For the past six years, students have had the opportunity to participate in four different winter sports that are sponsored by the Nebraska State Activities Association (NSAA). Students could choose between basketball, wrestling, bowling or swimming. However, despite undergoing numerous changes and challenges within the past couple of years, the high schools’ shared aquatics program continues to evolve by adding a dive team back into the mix.
This is not the first time Gretna has had a dive team, though. If anyone ever walked through the awards hallway by the main and auxiliary gyms and glanced over at the swimming school records, they woud see the name Philip Matya on the boys’ side of the board. Matya was a diver for Gretna from 2018 to 2019. Additionally, he set the school record at the Elkhorn Fete Fling meet in 2019. With 11 dives, he scored 272.75 points. That was during his freshman year, though, so what did he do after that?
“The one diver we had (Matya) got a knee injury, so he just became a swimmer, and then we had nobody else interested in diving, so we just kind of cut it from the program until we found out that there was someone interested,” head swim coach Kari Meister, said.
That is, until this year, when that person came along. Freshman Zachary Costanzo entered the diving world by taking a trampoline/tumbling class, which he loved. Once he completed the class, he decided to try out for a club diving team in the metro area, and he has not looked back since.
(Lauren VonSeggern)
“I do club diving, where we practice every day pretty much,” Costanzo said. “I dive for Midwest Diving. I used to dive for a different club, and then I switched here.”
When it came time for Costanzo to start thinking about diving in high school during his eighth-grade year, he ran into the problem that there was no current team for diving in Gretna. So his family decided to step up and look more into starting a team.
“My mom was asking the school about getting a dive team, wondering if they had one or not,” Costanzo said. “If they didn’t have one, I would have had to practice with a different school and still dive with Gretna.”
This is exactly what Matya did when he dove for Gretna years ago. During the time that Matya dove for GHS, the swim team was still busing out to the Jewish Community Center and to the Mockingbird Hills Community Center every day for practice. At those facilities, they didn’t have diving boards, so Matya went and dove with his club diving team, but still competed with Gretna. With the Gretna Crossing YMCA having two fully functional diving boards, it created a perfect environment for the team to practice. With a practice place now secured, the next problem was finding a suitable coach.
“We asked anybody in Gretna if they knew anything about diving and would like to coach, and when no one was interested, we reached out to Peter, the diving club coach, and he helped send out some names,” Meister said. “And then there was the Millard South coach, (who) helped ask anyone she knew, and that’s how we got Dayton, through her.”
Dayton Bradley is a former diver for Millard South, turned coach. Bradley dove from 2020 to 2023, representing his school at dive meets, capping off his career by placing ninth at the NSAA State Swimming and Diving Championships in 2023. When an offer presented itself to him to return to his passion, it was a deal he couldn’t pass up.
“I came to Gretna High School because my previous dive coach told me that there was an opportunity for a coaching position open at Gretna, and I reached out for the position to bring back the sport of diving,” Bradley said.
As Bradley just graduated in the class of 2023, he hasn’t had a chance to lead his own team quite yet, but said he knows that he’s ready to see what he can do in building this team back up.
“I have no previous experience in coaching, but I know that my dive coach taught me well, so hopefully I can pass it on to the next future divers,” Bradley said. “My biggest influence when it came to diving was my coach. She was the person that was able to make me fall in love with diving, and I was looking forward to coaching with her or by myself at some point in my life.”
Even with all this new exposure to the dive team, only three students have shown interest in joining the team. Whether it’s because students think the sport will be too hard for them, or they think they have to be a pro to join, the coaches encourage students to give it a try, no matter what their abilities are.
“The goal of growing a dive team is hard, because it is a small and difficult sport, but I think if we can get enough people to talk about the sport and possibly come and try out,” Bradley said, “especially if you have any experience with flipping on a trampoline, diving boards or even being in gymnastics, you should definitely consider trying out for the team.”
As the season inches closer and closer, Meister and Bradley realize that they aren’t going to have 150 or even 15 people out for the team. But that’s not the goal, is it? The end goal is to connect the two schools, Gretna and Gretna East, in a way that many other sports in Gretna don’t get to, while sharing a common love for the sport.
“When you come on deck, you can’t tell who’s Gretna East or Gretna High. It’s all just a big mix, and everyone accepts one another,” Meister said.
*Anyone interested in diving during this upcoming season can email [email protected] or reach out to someone who is already on the team.
