The long-standing CHS girls diving record has been broken after 27 years! Jae Cody’s (‘99) dive score of 378.05 has been the diving record since 1998, and until recently, it was unbeatable. In just one dive season, two different divers beat this record. Sami Yarbrough (‘27) first beat the score with 382.20 points. Yarbrough’s record was then beaten by her teammate Rosemary McFall (‘28) who scored 433.00 points less than a month later. In diving, points are earned by each dive getting scored by three judges, and then those scores are multiplied by the difficulty of each dive. Divers compete in six dives at dual meets, and eleven at championship meets such as county, region, and state. Whoever has the highest score wins.
When the previous record was set in 1998, there were no coaches specifically designated to coach the dive team.
“We just coached each other; the older kids helped coach me, and when they graduated, I helped coach the rest of the team, which was kind of fun,” said Cody.
The current dive team got a new coach this year, Coach Tracy, which has been beneficial to helping Yarbrough and McFall improve over the course of the season.
“[Having a new coach] has really helped because she has a different perspective and coaching style than our old coach. She was both a gymnast and diver when she was younger, so she knows a lot about what we are doing,” said McFall.
With the addition of a new coach, these two divers were able to take feedback from the new perspective.
“She gives really critical feedback for every dive, but I’ve learned to take it as it is and use it to make every dive better,” said Yarbrough.
Some divers believe that having a background in gymnastics makes it really easy to transfer over the control and flexibility it takes to be a diver.
“I did gymnastics for nine years before quitting [the sport] and [starting] club diving at Marist. I did that for about six months in eighth grade before moving to only diving at Chamblee as a freshman,” said McFall.
Yarbrough also has a background in gymnastics, which she believes has helped her as a diver.
“Gymnastics hasn’t only given me physical attributes and the ability to control my body, but it has also helped me focus in on what I’m doing during competitions,” said Yarbrough.
Cody was also a gymnast prior to starting her diving career.
“I was a pretty serious gymnast, but started getting burnt out at the end of seventh grade. I wanted to try diving, but my parents didn’t want me to until I got to high school; in ninth grade they let me try it,” said Cody.
Flexibility gained from gymnastics can come into play while diving. McFall used specific moves while diving to increase her degree of difficulty (DD), thus increasing her scores.
“Twisting is definitely [my biggest strength]. It gives me a higher DD,” said McFall.
Yarbrough has been working on overcoming a mental block from previous seasons.
“Last season, I struggled a lot mentally because I’m such a perfectionist. This made me get really upset and have lots of anxiety during meets because I was putting so much pressure on myself to do well,” said Yarbrough. “But this season, my mentality has changed, and I’ve been able to give myself a lot more grace instead of thinking I need to be perfect all the time. My mentality has been the main thing that’s helped me [beat the record], along with continuing to just show up and go to practice consistently.”
Through all of their hard work and determination, Yarbrough and McFall were able to pull off something that no other diver at CHS has been able to do for the last 27 years!
