Diving programs deserve more respect from athletic directors

In reference to a recent Acorn article on high school diving, I would like to give you some information on the sport.

In universities they don't have logistical problems.

They suffer from the same problems as the high schools by having to remove the lane lines and putting them back in for the swimmers. It is an excuse, nothing more.

I was a diver for Newbury Park from 1992-96.

I won three Marmonte League titles and placed fourth in CIF three straight times. When we were diving, we never traveled with the swim team.

It has always been separate and no new problems have occurred, only athletic directors who don't want to fund Olympic sports.

I took a full scholarship to the University of Nebraska for diving. I traveled the world to dive: Mexico, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, South Korea, England, Czech Republic, Turkey, Greece, Austria, Australia and China.

By not offering a full, diverse range of Olympic sports, you are essentially ensuring fewer students will go to college because they cannot afford it. I would not have gone to college if I had not been an athlete. It's that simple. And now more people are losing their chances to have such an opportunity.

I started diving in high school and I got to the peak of my sport by the end of high school. The confidence that I received from this sport led me to not only pursue a master's degree but also a doctorate in computational linguistics and learning theory through IT Development.

I currently live in Saudi Arabia and am the manager for a language school that covers the entire Middle East.

I have lived in Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Turkey and now Saudi Arabia. I have traveled to exactly 50 countries and 48 states. This type of life is possibly due to diving.

The more ignorant the athletic directors are to the impact 12 years down the road that sports in high school make on their students, the fewer chances they will have in life. Dr. Charles Law Saudi Arabia