Krista Wilson: Looking Good in Two Careers : Nadadore Diver Is Modeling Success

Krista Wilson is fortunate in that the two main interests in her life now intertwine.

Not only is Wilson a model diver, she is also a diving model, and she appears to have a future in both pursuits.

To those outside the world of competitive diving, Wilson is perhaps best known for her part in a cereal commercial now running on television. In it, she appears as a healthy-looking diver whose says: “Tastes like crisp honey graham crackers!”

Wilson also has modeled for various calendars and company promotional films, all presumably because, as a trim blonde with a one-million candlepower smile, she radiates the California Girl image.

According to Dave Burgering, her diving coach with the Mission Viejo Nadadores, such natural good looks also have been a boon to her athletic career, but he’s quick to point out that she is no slouch on the diving board, either.

“Oh, she’s definitely one of the top female divers in the country already,” Burgering said. “She has the talent to go right to the top.”

Burgering is at no loss for words to describe what the 18-year-old Wilson has going for her in terms of world-class competitive diving on both the one- and three-meter boards.

“Well, she’s already has a great amount of experience diving at a high level of competition--all at a young age,” he said. “And as for diving itself, she just has a great feel for the water. She has what we call a very clean entry into the water.”

According to Burgering, Wilson’s appearance also is a plus for her.

“It’s not so much physical beauty as it is she has the right lines, weight and form, just like the best gymnasts and ballerinas do,” Burgering said.

Wilson’ appearance and experience remind one of Daphne Jongejans, the young, blonde diver from the Netherlands who took the 1984 Olympic diving competition by storm.

Thanks to the great media exposure of those games, Jongejans was flooded with modeling and acting offers and now is diving at the University of Miami (Fla.).

It is even said that Dr. Sammy Lee, the 1948 and 1952 Olympian who now helps coach Wilson on weekends, remarked that Daphne Jongejans looked like Krista when he first saw the Dutch diver.

One would expect comparable exposure for Wilson should she make the 1988 Olympics in South Korea.

So with the diving world at her feet, one would expect Wilson to be on top of that world. However, Wilson’s wings are clipped.

For one thing, Wilson’s modeling career largely is on hold, considering that she has accepted an athletic scholarship to attend Southern Methodist University in Dallas this fall. The NCAA frowns on any such commercial endorsements by its member athletes. (Wilson’s compensation for the cereal commercial was donated to charity.)

Wilson also is recovering from shoulder surgery, which will keep her out of competition for most of the summer.

Nonetheless, it has been a busy month for Wilson, who graduated from Mission Viejo High School and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her shoulder, all within the last three weeks.

The surgery means that Wilson will miss the Southern California Open Diving Championships this Thursday through Sunday at Mission Viejo. Wilson, a two-time Southern Section 4-A diving champion who also has won countless age-group titles, would have been a favorite in this meet, but now she spends her time in therapy.

“After surgery it’s really starting to look good,” Wilson said. “At first, I couldn’t have imagined a summer without diving, but I realize now that it’s for the best to get it (surgery) out of the way right now.”

For many other athletes at her age, such an experience would probably be more traumatic, but Wilson exudes the poise that her coaches say is one of her strongest assets on the diving board.

“I first hurt it in November and it didn’t hurt that bad, but by May it was painful enough that we had it CAT-scanned to see what was wrong,” Wilson said. “That showed enough (general ligament damage) that we decided to have it operated on before I started college.”

Said Burgering: “It used to be mostly back injuries with divers, but now the shoulders are becoming more common. It comes from a ‘rip entry,’ where a diver has to extend her shoulder joint a little farther than before.”

That and the high-speed collisions with the water resulted in the need for surgery. But only three weeks later, she’s quickly regaining her full range of shoulder motion.

In the meantime, you won’t find Wilson pouting by the pool, worrying unnecessarily about her future.

Life holds too many adventures for Wilson to be fretting. This weekend, for example, will find Wilson out camping, and throughout the summer she makes sure she catches the concerts of her favorite rock groups.

Wilson credits her family background for her poised demeanor and athletic success. Her brothers, Richard, Curt and Kevin, all weretwo-time Southern Section diving champions at Rolling Hills High School in Palos Verdes.

And her mother, Ida Wilson, is a diving coach and a former national age-group diving champion.

Mother knows best, indeed.

“She’s had good form ever since she was a kid,” Ida Wilson said. “Maybe 1 out of 100 divers will have good natural form, with her toes pointed and her body set, but Krista’s always had that.

“With divers, you can’t actually see yourself going into the water--you have to feel what you look like, and she’s always had a good feeling for what her form should be going in.”

Ida Wilson doesn’t believe in putting added pressure on her children, which is why she endorsed Krista’s decision to dive at SMU, away from the local distractions, but she did allow one interesting insight.

Said Ida: “Well, from the time that Dr. Sammy Lee first saw Krista when she was only 8 or 9 years old, he predicted that she’d be an Olympic diver.”

Trust him. He’s a doctor.