Adam LeCompte dives off of the five-meter platform during the AAU Diving National Championships in July 2013. (Photo courtesy of Ben Feria.)
Adam LeCompte wins all three 13-year-old titles at the AAU Diving Championships in San Antonio
As a little kid, Adam LeCompte was constantly running around doing flips and somersaults on dry land, giving every indication he might be a budding gymnast.
Then, one day as a 4-year-old, Adam showed his parents that he learned how to do a somersault off the diving board and into the pool.
That’s when the light bulb went on over his father’s head.
Kirk LeCompte is the head diving coach of the Lawrenceville Swimming Association and also the diving trustee for Princeton Area Swimming and Diving Association (PASDA). Once Adam vaulted into the pool, he was in dad’s territory.
“That was the first clue,” Kirk said. “He always had gymnastics capabilities, whether it was the jungle gym or diving board or running across lawn and doing a back handspring or something. When he went off the board, we said ‘This was something he really does like, and he does it well.”
The next stop was to introduce him to The College of New Jersey’s Candace Gottlieb, one of the most renowned diving coaches in the state. Gottlieb also runs the Blue Dolphin Diving Club out of TCNJ.
“We took him to Candace when he was 5,” Kirk said. “She said she usually likes it when they’re a little older and listen more and have better focus. But she loved him from day one, and he had that focus and determination from the beginning.”
He also had talent, which he proved in late July by sweeping all three 13-year-old individual titles in the AAU Diving National Championships in San Antonio. Adam won the 1 meter with a score of 263, took the 3 meter with a 273, and was at his most impressive on the tower dive when he scored a 268 with one less attempt than the other two.
They were the first national titles the young diver has won.
“The AAU championships are usually the most fun meet of the year, it’s usually a nice, relaxed meet,” said Adam, who is entering eighth grade at the Lawrence Intermediate School. “I went in there knowing I could win, but anything could really happen.”
Ironically, he did the best in the event he was least prepared for. The platform competition is a series of different dives.
“I was most nervous on the platform because the last time I dove the platform was last year’s AAU nationals,” he said. “I literally had to put my list together in Texas at the pool of what I was going to do. There were seven dives and you have to do five categories — fronts, backs, reverses, twister and inwards.”
Adam said he wasn’t nervous about the overall event. His biggest problem was having no one to talk to in his age group.
“I was more shy than anything,” he said. “I didn’t really know anybody that I could talk to, or have fun with. Of course, I was diving, so that was my main fun.”
He also didn’t watch the divers that he didn’t know.
“It’s definitely hard not to look at the other divers or get worried that their dive was better than your last one and you have to step it up,” Adam said. “That’s the whole mind game in diving. I don’t look at my opponents and I try not to look at scores, so I don’t worry about that score. I just go out and do my dive.”
Adam’s championships came in a showcase that had 53 clubs from around the nation represented in 10 different age groups.
“At his age group, they can all do any one dive pretty well,” Kirk said. “The trick is doing eight in a row really well. It becomes a mental game. He didn’t get one score below six so he was pretty consistent.”
Kirk has worked with his son but is careful not to step on Gottlieb’s toes. He basically handles the fundamentals while allowing Gottlieb and Joe Costello (also of the Blue Dolphins) to deal with the technical areas.
“I don’t coach him that much anymore other than make sure he is practicing,” Kirk said. “He can self coach himself to a degree, especially with the iPad. There are Apps on iPads with video delay. I have a tripod mounted that consistently videotapes him. He can see what went wrong and what went right. You can freeze it and go frame by frame. It really helps.”
Adam’s greatest attribute, according to his dad, is his mental approach. Conversely, that can also be his biggest problem.
“His strength is being able get into a mindset and really focus,” Kirk said. “He’s got a real eye for detail. He can pick up things, see other people doing little things and he can pick those up and emulate them very well.
“One of his weaknesses are when things are not going well, he gets frustrated. That’s the area he needs to work on — not letting other people rattle him and letting himself rattle him. If he does a mediocre dive he has to put it out of his mind and focus on the next one.”
Adam agreed, noting, “I want to hit every dive and when I don’t it screws up the way I want the meet to go. I have to stop that from happening.”
One thing Adam would like to see start happening is a diving team at Lawrence High School. While most Colonial Valley Conference schools have swim teams, it’s not the case for diving.
“There’s no reason for that,” Kirk said “We had 300 divers from this general area at the PASDA diving championships. Some of the best divers in that championship were from Ben Franklin (a Lawrence-based club) and Lawrenceville. If a number of kids are interested, it can happen.”
Adam has a year to work on his plan.
“I actually mentioned it to a lot of people and they said they probably won’t want to do it and pay for the insurance,” Adam said. “So I said ‘let’s drive to TCNJ and have it there.’ I haven’t thought that much about it but it’s something I want to do.
“None of the people on the Blue Dolphins go to my school, but I know a lot of people from PASDA. I’ve mentioned it to them and they say ‘Oh that’s definitely a good idea.’ So we’ll see what happens.”
If it doesn’t happen, Adam will still be enjoying life as a Blue Dolphin as he looks to win future national championships.
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