A clear head and a positive attitude. To win the biggest meet of his life, Johann Schmidt was going to need those two things. Well, those, and an almost perfect final dive.
Before his last attempt at nationals, Schmidt knew what he had to do. By the sophomore's calculations, he was going to need at least 47 points to become the Div. III one-meter national champion.
"You're not supposed to look up at the scoreboard at all, but I always do because I want to see where I am," Schmidt said. "I'm kind of a math guy."
The math was simple, but the task was daunting. Junior Gabe Dixon of Denison had just moved into first place by beautifully executing the same dive Schmidt was about to attempt, a dive that had given him problems all season long. Now, he had one chance to get it right. What if he messed up?
"I pictured myself doing my hurdle and then just falling off the board," Schmidt said, mimicking the gasp that would have emanated from the crowd. In the most important moment of his career, Schmidt's mind was betraying him.
He knew he had to improve his attitude before taking the leap, and to do it, he thought back to the story Amherst coach Mary Ellen Clark had told him when he first arrived at nationals, about her own experience diving under immense pressure in Indianapolis.
"She dove at Indianapolis during the Olympic trials," Schmidt said, "and before her last dive, she pictured her name on the wall with the other champions. She said, 'Visualization is the most important thing you can have.'"
And so, to bring his mind back to a positive place, Schmidt visualized. He visualized himself standing on the podium. He visualized himself soaring through the air, nailing the dive from takeoff to entry. And then he jumped.
'I didn't really want to train'
At the NESCAC Championships in late February, Schmidt won both the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions for a second straight year. Four career tries, four conference titles. The possibilities seemed endless.
And yet, with just a few weeks remaining before the national meet beginning on March 21, the motivation simply wasn't there. Schmidt had almost a month to train between NESCACs and NCAAs, and as Tufts' only diver making the trip, that meant almost a month of training alone. alone.
"Coming off of a high, you would think it would push you to do better, work on a lot of dives. But I was just a little down, didn't really want to train," Schmidt said. "I had no one else there, no one else to practice with, and I just was like, 'Whatever, I don't want to go to practice, I just want to go to nationals and do my dives.'"
Schmidt's goal was to make the top eight on both boards, and although Tufts diving coach Brad Snodgrass had slightly higher aspirations -- his goal was for Schmidt to place in the top three -- winning it all was never a topic of conversation. Schmidt had seen the top divers last year. He wasn't as good as they were.
But even without first-place aspirations, the pressure was overwhelming. A few times, when it was just Schmidt and Snodgrass at the pool, Schmidt cracked.
"He would tell me to do stuff, tell me to make corrections, and I wasn't making corrections," he said. "I wasn't getting better, I was actually getting worse. I just couldn't handle it."
But Snodgrass knew Schmidt's potential, and he felt Schmidt owed it to himself to maximize it. So he pushed him.
"There's a lot of gifted athletes that really never realize their potential," Snodgrass said. "We had many conversations this season where I had to remind him that, in exchange for his gift, he had to work a little bit harder. That was the price to pay."
At the same time, Snodgrass knew Schmidt was emotionally drained, and he didn't want to push him too far. Some days, he let Schmidt end practices early, and at times he took a step back and let his assistant coaches do the talking.
"He knew that I had had enough of him and couldn't stand him," Schmidt said with a laugh.
At the time, it didn't seem so funny.
"It was easy to get tired of each other after a long season and an additional month with just the two of us, but I knew we were going to get through it," Snodgrass said. "I didn't know whether we were going to get through it on friendly terms or on unfriendly terms, but I knew we would get through it one way or another."
In those final weeks, Snodgrass was part coach, part psychologist -- or, as he put it, "a sponge for negative vibes."
"It's not rocket science," he said. "It's feeling a positive attitude -- 'I can do this, I belong here' -- and de-emphasizing the things that don't go well."
With his coach guiding him, Schmidt managed to clear his head, work hard and get back to having fun. Once he arrived in Indianapolis, the pressure he felt had all but disappeared.
Still, it wasn't the last time he'd have to battle his mental demons. On his final dive, he'd be tested once more.
'Just like that. One dive.'
Up until the final week of training for nationals, Schmidt struggled to perfect the technique of the dive that would ultimately determine his championship fate. It was a reverse one-and-a-half somersaults with one-and-a-half twists, and while Schmidt often held it off until the end of practice, Snodgrass made sure he worked on it each day -- you know, just in case he might need it.
"We continued to make changes as much as we could without totally derailing him and starting from scratch, to improve it, to make it a better dive," Snodgrass said. "Those changes could have gone the other way, could have messed him up. But it didn't."
For Schmidt to win, just about everything had to go right. He had placed first in the preliminaries in the one-meter, putting him in great position to at least fulfill his coach's goal of a top-three finish. But one slip-up, one mental lapse, and his shot at victory would vanish.
Before the last dive, he had a brief moment of weakness -- or, perhaps more accurately, humanness -- imagining himself falling off the board. But with everyone watching, waiting to see whether he'd choke or rise to the occasion, visualization and instincts took over.
"I cleared my mind, I went on the board, saw myself doing the dive, and then just nailed it," Schmidt said. "And it was over, that was it. Just like that. One dive."
He needed a great effort, but this -- well, this was one of his best. Forty-seven points would have been enough. Schmidt scored almost 70.
The dive hadn't come easily in practice, but he pulled it off when it mattered most.
"It can be real discouraging when you've tried something 25 times and 25 times it doesn't work," Snodgrass said. "But finally for him, on the 26th time, it did work. That was pretty cool."
After Schmidt won, he cried. He had cried several times while training for the meet, but these were very different tears. Schmidt had embraced the challenge, and in doing so, he had reached new heights.
"It was the most amazing accomplishment, because I just had no idea it was coming," he said. "I think that's the sweetest part about it."
'I wouldn't say I'm amazing at what I do'
The last time a member of Tufts' men's swimming and diving program became a national champion was back in 1982, when Jim Lilley (LA '82) won the 100-meter butterfly and Keith Miller (LA '82) won the three-meter dive.
Miller, who has now been coaching diving at Harvard for 21 years, was a senior that year and, according to him, arrived at nationals having placed second in each of his previous three NCAA tries. In the one-meter as a senior, he placed second yet again. The three-meter was his final chance.
If ever there were a time for mental toughness, this was it. After three straight years of being second-best, Miller had one last shot at glory. And the rest, of course, is history.
"Mentally, [winning a championship] is a hard thing to try to do on purpose," Miller said. "You do all this work for a number of years, and if you happen to feel good and feel relaxed on that day, sometimes things fall into place. They did for me that day, and they did for Johann on his day."
In diving, one transcendent performance is all it takes.
"I know I'm not the best Div. III national diver, but on that day I definitely was," Schmidt said. "I was the most consistent, I did the best that day, and that's what matters in diving. For a year, I guess I can say I'm the best Div. III national diver."
The next time Schmidt goes to NCAAs, the competition will be even tougher, and he will be fighting to defend his crown and hopefully add a three-meter trophy to his mantelpiece. With two years of college diving still ahead of him, Schmidt knows he's not done yet.
"I still wouldn't say I'm amazing at what I do, because I can still put in more time, more effort, and there's a lot of guys out there who work really, really hard," he said.
While his words may sound like a typical champion's stab at humility, the scary part is that they just might be true.
"The thing about Johann is that he's just beginning to tap his potential," Snodgrass said. "In my eyes, he's still a relative beginner."
A beginner, yes, but one who's now proven himself on the biggest stage.
No matter what happens next year, or the year after that, Johann Schmidt is a national champion.
He can say that for the rest of his life.
