Leading up to U.S. Olympic Diving Trials, coach James Sweeney made Lauren Reedy compete in mock meets twice a week. Sweeney would announce Reedy’s dives over a microphone at the Mizzou pool, and he would score her based on her performance.
No one dove against Reedy at the meets. It was just her, the board and the pressure of competition.
From April to May — just weeks before June’s Olympic Trials — Reedy struggled.
“For six weeks, she failed miserably at it,” Sweeney said.
Each of those weeks, Reedy failed at least one dive in every mock competition. She struggled to find the right mindset, but she and Sweeney kept working.
“We just were relentless,” Sweeney said. “Relentless about learning how to think right, learning how to master herself. And eventually she did.”
**Reedy’s Mindset**
When Reedy competes, she is doing more than simply diving. She is worshiping God.
“He created me and created my body to function the way it does and the abilities and talents that I have, and when I get on the diving board, that’s what’s going through my mind,” she said. “If it’s a meet and there’s a crowd, if I do something beautiful with my body, they’ll get excited about it and cheer. And that’s worship to the Creator.”
Sweeney says each diver has to figure out their own optimal mindset for competition. And for Reedy, finding her faith-based outlook took a full year of training.
Reedy did not dive for Missouri during the 2015-16 season. Instead, she took a redshirt year to train for Olympic Trials. She and Sweeney focused on three aspects during the year: fundamentals, consistency and the ability to compete.
Reedy’s hard work paid off. Her consistency improved, she discovered her ideal mindset for competition, and her diving reached new heights.
In June, the redshirt senior finished third at U.S. Olympic Diving Trials in the 3-meter springboard event, missing the Olympic team by just one place.
For Reedy, the Olympic Trial experience brought mixed emotions.
“Obviously, I would have loved to have been one of the top two and gone to Rio and done that whole thing, but at the same time, I was really pleased with the way I dove and figured a lot of things out,” she said. “It was an opportunity for it to be more stress and more fear than ever, just with it being televised and everyone watching and everybody commenting on Facebook and stuff like that. But I competed with more peace than I’ve ever competed with before.”
Lauren Reedy poses for a photo with former Mizzou diver Clark Thomas at U.S. Olympic Trials.Courtesy of Lauren Reedy
**Finding Reedy**
James Sweeney was frustrated.
He had been recruiting two top-level divers to come to Mizzou. Then, on the same day in 2011, both called Sweeney to tell him they were going to other schools.
Sweeney called his friend Buck Smith, the diving coach at Eastern Michigan. The Missouri coach needed to vent.
“I just want to find someone that no one has ever heard of and make her really good,” he said.
“Dude,” Smith replied. “I’ve got your girl.”
At the time, Reedy was a senior in high school going through the recruiting process. She had toured Michigan, Indiana, Texas A&M and Louisville, but none of the schools felt right for her. She was only allowed by the NCAA to take one more official visit, and she did not know where to go.
The weekend after he talked to Smith, Sweeney flew to Michigan to see Reedy dive. He convinced her to use her last official visit to come to Columbia.
“I took a trip the next weekend to Mizzou and just fell in love with everything,” she said. “The campus, the team, with the coach, with the facilities.”
Much like how she ended up at Mizzou, Reedy came across the sport of diving by chance.
Entering Rochester High School in Rochester Hills, Michigan, diving was not even on Reedy’s radar. She was a hockey goalie and a softball catcher and wanted to play one of the two sports in college.
A young Lauren Reedy poses for a photo in her hockey uniform.COURTESY OF LAUREN REEDY
Her freshman year, she joined the diving team because it did not conflict with her hockey schedule. She had been a gymnast growing up, and she missed doing flips.
“After the first practice, I remember coming home and teaching my dad in the living room everything I learned,” she said.
But Reedy was not immediately successful. She did not qualify for state as a freshman, and she finished in last place at the meet as a sophomore. Then she began club diving and went on to win the state title as a senior.
“I was asking coaches to recruit me completely on potential,” she said. “I hadn’t done anything worth anything.”
Luckily for both Mizzou and Reedy, Sweeney was willing to take a chance on her.
**Learning the Fundamentals**
Reedy came to Mizzou with immense — but unrefined — athletic abilities. Since she did not start diving year-round until her sophomore year of high school, she was still learning about certain elements of the sport.
During Reedy’s redshirt season, building her fundamentals was one of Sweeney’s main focuses.
“I’ve been to tons of international meets, things like that, and never seen a girl capable of doing some of the dives that she’s capable of doing,” Sweeney said. “But she always had a lack of fundamentals. She didn’t grow up having those fundamentals ingrained into her. And so we kind of had to retroactively train her like an age-group diver for half the day and then the second half of the day train her like an elite-level diver.”
Over the course her redshirt year, Reedy’s fundamentals and consistency improved, culminating in her strong showing at Olympic Trials.
Now, Reedy is back competing with Mizzou, and she has already made her presence known for the Tigers. The senior has earned Southeastern Conference Diver of the Week honors twice and has set the Mizzou record in the 3-meter springboard, all within the first few months of the season.
“As far as diving goes, I would love to be an SEC and NCAA Champion,” she said. “So that’s kind of what I’m working towards everyday.”
Reedy’s impact is felt outside of the diving well, too. Her swimming and diving teammates voted her and swimmer Katharine Ross the captains for the 2016-17 season.
For Reedy, the title of captain is an honor.
“I … want to lead my team well and love them well and listen to them well and empower them to take over when I leave, so that’s kind of where my head’s at in regards to that,” she said. “It is a little bit more pressure, stress, but it’s fun too.”
Reedy has started to look ahead past her college career. She wants to continue diving through the 2020 Olympic cycle, and she hopes to train with some of the world’s elite divers in China next year.
But for now, Reedy’s main focus is on her college season, and Sweeney thinks she’s capable of going out with a bang.
“By the end of the year, she is capable of a perfect performance,” Sweeney said. “And the outcome of Lauren Reedy’s perfect performance is there wouldn’t be anyone even close to her.”
_Edited by George Roberson | groberson@themaneater.com_