Miami Student

Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: Sports

Senior Ryan Reinke launches off the board at the Recreational Sports Center.

He steps onto the board and runs his fingers through his hair three times. Then brushes the water off his cheeks. Each one, three times. Adjusts the suit. Three times.

Good to go.

For Ryan Reinke, it's not something that should be done. It has to be done.

If Reinke, a senior captain on Miami's diving team, fails to repeat the steps, it becomes more than a distraction.

"It's not even being superstitious," Reinke said. "It's a physical impulse you have to do. It's (like obsessive-compulsive disorder). When you get on the board, you go through these OCD qualities."

He may feel the nerves before throwing his body into the water, but it's nothing new for Reinke, 22. He has been diving for more than eight years.

For most people, diving only takes place at the deep end of the community pool. But it's been a way of life for him since his freshman year at Amos Alonzo Stagg High School in Hickory Hills, Ill. There he played baseball, and having swam in grade school, joined the diving team.

Reinke said he enjoys the competition and the aspect of doing something that few other people can do. He also feels a need to dive.

"You're able to do it, but if you don't do it, you're wasting that gift," Reinke said.

He said he enjoys the individual pressure and the drive necessary for diving, a stark contrast from the team-first attitude in baseball.

"I like the atmosphere of practicing (in diving)," Reinke said. "I like competing against other people in meets. When you do well, it's because of you, not because of someone else."

Like any new activity, though, diving didn't come easy for Reinke in high school.

"I wasn't too good when I started," Reinke said. "Actually, I was pretty awful. But eventually I got a lot better and there was a time when I realized I was getting better at diving than I was at baseball."

As college came around, Reinke was thinking more and more that diving would be his sport.

He said he wanted a school with an excellent engineering program, but he also wanted to continue diving. He sent some tapes to the head diving coach at Miami, but at the time there were no open spots on the diving team.

Thus, academics trumped athletics and Reinke came to Miami not expecting to dive. But after talking to the coach and working out with the club team, Reinke was given a tryout.

Continued...

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