UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Injury Ends Gym Career, So She Hits Diving Board

As a sprite, acrobatic, and slightly accident-prone 6-year-old, Holly Powell realized that her athletic destiny lay somewhere between flipping and flying, crashing and crying.

That is, until Powell, now a freshman at UC Irvine, took a tumble for the worse.

Twelve years ago, Powell was swinging from a shower curtain, honing her new-found gymnastics skills. But the curtain came down, Powell crashed onto the tub and shattered her knee caps.

The knee caps healed, but not without excessive bone formation, and continual stress and strain on her knee cartilage.

Although Powell became a Class 1 gymnast--one level below the highest class, Elite--the pain in her knees eventually caught up with her. At 16, despite years of physical therapy, Powell was told by doctors that she must either quit gymnastics or have surgery and switch to a more knee-friendly sport.

She had the surgery and two months after removing her casts, Powell was leaping into a new athletic career: Diving.

“I didn’t want 10 years of gymnastics to go to waste,” she said.

Powell is one of the brightest stars on UC Irvine’s diving squad. Although she has less than 1 1/2 years of experience, Powell has qualified in the one- and three-meter springboard events for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. regional championships March 9-10 at Provo, Utah.

“Holly is just one incredible athlete,” Irvine Coach Conni Earley said. “Just within the last four or five months, her development has been tremendous.”

Most credit Powell’s background in gymnastics for her quick adaptation to diving. Body control and strength are attributes of each sport. Powell’s power-packed frame--she is 5-feet-2, 120 pounds--gives her great leaping ability, especially helpful for platform diving.

“She is a very powerful athlete, therefore she can do multiple somersaults,” Earley said. “She’s good at both twisting and spinning--most divers can only do one or the other.”

If there is one thing Powell needs to improve, Earley said, it would be her grace.

“Conni’s always telling me, ‘Holly, don’t use your muscles so much. Think graceful. Pretend you’re a ballerina,’ ” Powell said. “I guess I’ll be taking ballet lessons sometime this year.”

In addition to addressing boosters and media on Monday about Irvine’s search for an athletic director, Horace Mitchell, UCI’s vice chancellor of student affairs and interim athletic director, said the university hopes to increase the number of athletic scholarships awarded each year.

“Right now we (offer) 65 scholarships, costing us $500,000 a year,” Mitchell said. “Long term, we want to offer at least double that amount. We’d need $1 million just to cover the scholarship cost.”

Mitchell said the community surrounding the university has that kind of donation power. “The problem is, we’re running our (fund-raising) campaign when our highlight sport (men’s basketball) is not winning,” he said.

Ricky Butler, the leading scorer on the men’s basketball team, said Tuesday he seriously considered quitting the team recently.

Butler, a 6-7 junior center, said his frustration hit a low after Irvine’s latest two losses--to UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Fullerton--in which he scored two points in each game. Entering the Santa Barbara game, Butler was averaging 14.8 points a game. His current scoring average is 13.4.

Butler said talks with his mother and close friends convinced him to continue playing.

“I’m just being positive, thinking positive and trying to do my best now,” he said.

After only four matches, the Irvine women’s tennis team is in dire straits. Of its 12 players, seven are either injured or ill.

Freshman Maggie Powers must wear a cast for most of the season because of tendon problems in her foot. She may redshirt this year.

Returning No. 1 singles player Courtney Weischel, the team’s only senior, hasn’t played since April because of a recurring groin injury.

Christi Bailey, a junior who hasn’t played in the past two years because of injuries, is recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident last fall.

Freshman Michelle Foster of Mission Viejo has recovered from last fall’s knee surgery but now has tendinitis in her feet.

Of the remaining players, one has a pinched neck nerve, one has low-grade pneumonia and one has tonsillitis.

“It’s a whole litany of disasters,” Coach Doreen Irish said. “Right now, we’re kind of a mess.”

Anteater Notes

Maria Akraka, the Swedish 800-meter star who transferred from Iowa State this month, will have to sit out the track season this spring because of an NCAA transfer rule, but she will be eligible to compete for Irvine in cross-country this fall, Coach Danny Williams said. Akraka likely will compete unattached at the Mt. SAC and Drake relays. . . . Sophomore Matt Farmer won the 20th Cal State Los Angeles decathlon with 7,031 points--the best mark in the nation this year. Sophomore Marc Kallick, a former hurdles standout at Marina High, placed seventh (6,049) and senior Trindl Fearnley finished fifth in the heptathlon (4,579). . . . The men’s tennis team, ninth in the Volvo Tennis/Collegiate rankings, play at No. 20 Arizona Saturday and Arizona State Sunday. Seniors Trevor Kronemann and Shige Kanroji will compete in the Rolex National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships Feb. 8-11 at Minneapolis. . . . The baseball team opened its season with a 13-6 loss to Loyola Marymount Tuesday. The Anteaters play at Cal State Los Angeles Friday, and play host to Chapman Saturday and UC Riverside Sunday. . . . Irvine’s home swim meet Saturday against UNLV will start at 2 p.m., instead of noon as originally scheduled.