Diver's hopes soar as college beckons
The picture has been taken. The plaque is finished.
There's just a minor formality stopping Carlin Dacey from being inducted into Choate Rosemary Hall's Athletics Hall of Fame.
"You have to have graduated to be in the Hall of Fame," Choate diving coach Ben Small said of the gifted senior.
Dacey, a West Roxbury native, signed a national letter of intent to attend Northwestern University, where she would be diving for a Division 1 powerhouse in the Big 10 Conference.
She went on five official recruiting trips - Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Northwestern, and the University of Notre Dame - and one unofficial trip to the University of Virginia. All the schools possess strong diving and academic reputations. Dacey said location was the deciding factor.
"I loved Chicago," she said. "I heard they have great jazz."
Northwestern also has a great coach in Alik Sarkisian. A 13-time Armenian national champion, Sarkisian has coached the Armenian National Team (1991-'93), the 1996 US Olympic team in Atlanta, the Russian National Team (1980-'90), and the US National Team in the 2003 and 2005 Pan-Am Games.
The 5-foot-6-inch Dacey broke the New England Prep School 11-dive record in a championship format by earning 486.65 points, topping the old record of 444. She also holds the New England Prep School six-dive record on the 1-meter board (280.15) and the Western New England Prep School 11-dive record on the 1-meter board (435.15). Dacey also holds pool records at Andover (257.35), and Hopkins (258.15).
Dacey scored a perfect 10 on a dive during the last home meet of the 2007 season. "Reverse dive pike," she recalled. She received scores of 10, 9 1/2, and 9 1/2.
"It was amazing," she said.
Small said Dacey is the best diver in New England.
"I've seen a fair number of divers," said Small, a former diver at Middlebury College now in his 12th year at Choate, in Wallingford, Conn. "That's the first 10 I've seen."
Small is fortunate to have seen Dacey at all. Dacey, also a three-year varsity soccer player, had no interest in diving until the age of 12; funny, since her mother, Kathy, swam at the University of Miami, and her sister, Kendall, now a sophomore at Amherst College, was an All-American in swimming and water polo at Choate.
"I always thought swimming was boring," Carlin Dacey said.
She did gymnastics until she was 10. Her father, Daniel, 54, who ran track at the College of the Holy Cross, thought gymnastics was too dangerous.
"My heart was in my mouth every time she was on the balance beam," he said.
Dacey took up soccer and was good at it, but the travel was tough. "We got sick of all the driving," her mother said.
That's when Dacey began diving at the Charles River Diving Club at Harvard University. She was a natural.
"Her gymnastics background helped out," Small said.
Dacey agrees.
"It gives you awareness in the air," she said. "Even if you get a horrible takeoff and you feel like you're barely spinning, your eyes are looking and you can feel in the tuck how fast you're going, which helps, so you don't smack."
Despite the success, Dacey is behind the eight ball heading to Northwestern. Many collegiate divers have been training almost since they were in diapers - many at Olympic facilities.
A lot of collegiate divers have lifted weights, done Pilates, and danced - focused solely on the sport of diving.
"They have a whole program," said Dacey.
She doesn't.
But she will this summer. Dacey is moving to New Canaan, Conn., to train with coaches and prepare for collegiate competition. She'll also gain experience diving off 3- and 10-meter boards - Choate has neither.
Weightlifting and training are going to be her only two friends after graduation. "I'll be training twice a day," Dacey said. "I don't want to go to college and not be ready for any of it."
Dacey has gone to private schools - she attended the Southfield School in Brookline for 10 years - her entire life, which should ease her transition a bit. Her parents said they will fly out and watch her compete.
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