Trabuco Hills’ Dan Nash Dived Right In to Sport : High-Flying Goal Is to Be the Best

Dan Nash didn’t need a push to start his diving career. You might say he fell for it from the start.

“At 3 weeks, he dove off the kitchen table,” said his mother, Susan Nash. “He’s always been a very strange child.”

And a successful one. Nash, a junior at Trabuco Hills High School and a high school All-American, will defend his springboard title at the Southern Section 2-A diving championships at USC today at 3 p.m.

Airborne achievements didn’t always come so easily for Nash, who has competed for the Mission Viejo Nadadores off and on for 6 1/2 years. There was a time when serious diving meant little more than belly flops.

When he was 7, Susan Nash sent him to a summer camp at St. Michael’s Abbey in Trabuco Canyon. She hoped all the swimming, running and horseback riding might exorcise the spirit from his highly active body. Exercise was more like it. He returned home a chlorine-eyed monster.

“He came running home saying, ‘Mom, Father Andrew said I should take diving lessons,’ ” Susan Nash said. “They probably didn’t do much more than cannonballs or jackknives, but I knew we were in for it anyway. Anything that had a costume (uniform) attached to it, Dan wanted to do.”

That September, Nash enrolled in a diving program at the Mission Viejo International Swim Complex and after six months of intermediate and advanced lessons, he was invited to fill a spot on the Nadadores.

He was on the Nadadores for 3 1/2 years until 1982, when his father was transferred by his engineering firm to Houston. Nash spent two years there, training with The Woodlands Swimming and Diving Club, about 20 miles north of Houston.

“Dan was 12 when he came to me,” said Milton Braga, Woodlands coach. “I told him we’d make him look more like a diver, not so much like a little kid. We ran and lifted weights together, and since we were both beginning new careers (Braga also became coach that year), we helped each other out.”

That year, Nash qualified for Junior Olympic Nationals, placing fifth, seventh and eighth in 12-and-under events at the nationals in Austin. He spent the next year training with Braga, developing his diving and mental discipline.

“He taught me all those things that help the mental aspect of diving,” Nash said. “I learned to always try to keep my head into it. If I have a bad dive, forget it. Just think of the next one.”

That attitude helped Nash develop into a Texas state springboard champion in the 12-and-under division. It also helped him adjust after his family moved back to Orange County in 1984, when his father was transferred again.

He competed as a freshman for Laguna Hills, then went to Trabuco Hills when it opened the following year. He views high school competition--limited to a single springboard event which combines one- and three-meter dives--as no less important than the Nadadores.

“To me, competition is the same everywhere because you’re competing against yourself really,” Nash said. “I strive to perfect myself, to better myself every meet.”

Dave Burgering, Nadadore diving coach, says Nash can be too tough on himself.

“Dan is not a huge standout in our club,” he said. “Every now and then, he gets down on himself in comparing himself to others on the team. But he happens to be living in the area that, in diving, is extremely competitive.”

That hard reality is softened by the drive that keeps Nash going. A love for the sport and for the people within it. It’s not , as many would like to believe, a passion for soaring into space or falling from high places.

“I love flying, and I want to fly later in life,” Nash said, who hopes to attend the Air Force Academy. “But diving, well, the only thing wrong with diving is the fear. I’m scared every time I have to jump off that (10-meter) platform. I don’t think of the fall, I think of surviving it.”

In a practice session, Nash climbs the ladder of the 10-meter platform at Mission Viejo. Once on top, he stands near the edge, concentrating as two black birds soar beneath him. He takes a few steps back, turns, and skips toward the edge.

He stops just before the cement runway ends, turns around to try the approach again.

“Dan, tighten your stomach and knees on this one,” Coach Janet Ely yells from the pool deck. “And stand up on it now.”

Nash stands staring toward the clouds in front of him. The dive is a back two-and-a-half, the same one that sent teammate Julie Hendren to the hospital last week after hitting the water flat on her back. Nash had watched Hendren--who’s back in the pool this week--come up from the water coughing blood.

But Nash’s approach looks confident, and he bounds off the platform, spinning back twice before he lands with a loud pop. He comes out of the pool smiling.

“Once you’re in the air, you know what to do,” Nash said. “I take off, look for my spots, spin as fast as I can, and look for the water. On reverse dives, you see each cloud go by as you do each turn. But you’ve got to know where you are . . . or else. I guess you got to have a wing-it attitude in this sport.”