PLUNGING IN HEAD FIRST

February 16, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

East Palestine’s Faith Anderson and GIRARD’S savannah teter EYE return to state diving meet

YOUNGSTOWN

Behind the diving board where she obsessively wrings out her eyebrows, above the bubbling water she uses to calm her nerves and next to the wooden board she raps for good luck, stands Savannah Teter’s drawing pillar.

Well, actually, it’s just a pillar. But when the Girard junior can’t visualize a dive in her head — i.e. “when I have a mind problem,” she said — she walks over to the pillar and, using her finger, draws the diving board, the water and the dive.

But that’s just the start. Like a lot of divers, Teter also likes to use a “bubbler,” which is basically an air compressor that creates a cushion of bubbles just below the diving board. Nothing strange there, except that Teter likes the noise that it makes when the bubbles evaporate so much that, when it goes away, she asks her teammates to make the noise for her.

Oh, and on tougher dives, Teter will often walk up to the edge of the diving board. Then walk back. Then walk forward. Then ... well, you get the idea. And when she’s finally — finally! — ready to dive, she’ll wipe her face and “organize” her eyebrows, wiping out the water and making sure they’re even. Then, when she gets out of the water, she’ll reach for the same shammy, the one she calls “ugly” because the pattern has faded away.

“I’m 58 years into this sport, with almost 40 coaching, and she’s probably one of the top two strongest divers I’ve ever seen,” said her coach, Nick Gavolas, who also coaches Youngstown State’s divers. “I literally see her as an Olympic potential, if she wanted to do it. If she put her mind to it.”

Ah, but there’s the problem. Her mind. Telemarketers have fewer hang-ups than Teter.

“She has a lot of OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder] tendencies, which is not good for a diver,” Gavolas said. “She does a lot of weird things.”

Natural talent

She also does a lot of difficult things, and does them well. In addition to being a two-time state diving qualifier, she is also an All-Ohio high jumper who plays trombone in the marching band and taught herself to play piano, bass guitar and the ukelele.

She didn’t start diving until the eighth grade, yet she made the state meet as a freshman, finishing 16th with 335.5 points. Last year, she finished eighth with 340.5.

This year, she placed third at the prestigious Canton Christmas Invitational with 383.15 points, despite failing one of her 11 dives. (East Palestine sophomore Faith Anderson, who trains with Teter at the Beeghly Center pool, placed fourth.)

And last month, Teter set an All-American Conference meet record with 472.95 points, breaking Warren Harding’s pool record in the process.

“Savannah is probably one of the top five divers in the state out of both divisions,” Navarra said. “She could probably push for a championship.”

For that to happen, she has to perform difficult dives, which is fine with her. A few weeks ago, her other diving coach, Ron Navarra, asked her to try a reverse 2 1/2, a dive most high school girls won’t even attempt.

“It’s a harder skill,” she said, “but I’d rather do harder dives.”

After going through her routine, Teter ended up landing flat on her back with so much force that it took a week for the welts and the bruises to disappear. But as she came out of the water, she was excited.

“I’m like, ‘I did it!’” she said.

“She actually doesn’t like to do a lot of repetitions,” Navarra explained. “She likes to get it right the first time and move on. She usually picks things up pretty fast.”

So if she’s OK with trying, and OK with failing, what’s the problem?

Not even Teter can answer that.

“I’m perfectly fine physically; I can do any skill you ask me to do,” she said. “It’s literally my mind that gets in the way of every single thing.”

Study in contrasts

Fortunately for Gavolas and Navarra, most divers aren’t like this, and they would know. Because diving is such a niche sport — and because there are so few diving coaches — they coach most of the divers in the tri-county area, as well as a few in Pennsylvania. Teter and Anderson were the only Mahoning Valley girls to advance to last year’s state meet.

Like most divers, Teter and Anderson started out as gymnasts before injuries forced them to find a softer landing point. Teter broke nine bones before moving to the pool. Anderson did gymnastics for seven years — sometimes training for four hours a day — before elbow surgery forced her to quit.

“I started diving once a week just for fun and when I wasn’t able to do gymnastics anymore, I decided to take on diving full-time,” she said. “I fell in love with it.”

Like Teter, she started diving (seriously) in eighth grade. And, like Teter, she advanced to Canton as a freshman, finishing 19th last season.

But that’s where the similarities end. While Teter is a tall, powerful diver, Anderson is more petite, relying on her finesse.

“She makes everything look pretty,” Gavolas said. “She’s got great toes, great lines and when she does everything correctly, she looks great.”

Anderson also prefers Navarra and his calm personality to Gavolas, who comes across like a third grader who just drank five Red Bulls.

“She doesn’t like Nick to joke around with her very much,” Navarra said. “She’s very determined. She wants to get up on the board and do her thing.”

Does Gavolas do it anyway?

“Yes, of course,” Gavolas said. “Because to test focus, you have to give them something they don’t like. I do that with my college divers, too. I’m always doing something to upset the apple cart a little bit, like changing a workout midstream. Because when you get to a meet, things are gonna change and you’ve got to be ready to deal with that. And if you have experience dealing with adversity, it’s going to help you.”

Teter enters Wednesday’s Division II district diving meet as the third-ranked diver in Northeast Ohio. Anderson is fourth. Both have set their sights on return trips to Canton.

The only thing holding back Anderson is her confidence.

“I don’t have a lot of self-confidence,” she admitted. “Gymnastics kind of wore me down. I don’t usually get nervous for small meets, but I get real nervous for big meets. With districts coming up, I’m real nervous for that.”

The only thing holding back Teter is ... well, Teter.

“Usually my coach will tell me, ‘I know what you’re going through and you can do this. This only thing holding you back is [your mind],’” Teter said. “‘As always, you need to tell it to stop. You need to shut it off.’”

She knows he’s right. And she would, if only her eyebrows would cooperate.

And those bubbles.

And ...