Daredevils in the deep end

“Diving is an interesting sport,” Magic City Diving coach Charlie Dunham said. 

While it is an intense physical sport, it also relies heavily on mental strength. You have to be tough and a little fearless to be good at diving. After all, you’re throwing yourself off of a springboard, flipping and spinning in the air and — usually — landing headfirst in the water. Or at least, that’s the goal.

“It takes a daredevil,” Dunham said. “A lot of kids, it takes a while to decide that they’re willing to be daredevils.” Even though diving might not be for everyone, Magic City Diving, which practices at the Hoover Recreation Center, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Dunham, who dove competitively in college, has been a coach for Magic City Diving since the program started and is the dive coach at Birmingham-Southern College.

“Since we started … we’ve had 19 high school state champions between men and women, three divers who were top 10 in the nation in USA Diving, a national champion runner-up in the AAU [Amateur Athletic Union] and three 11-and-under finalists at AAU,” Dunham said.

The team in Hoover has divers who compete under a variety of leagues, including USA Diving, AAU and the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA). The club also offers a summer league program and competes in the Alabama Recreation and Parks Association. During in-season, divers will travel across the Southeast to competitions.

“It’s a little bit of everything to everyone,” Dunham said. And everyone encompasses all who are willing to drive to one of the only diving clubs in the state. 

Dunham said there are a few clubs in Alabama, such as those in Huntsville, Mobile and Auburn, “and that’s kind of it for state and age-group diving. … It’s kind of an interesting niche that we’re filling.”

Since diving isn’t a common sport in Alabama and it can be difficult to find facilities for practices, Dunham said he has had athletes who spent hours in the car just to get to practice. He’s had kids from both Huntsville and Prattville make the trek to Hoover to dive.

The group has about two hours per day to use the pool, which is outfitted with 1-meter and 3-meter boards. Magic City Diving was originally a small group but has grown to nearly 40 registrants for this year’s fall programming.

“In diving world, that’s a large group,” Dunham said. 

Dunham said this year, they’ll be offering a program specifically for those who only want to dive in high school. That’s in addition to the lesson groups and the team group.

Even though it’s an age-group program, he said the groups are organized by commitment level, not by skill level or age. And there’s no age restriction, either.

He’s had divers as young as 4 and as old as 72, and they work together at practices. Everyone works on the same basic skills when they first start — jumping on the board correctly, for example — before working on the dives themselves.

This year, Dunham said he’s hoping to take some more kids to USA Diving and AAU nationals. And it’s the kids who are the highlight of what he does.

“I don’t coach diving because of the sport of diving, I coach diving because it kind of teaches them to overcome their fears,” he said. “Really, for me, the highlight is, I have yet to have a successful kid come out of the program and not be successful in life. For me that’s really what it is.”

To learn more about the sport of diving and the Magic City Diving club, visit magiccitydiving.com.