Diving into a new sport

To be a Division I athlete it takes years of practice, years of training and years of successful competition to prepare for the rigors of intercollegiate competition at its highest level.

For Rider freshman diver Breanne Hatter, it took about two months.

Before coming to Rider this fall, Hatter, a freshman from Lincroft, N.J. (Middletown South), had never even been to a swimming & diving meet, let alone take part in one. But she was already a world class athlete, just in a different sport.

Trampoline.

No, not those round blue things with the high walls that you see people crash through in their backyards on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Hatter trained and competed worldwide, performing acrobatic jumps in the pike, tuck and straddle positions, with the addition of somersaults and twists, on the 7-foot by 14-foot Olympic size trampolines.

That’s right, Olympic size. Trampoline has been an Olympic sport since 2000. And Hatter had Olympic aspirations.

“I was a Junior Elite when I gave it up,” Hatter said.

In trampoline, Junior Elite is the second highest level there is, in the world. “For me being at almost the top of my sport and now coming to diving, where I am so new, it is so different,” Hatter said. “People are cheering for me to do the simplest dives.”

In trampoline, she was perfecting the most difficult routines.

Trampoline competitions are similar to gymnastic meets, with routines graded by judges, marked on degree of difficulty, time of flight and execution. Not much different from competitive diving.

“I started out doing recreational gymnastics,” Hatter said. About a dozen years ago Hatter was no longer challenged by gymnastics, doing the floor exercise and the vault, and was looking for more. She tried competitive trampoline and was hooked.

And she was very good. She competed on a United States Gymnastics certified team. Her trampoline coach was a former World Champion from Russia. In 2008 Hatter placed seventh at U.S. Nationals. In 2012 she was third. In 2013 and 2014 she placed runner-up at Nationals. Hatter made the Olympic Development Program and began her international competitions. As a member of the World Age Group team she competed for the United States in London in 2011. She has competed in 10 different countries around the world, finishing first at the Flanders Cup in Belgium.

With all of that success, however, the goal of an Olympic berth did not materialize. “One person from my team made it in 2012,” Hatter said. “He was the only male to go. When I was a high school junior I was just 16 and you had to be 18 to go to the Olympics. I would have had to stay at my community college to train, so I decided it was time to get my education.”

So how do you make the transition from trampoline to diving?

“It was a little difficult at first because she is used to landing on her feet,” said Rider diving coach Eric Blevins. “It has been fun watching her learn. She figures it out. She has that fearless attitude. And she has learned really hard dives in about a month. She already has four dives that most women in the conference don’t have. She’s going to be a real asset to our team.”

“Ever since I was little my parents wanted me to dive,” Hatter remembered. “I said I never would, but when we saw the prices of the colleges I wanted to attend, a diving scholarship started to sound better and better.”

This summer Hatter took part in a month-long training period with a club diving team. “After that I decided diving wasn’t too bad. So I came on a visit to Rider and talked to Coach Blevins,” Hatter remembered. The rest, as they say, is history.

“Trampoline and diving do go hand-in-hand,” Hatter explained. “It is the same flips. The twisting is only a little different. My coach is always saying ‘If only in diving you were supposed to go in on your feet.’ That’s my biggest thing, trying to learn to go in head first.”

So, after a month of summer training and another month practicing with the Rider team, Hatter began her diving career by winning the three-meter dive against UMBC in the first meet of the season.

“That was definitely cool,” Hatter said. “I am more comfortable with the one-meter because I am still learning and in the one-meter if I smack it won’t hurt as much as if I smack from three meters.”

The term ‘smack’ in diving probably needs no explanation.

“I’m doing a lot of smacking,” Hatter said. “Every day I’m learning a new dive. It is all so new. I’ve never done it before. What I do love about the three-meter is the feeling when you do a dive right and feel that time in the air. It’s a pretty cool feeling.”

The Rider swimming & diving fans think it is pretty cool to have a world class athlete on the team, even if she is brand new to this sport.

“It turns out, I like it,” Hatter said. “I love the team, I love the coaches. Trampoline is more of an individual sport. Here if I win I help the team win. I like that.”

The Rider swimming & diving fans like that too.