A Laid-Back Life Style Limits Lautenschlager’s Drive to Dive

Janae Lautenschlager fell flat on her face at last year’s junior national diving championships.

The Granada Hills junior, a two-time City Section champion, has been called one of the best prep divers to come out of Los Angeles in a decade. She entered the United States Diving Junior Olympic Championships ranked 12th in the nation on the 3-meter board and 15th on the 1-meter board. By meet’s end, Lautenschlager had finished 21st at 3-meters. She did not even place at 1-meter.

It was an off performance that every athlete has suffered.

“It made me want to cry,” the 16-year-old recalled with a frown that quickly turned to a smile, “and then go to the beach.”

That kind of reaction, say coaches and observers, is typical of Janae Lautenschlager. She is obviously blessed with natural talent. She has won City championships with seeming ease and, until last year, had quickly moved up the national rankings.

But, at this early stage in her career, Lautenschlager has not developed the determination or drive to be the best. Perhaps, coaches say, she hasn’t been forced to.

“Most divers need to work and work to do their dives,” said USC diving Coach Rick Earley, who has seen Lautenschlager at competitions and coached her at summer diving camps. “Janae can go out and do the dives and she doesn’t need to practice.

“That can hurt a diver,” Earley said. “If she makes up her mind to be the best, she’s capable of it. But she has to work at it.”

Lautenschlager doesn’t question this analysis. Nor does she give any sign that such a burning desire will soon transpire.

Unlike most athletes of her stature, Lautenschlager has no dreams of competing in the Olympics or being the best in the world. She merely hopes she can attract a college scholarship so she can “have a nice career, be rich and get married.”

“She’s always been a laid-back kid,” her mother, Sheryl, said.

If Lautenschlager has a saving grace, it is that her “laid-back” attitude ends when competition begins.

“She comes to practice and doesn’t work as hard as the other divers. She does only what she has to do,” said Dennis Taylor, her coach. But in competition, she uses every ounce of her ability.

Said Jared Book, the City Section’s director of diving: “She’s got the intensity to be a champion.”

The quiet girl who is also a cheerleader at Granada Hills explained that it’s a matter of pride.

“You’re trying to show everybody,” Lautenschlager said. “I want to know that what people are thinking about me is good. I like to make a good impression on people no matter what I do.”

And, lest anyone get the wrong impression, her diving career so far has been, well, impressive.

Lautenschlager did not take part in the sport until she was 10, at an age when many top divers have several years of competitive experience. She had been interested in gymnastics at an early age and took lessons, but that fell by the wayside when her parents put a pool in the backyard.

“She started doing things off the diving board,” her mother recalled. “Flips and things.”

The gymnastics background probably helped Lautenschlager. She won her first City championship as a sophomore and repeated this spring.

Competition at the high school level in Los Angeles is not a wholly reliable indicator. Because regulation diving pools and boards are few and far between, many schools do not have diving teams. Divers travel with the swim team and compete only when the opposing school has competition, and the facilities, to offer.

Lautenschlager is Granada Hills’ diving team. There is no one else, not even a coach.

However, Lautenschlager’s prep results against meager competition have been corroborated by success in regional and national amateur meets.

“They add the credibility that people might question,” said Book, who serves as treasurer for United States Diving, which is the sport’s governing body.

The amateur meets are what makes diving worthwhile, Lautenschlager said. She can see friends and have fun.

Lautenschlager doesn’t mind that diving isn’t a popular high school sport. Her friends know about her diving, and that’s enough. And she’s glad her school has no team. If it did, she might have to get up at 6 a.m. for practice or something like that.

Instead, Lautenschlager practices at a more comfortable hour: in the afternoons at Cal State Northridge with the Los Angeles Diving Team, which has about 35 junior divers and is coached by Taylor and Van Austen, diving coach at UCLA and CSUN.

Of course, Taylor sometimes questions his pupil’s work ethic. But the diving already has paid off as far as Lautenschlager is concerned. Earley said he expects that a number of colleges will offer her a scholarship when she graduates next year.

There is still something to prove, though. After last year’s showing at the nationals, the diver is determined to make a better impression when the championships are held in Irvine this August.

“When I get up there and I can’t do a dive, I get really aggravated,” she said. “I know I can do better.”