close to the board, he has to buy Austin a new battery for his pacemaker. Of course, Austin does not wear a pacemaker, but at the awards banquet last season, and after a few too-close-for-comfort dives, the team presented him with a battery.

King, who dove for four years at Encina and with the Amateur Athletic Union team in Northern California, isn’t worried about the risk.

“By the time I was thinking about college, I already knew I was going to CSUN,” King said, “to dive for Austin.”

In 1984, King placed high in several dual meets. But one diver outscored him in every meet that season and in both events in the nationals: Nogosek.

Last season Nogosek was expected to defeat King in nationals. He didn’t.

“Roland hadn’t been diving as well as Blair during the season,” Austin said. “I didn’t expect him to win the nationals, but he totally rose to the occasion.”

To divers, consistency is more important than having a high jump or a smooth entry into the water. At the national championships last April, it was clear that King had mastered the art of being consistent.

“Blair gets into the water cleaner than Roland,” Austin said. “But he has a tendency to miss a dive now and then. They’re both very close in actual ability, but one bad dive and you could wind up in third place instead of first. Roland is consistent in major competitions. He doesn’t miss a dive.”

Austin says that the national championship could go to anyone on the CSUN team this year

Eric Morris, a senior, has competed in the nationals since 1983. Before going to CSUN, he was one of the best high school divers in Washington.

Another diver, Kevin Moller, came from Massachusetts to dive for Austin.

“If I’ve earned a reputation, it’s happened over the years,” Austin said. “And if that makes recruiting a little easier, I still set my objectives higher each year.”

How high? Austin said he hopes that someday he will coach an Olympic diver. Because the L. A. Diving Team competes against other U. S. diving teams, Austin’s divers have been competing against Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis for 15 years.

While Austin is waiting patiently for Louganis to retire, he will concentrate on this season and placing the four CSUN men in the top eight nationally.

“It’s a vicarious thrill,” Austin said. “I’m the ultimate stage mother for all these kids. I like to win, that’s what it’s all about.”