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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

Huber watching team grow

Senior Amy Korthauer stands at the edge of the board, calm and still like the water she prepares to leap into.

She spreads her arms out wide, letting her muscles relax, closing her eyes, taking it all in.

Then, it’s time. She leaps. And as she hits the water, causing gentle ripples to circle across the pool, you can see she has come into her own as a diver at IU since her freshman year. And even if you don’t know a Gainer from a back three-and-a-half twister, you know she’s good – as is the rest of her team.

With a win against No. 13 Louisville this past weekend and three-time Big Ten Swimmer of the Week senior Kate Fesenko leading the way, the women’s swimming and diving squad has, for a young team, made astounding progress this year.

“I told them at the Christmas training camp we did that Rome wasn’t built in a day but we’ve certainly come a long, long way to get into the foundation laying,” IU coach Jeff Huber said. “It’s probably as much improvement as I’ve ever seen in one team, and I’ve been doing this for 33 years.”

With 13 upperclassmen on a 34-person team, you would expect these athletes to be suffering from a lack of experience and be feeling the pain of the loss of former NCAA champion diver Christina Loukas, but that’s where you’d be wrong. This team is just as strong as ever before – in and out of the pool.

Just ask Heidi Mahnken. She’ll tell you the team’s success is not purely based on what it does in the water.

“I think we’ve really progressed a lot as a team,” she said. “We’re definitely a really close team this year. We have a lot of good character on the team. We’re all so different, but also alike at the same time.”

Huber gives most of the credit to his athletes – and for good reason. After all, he says, when you’re diving off of the equivalent of a three-story building and hitting the water at 35 mph, it’s hard not to credit the person doing it.

But he deserves some credit, as well, for everything this team accomplishes stems from Huber’s goal to help all his athletes do their best.

“That’s what brings me back to coaching every year – just seeing the potential that’s there and helping to be a player in that,” he said. “Helping them, not just to grow as athletes, but as students and role models and human beings.”

His work is evident in every spin, every flip, every spring off the diving board as they prepare for Nationals.

As Mahnken hits the water with a tiny splash. Huber smiles and compliments her. A star athlete. A star student. A star role model.

As he asks rhetorically, “What else can you ask for?”

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