DIVING / NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS : He Competes With Body, Not Soul

Diving is the last thing Scott Donie should be doing.

It is tearing him up inside.

Yet, there he was Wednesday morning, throwing an inward 1 1/2 somersault, the first of 11 dives in the three-meter springboard semifinals of the Phillips 66 National Diving Championships at USC Swim Stadium.

“It’s really hard,” he said. “I’m totally burnt out. I’m not enjoying it at all.”

Donie is competing in the season-ending event for the sake of those who share his depressive state.

“I’m trying to turn off the negative voices, to stay strong and to finish,” said Donie, 24. “All my life, I did it for myself. Now I just want to do it for other people. Maybe I can inspire people who have problems with depression.”

Donie’s troubles began six weeks after he took the silver medal in the platform event at the Barcelona Olympic Games last summer. For the first time in his 16-year career, he lost his love for diving. His inability to regain what had been a passion for the sport reached a crisis two weeks ago at the U.S. Olympic Festival in San Antonio.

Thirty seconds into a handstand on the platform, he returned to his feet and climbed down the tower.

His public display of fragility proved uplifting.

“That definitely helped,” Donie said. “It took off the pressure. People are looking at me more as a person now and less as a diver. After winning an Olympic silver medal, people want to look at you as an athlete and that’s all.”

For most of his life, that is how Donie saw himself. His identity and self-worth were tied directly to his ability to jump, spin, somersault, and knife into the water.

“When the most important thing in your life is not as important any more, you feel empty,” he said.

For 11 dives Wednesday, Donie was able to push his somber thoughts back in his mind and finished with a No. 6 seeding for Saturday’s 12-man finals.

“I turn it off and let my body do what it’s trained to do,” Donie said.

If he can get through the weekend, a six-month sabbatical awaits.

“I want to fill my time with other things,” Donie said. “Hopefully, I’ll realize that diving isn’t everything and I can go back and do it for fun.”

Diving Notes

On his final dive, a reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists, John Sharkey hit his head on the board. Sharkey, 25, of the Coral Springs, Fla., Diving team, was taken out of the pool on a backboard, his neck wrapped in a brace, and sent by ambulance to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan. X-rays of his neck and back were negative. The cut on his head was closed by eight stitches, and he was released.

Barcelona Olympic gold medalist Mark Lenzi scored 636.93 points in the three-meter semifinals and was seeded No. 1 for Saturday’s finals. Patrick Jeffrey scored the second-highest total (604.62), followed by Barcelona Olympian Kent Ferguson (594.63), defending national champion Mark Bradshaw (575.19) and Chuck Wade (570.72). Ricky Wood of Rose Bowl Aquatics made the 12-man cut with the 11th-highest total (517.11).

Lenzi finished with a flourish. His reverse 3 1/2 somersault in the tuck position (with a degree of difficulty of 3.5, the highest in the sport) earned five 7 1/2s and two 7s. Lenzi, 25, has contemplated retirement, although at this point he plans to dive in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Until recently, he was concerned about the future of U.S. diving. But the emergence of USC’s Brian Earley, NCAA platform champion P.J. Bogart of Minnesota and 17-year-old Chris Manilla of Coral Springs, Fla., have allayed his concerns.

Mary Ellen Clark, the 1992 Olympic platform bronze medalist, dominated the women’s field with 407.64 points in Wednesday’s semifinals to gain the No. 1 seeding in Saturday’s platform finals. Joy Burkholder of the Mission Viejo Nadadores scored 370.71 points, the second-highest total. . . . The women’s one-meter semifinals start today at 10 a.m. The men’s platform semifinals are set for 3 p.m., followed by the women’s one-meter finals at about 6:30 p.m.