Lakewood – Membership into Caty Cook’s family is issued at birth. Joining the Cook diving club, however, takes some time.
Caty Cook, an All-America diver at the University of Northern Colorado in 1981 and now in her 23rd year as coach of Bear Creek’s swimming and diving teams, brought her girls to meets before they could walk to the edge of the board. But none of the three started diving until her freshman year of high school.
Those early experiences must have transferred, and the late start seems to have helped them stay fresh.
Sarah, a senior, and Kelly, a junior, are aiming for top-four finishes at this season’s Class 5A state championships. And the youngest, Abby, is on track to qualify for the state meet in her freshman year.
“Their potential is unlimited. But, since they have just been high school divers and they haven’t dedicated their lives to diving, they are not in that burnout stage. They don’t live and breathe diving. There is a life outside of it,” said Caty, a single mom.
The Cooks do seem to have fun outside the pool. Even the group effort on their home phone voice mail has some laughs. But things can turn a bit more serious when it comes to diving, as Abby found out during a practice under the watch of her mom.
“The first time I buckled down and dove at one of her practices, I smacked the water so hard on a back 1 1/2 that I said I wasn’t going to do that again. I got bruises, and there was no way I wanted to try it a second time,” Abby said.
Mom, however, had other ideas.
“I treated her like I would any other swimmer or diver. I said: ‘Sorry, Hon. You have to do what the coach says or you’ll get your buns booted out of practice,”‘ Caty said.
Those hard lessons are paying off, and a little tough love in practice hasn’t caused any rifts at home or school.
“We go to school together, we dive together and we live together. And it works really well,” Caty said.
Caty Cook graduated from Pomona the year after the Colorado High School Activities Association sanctioned girls sports and did not start diving seriously until a friend at UNC encouraged her to walk on to the team. She did just that as a sophomore, and two years later she earned All-America status.
Sarah may be the first to follow in those footsteps. She finished seventh at state last season, one point and one place behind Kelly, and would like to dive at UNC. For now, she is working on her consistency and helping Caty coach the boys team. Getting the boys’ respect was hard at first, but not anymore.
“When I was a freshman, it wasn’t easy. But they’ve learned,” Sarah said.
The competition between Sarah and Kelly, and now Abby, has been a motivating factor.
“We are always switching off. At league, I beat her out,” Sarah said. “At state, she beat me out. It pushes me harder, especially if I have a bad meet and my sister beats me out.”
Abby said she feels some pressure trying to keep up with her older sisters, but having a close-knit family removes some of the heat.
“I have pretty big feet, but I have really big shoes to fill,” Abby said. “There is a big age difference between us, and it’s hard for me to get the dives that they have. But it’s been worth all the bruises and pain.”
With an All-American for a coach, Abby has a handy resource for improvement. And though she won’t admit to it, Caty pulls out some of her UNC tales and uses them as coaching tools.
“She likes to tell her college stories sometimes,” Kelly said. “If we are doing something incorrectly, she might tell us how she did it back in college.”
