The Current - The Prairie diving club producing Olympians

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Steve and Mary Carroll set up the Saskatoon Diving Club 20 years ago, and this year they sent two divers to the Olympics. In November, Matt Galloway took in the view from the 10-metre board, and heard how this landlocked city built a world-class diving program.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Last month, Matt Galloway broadcast two programs from Saskatoon. On his visit there, he stopped in at the pool and he met a couple of the city's diving Olympians. You know, it's not every day that you get to see an Olympic medalist launch himself off the 10 meter platform. I'm here at the Saskatoon Diving Club. Maybe it seems unlikely

for a small city in a landlocked province, but this is one of the top diving facilities in the country. Steve Carroll is the head coach here. He won gold at the Canada Games in 1985, and he started this club with his wife, Mary Carroll, who represented Canada at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. They came here from Newfoundland in 2008 and they never left. The big draw that brought us here was the pool. And I've been here 18 years and the first 10 years I just committed to developing a culture. And you don't come in and say I want this culture. I want you guys to be confident. I want you to win. I want an attitude. I want hard work. you guys to be confident. I want you to win. I want an attitude. I want hard work. You got to create good people around you. And I mean, obviously, Mary's a phenomenal coach. Technically,

I don't think anyone could touch her in the world. And she's very motivating. But you know, that's obvious if you're going to get results. But the other stuff behind the scenes, that was my job. if you're going to get results. But the other stuff behind the scenes, that was my job. And I had to make sure we had a good program that would facilitate kids that wanted to make it. And if they wanted to make it, we had to make sure that we gave them the tools that was going to get there.

Can I ask you about the culture? We talk a lot about how parts of sports culture can be rotten. There are often bad stories that make the headlines of things not going well, coaches driving athletes to a breaking point, the coaches not understanding that the athletes are human. How do you create a good culture? Well, if you think about all of it,

it's a little too consuming. It's almost a task that is unbearable. So I just stuck to the task of building a team and having kids in the program that cared about the kids. And we created a team culture in a sport that is just very individual. Once they get older, we let them focus on themselves

and their own individual results. But when they're younger, we just really make sure that they care about each other. We teach them character before we teach them how to compete. We teach them how to have empathy for other kids. And we think that all is very important in becoming a full-rounded athlete, especially when it comes to mental wellness. That sounds like something that perhaps has been missing in other elements of sport, in high-level sport, perhaps.

I can guarantee that. It was missing here. When we had COVID, I felt there was something missing. elements of sport and high level sport perhaps i can guarantee that it was missing here you know when when we had covet i felt there was something missing and i was kind of self-assessing what are we missing and i spent those uh four years trying to you know cover that gap of what i felt was mentally wellness we pushed athletes and we pushed them but we kind of disregarded all the things outside of sport that make them even better and make them good people outside of the sport and that was my task during covid and i was shocked how much i didn't know what did you learn i learned empathy i learned that courage i learned that resilience which was an obvious trait that everybody either had or didn't have during COVID.

I learned how important that was to the development of kids. And when kids come in the program, Mary has the older kids and she's amazing technically. I teach them character and I've become a lot better at that since the onset of COVID. And I'm very proud of our kids that come in here that have resilience and they have courage and they have empathy. And all those things are very necessary when it comes to competing. I don't even teach them how to compete anymore. I don't teach them the routine when they go to a new pool or they go to a new event or they go to the Olympics for the first time. They have the skills and the character that allow them to handle any situation

when they come to it. What was it like to see a couple of your athletes go to Paris, to the Olympics? It's a biggie. It was... I mean, I think if I just went to Paris, with just Paris and no Olympics, no daughter there, no wife there, no teammates there, I think I probably would have cried.

It was just overwhelming. But the layers on top of layers. You know, I'm almost 60 now, and I didn't think I'd ever go to the Olympics. I used to coach the old kids. When Mary came up with Rylan, I said, Mary, you're going to have to stick with him. You're going to have to start taking the older kids because she had something with him that was special

and I didn't want to come in and break it. So, you know, I coach the little kids and it's very rewarding and I'm committed to the program and the culture, but I thought I'd never get to the Olympics. So going there and seeing our two athletes there, and my daughter was on the synchronized swimming team there, I don't think there was an hour went by when I didn't think about everything and just filled up with tears. It was just so emotional.

It was incredible, but it was certainly not sad. It was just very, very emotional. It was more emotion than I could ever contain it was really hard I mean this is four months after the Olympics now and I still bring myself back to those moments and there were so many moments that just make you go wow what an experience you know and if I quit coaching tomorrow I'm pretty happy with what happens pretty fulfilled For the athletes, it's the payoff for all the work that they put into it. But for you, it's the payoff of what

you built here as well. Yeah. And I think it's typical. Like I feel very, like I said, fulfilled. I feel like I feel the reward. And I can promise you that Mary is still feeling like there's something more. It's never enough for the best coaches, it's just never enough. And now she's on the next four years of Olympic training. We got a kid named Cash Tarasov who came in 10 years ago watching Ryland succeed and watching him do what Ryland did, something that Canadians never did before, you know? And now Cash, a little boy from Saskatoon,

wants to outdo what Ryland did. And every little boy that comes in here, they want to go beyond what Ryland did, which is a near impossible task. But last summer, Cash came to Nationals. He got more 10s on certain dives at Nationals than Ryland probably did in his career. It's just unbelievable.

Just finally, what is the story, do you think, that this club tells about Saskatoon? I don't think we could have done that in Montreal or Toronto or Calgary. Why? I think it's the size of the city that makes people kind of appreciate what you don't have. And our kids appreciate what they have. And I appreciate what we have.

Yeah, we've had a lot to do with it in terms of first giving respect, but we get a lot of it back that I don't think we'd have anywhere else. This is a really special city, and I think in return we put Saskatoon on the map as a really positive place to live and a cool place to bring up some athletes. You should feel good about that. Thank you very much. I sure do. Thank you. One of those Olympians that competed in Paris is Ryland Wiens. He competed in the Games in Tokyo as well,

then this summer in Paris where he won bronze in synchronized diving. Going into the night of the synchro competition with my partner Nathan, we looked at each other and we're like, this is what we've been working for the last 16 years for. And we just looked at each other and we're like, yeah, we're ready for this, 100% confidence in ourselves, but we just went out there and gave it our all. A lot of that work happens here.

What is special about this club? Saskatoon Diving Club, well, I've been part of it since I was six years old. I've never had to go anywhere else. I've never had to move. Ever since I was little, there was a positive training environment. Keeping that hard work. Hard work is one of the main goals here. Working your butt off, coming in every day, giving 100%. And just that environment that we developed and now that I can see in the younger generation that I've passed on to them, it's pretty special to have been part of something that amazing.

A positive training environment. I mean, you were very deliberate in saying that. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of challenges. But at the end of the day, everyone here comes in because they want to be here. And I think the coaches have built that environment, the athletes have built the environment, and just wanting to come in, making it a fun place to go, a safe space for everyone. I feel like that's one of the amazing things that we've done over the years in the Saskatoon Diving Club. What at age six was interesting to you about this?

Honestly, I didn't really know much about diving. I was kind of one of those kids who would jump off the diving boards in my grandpa's pool, not really scared to do anything. And it was a summer camp. My parents signed us up for a summer camp, me and my brother. And after that, I was scared when I was little, but at the same time, I was fearless. I would do things that I got dared to do just because i wanted to prove people wrong so i think that adrenaline rush definitely took a hold of me in diving and took me to that next level what were

you scared of it does you just looked you just looked over i mean that's really if you look up that's really far up it it hurts when you when you wipe out off the 10 meter or the five meter or even even the 1 meter. It can have some of my worst wipeouts come off there. You know, I've been bleeding out of my stomach before from hitting the water. Yikes. There's always that fear that you're going to hit a tower. But overall, just there's a respect for the towers and what it can really be like going off of there.

But you were fearless too. But I was fearless. I had fear, but I tended to ignore it, which is a great mix for me coming to the diving world. When did you know you were good at this? I think probably when I won my first junior national championship. We had it in Saskatoon. It was one of the first competitions at this pool. I won when I was 10 years old, I was like wow like that was that was pretty

awesome that was pretty cool to win in front of the home crowd and from there is like maybe I got a shot at doing something good and then I think more so in 2016 after I kind of came back from a nasty back injury won our junior national championships that year got my first ever tens across the board on a dive and I think that that was the point first ever tens across the board on a dive. And I think that that was the point where I'm like, the Olympics is a real possibility. And I just put it into another gear for the next couple of years leading up to Tokyo. What is that like when you're waiting for the scores to come across the board?

It seems like it would go on forever, but it's just a few seconds, right? Generally, during the competition, we don't look at the scoreboards. But on that last dive, I remember waiting with nathan knowing we're third place right now if the mexicans uh don't get a certain score on the dive we knew the dive was close but that that that weight it's uh oh it's it's something else it's it's something that i can't even explain just the hope that they didn't do it hope that we did it and that uncertainty of what happened uh it felt like an eternity but as soon as those scores came up the feeling of like just pure joy and excitement uh overwhelming and it makes me almost forget that that entire weight

does it i mean the work is hard right is there a point before you get to that that stage where you think like what am i doing like this is a lot of work and point before you get to that that stage where you think like what am i doing like this is a lot of work and this is you have to be singularly focused there's all sorts of things you can't do because you're doing this thing that you that you want to do yeah there's oh gosh there's i can't say there's been many weeks where i didn't question in the last couple years question why am i doing this really and especially after last last year i had a nasty back injury missed the world championships missed a couple other competitions and coming back from that was

probably one of the hardest things I've ever done it really came down to a lot of a lot of things like journaling positive self-reinforcement every night like talking about something that I I'm proud of something that I'm I feel like I did well in the day and like reassuring myself that I want to go to the Olympics and get that Olympic medal I think I wrote down that goal probably 60-70 times in my notebook over the course of returning to diving so it was just worth it all that all that preparation I put in all that hard work mentally outside of the pool and then coming in and training my butt off physically I just I knew that I'd put the work in and I knew I deserved to be where I was.

When you were writing it down that you wanted an Olympic gold medal, did you believe it when you were writing it down? I think at the start, I really questioned it. And that's why I was writing it, because I didn't necessarily believe in myself like I had maybe a year prior. But once I started writing it down, once I started seeing the slow progress in training, just like the inch by inch getting better better better um you really start to develop that belief in yourself again and as you start to believe more progress happens even faster you talked about respect for the tower i mean when you're standing there zero chance that i'm going to go off the end of that thing but when you're standing there what is it like you know when you're in your prime when you're standing there, what is it like? You know, when you're in your prime, when you're peaking, it's a little bit scary even. It's still even a little bit scary.

But just down to the end, you've got to be confident in yourself, confident that the repetitions you've done on the lower heights or the repetitions you've done on that height, just knowing that you've done the work to be okay, you're going to live through it. I know going up there i went up there two weeks ago when i just came back to the pool just to say hi i was terrified it was quite frankly scary even scarier than than before like when i was younger but you know just just having that mentality that that confidence that you know what you're doing and you know you can you can be up there and you're gonna be okay it's it's tough but the more you do it the better it gets you've

been off since the olympics and you're back at be okay. It's tough, but the more you do it, the better it gets. You've been off since the Olympics and you're back at school. What's that like? I'm loving it. You know, I've been kind of getting out on a boat, getting a little bit more of a social life. It's a completely different life, I'm going to be honest. Like you're living the life that you couldn't live when you were just focused on the pool. Yeah, it's basically filling those gaps from all the years of diving that I was so focused on the sport, so focused on coming in, putting in those 27 hours a week

and just grinding day in and day out to get exactly where I wanted to go. But now that I have that chance to reach out, I just see how worth it it was that I spent the time in the diving that I have and now just amazing that I've been able to branch out like I have been. So you're going to put that work back in to get back on the diving board or is this like a different path now? You know what? I taking till christmas off i've uh talked talked to my coach and i'm i'm thinking about coming back just part-time just seeing if i really because i want to do it because i love it not because i feel like i have to because you won the medal already

exactly like that one that was my even from when i was young that was a goal of mine and to have that olympic medal in my back pocket, now I can just do it because for the love of the sport. That's awesome. Rylan, thank you. Thank you so much. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. wherever you get your podcasts. Today, the national level divers are hard at work. We use the trampoline a lot for, especially for springboard, what I do.

It's like working on your leg and jumping and making sure you're in the right position on the end of the board. That's why we have that little square there. It's for balance. How many of those would you imagine you have done in your life? Since I was a child, probably around a million. A million. The other big star at this club is Margot Erlem. She competed in the three-meter springboard event in Paris this summer. This club means the world to me. When I moved here at 16, I was in a very dark place with my coach in Calgary and you know I had kind of given up on myself and the sport and this club kind of just opened or opened their club and their home to me and kind of made it my home and so I'm very very thankful for this club they're

just amazing. What did they do to get you out of that dark place to make you feel like you belonged here but also that you could do the great things that you can do now yeah I mean my coach was a big part in that Mary Carol she kind of took me under her wing I mean she was an Olympian before as well and went to the Olympics with Rylan in Tokyo and she had all that experience and she basically was my mom here I my parents didn't move when I was 16 so she was my mom and my guardian here and she made sure that I was loving the sport again and not just using it as a job or like it was something that I had to go do. It was something that was a safe space for me to just enjoy myself. Do you remember in that process when you started to believe that you could do this at that level?

Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of doubt for a lot of years. I think I only really started to believe it fully when we were about four months out from Olympic trials I went through I mean I was about to quit at 16 and I kind of was down for a while and then I got a little bit higher up and like my motivation and I was like okay I can do this but this is about 2022 and then after that I had surgery on my shoulder and then it kind of just all crumbled a little bit um and then I started to pick it up about like four months before trials it was a very quick quick pace for me what was the your experience at the olympics like how would

you describe it my experience was amazing I mean I obviously didn't perform like the results weren't there um but just being there was incredible for me. And I think it was just a lifelong dream that I finally got to achieve. I finally got to experience the village was amazing. I got to be with like the best athletes in the world, which is something that not everybody gets to say. And like, I was just soaking it all in making sure I knew what I was there for and how important this was. And I wish I could go back and relive it. You were really hard on yourself after the Olympics. Yeah. You wrote about how you questioned whether you deserve to be called an Olympian.

Yes. Why would you say that? I think I was in a very tough spot post-competition, knowing I could have done better. I've always been hard on myself. I think it just stems from being an elite athlete. You always want to be perfect. You always want to show your best. And I didn have done better. I've always been hard on myself. I think it just stems from being an elite athlete. You always want to be perfect. You always want to show your best.

And I didn't that day. And I think there was just so many emotions about being there and having this excitement about being there, but feeling like I let everybody down just by the results. And I think it took me a long time after the Olympics to officially realize what I had done and how good of an opportunity it was for me to compete at that high of a level. So looking back on it now, I still feel those same feelings about

I didn't know if I really deserved to be called an Olympian in that way. But looking back now, it's a whole different perspective for me. When did you, I mean, you have a tattoo of the Olympic rings, is that right? Yeah, I thought I saw that coming in. So clearly you believe I mean, you have a tattoo of the Olympic rings. Is that right? Yeah. I thought I saw that coming in. So clearly you believe that you're an Olympian now. When did you realize that? When it was, when somebody was inking you up or?

No, I mean, I think it was the closing ceremonies was the first time. So this was two or three days after I'd competed. And I think the closing ceremonies, it was seeing all those people being there for me and for Canada and for the whole world and these athletes like we're such a small population of the world and I think having that big of a crowd just being there supporting us and you know was the start of me realizing that I was an Olympian I think coming home and having my family and friends like meet me and just being able to share that celebration with them and I

they were a big part in how I came to like accept that I am an Olympian it's like that you did that like you were so proud of you like just having their support was massive you are that what the 22nd best diver there's 7.9 billion people in the world you're the 22nd best diver yeah in the world yeah that's amazing it is amazing in the grand scheme but when you're in the sport and you know that you can do better like i knew i could be within the top 12 of that event maybe even greater just i needed to have that confidence in myself and i think i was lacking a little bit i got kind of it was just this massive thing that mentally was a little bit overwhelming so so what happens next

you also said what did you say you can bet your ass i'll come back stronger so what's next um right now i am focused on school mid-january i'll be back full training and then we'll see where i go from there i'm not putting the pressure on myself to make the olympics i i would love to make another olympics but that's my goal anymore. I think I've matured a lot in my athletic ability and all this. And I think that making sure my body is healthy, my mind is healthy, and I'm enjoying what I'm doing is going to be my main focus. And you're an Olympian already. I mean, they don't take that away. It's not like you're a past Olympian, a previous Olympian. You're an Olympian. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

olympian yeah exactly that's awesome congratulations thank you thank you you know there are certain people that i work with who would like me to jump off this really high diving board rylan has changed into his bathing suit and he is going to take me up the steps to the top of the 10 meter platform are we going 10 meter right now yeah you ready are you ready is the question i'm not going to go off of it but I would like to know what it looks like when I'm up there. So this is where it all begins. We're walking up to the 3 meters. It's uh... When do you start to get nervous when you're walking up here? Me? Yeah. Uh, if I'm actually doing something off 10 meter? Probably now. As soon as I, right now, I won't be nervous at all.

Are you guys nervous yet no this seems fairly low it's getting higher though all right this is our sir halfway point I'll take you out on all the other ones but I want to get the shock of 10 meter first okay the shock I like all right three quarters of the way up now. Up on the seven five. Yeah, so this is higher. We're definitely getting up there. Yeah, we're getting up higher.

And now, this is where I spend most of my time. So this is ten meters up above the water? This is ten meters up. This is 10 meters, 33 feet, whatever you want to call it. It's pretty high up. It's pretty high up. Yeah, feel free to come to the end. I'm going to hang on to the edge while I do that.

I'm not afraid of heights, but I am not interested in falling. When you're looking over, what is that like? What do you see? See for yourself. No thank you. Yeah, it's basically just a sheer drop right to the water. It doesn't look too high right now, though. Can you get a quiet mind when you're up here before you go off?

Are you able to kind of still yourself such that you don't hear anything, you don't hear the fans, you don't hear, like you just... still yourself such that you don't hear anything, you don't hear the fans, you don't hear, like you just... That's one of, yeah, that's one of the biggest struggles when you're doing your dives is you have a set list of things, I think about two to three things in every dive specific to that dive. I go through in my head once before I walk to the end, big deep breath, count to three and throw myself off. And when you throw yourself off, is there anything that's happening in your mind at the time? Or is your body just kind of going through what it's been trained to do? Once you're kind of leaning up to a competition, generally, you want to stop thinking. You want to let it just happen naturally. You have that muscle memory, you have that base,

and you can't think that fast when you're in the competition. And sometimes you feel something that might be slightly off, but generally it's a bit of an overestimation of what's really off. I mean, you're pretty high up, but it takes no time to get down to the water. Yeah you get down in less than two seconds so I mean you gotta throw in four and a half flips between here and there you can't be thinking about what's happening every flip. And it really does feel like you're throwing yourself off the edge. Sometimes when you're running at the end it's like I'm really about to throw myself off of here aren't I I? And then that's when you've got to really focus it back in. This is about as close as I'll go to the edge.

Thank you very much. Absolutely. What about standing backwards? Oh, one leg. Better you than me. You know, we don't often let people walk down. It's called the walk of shame. But since you guys are in full clothes, we'll let you slide on this one.

So what is the walk of shame, but since you guys are in full clothes, we'll let you slide on this one. So what is the walk of shame? We're about to do it. There is always that slight amount of judgment of you walk back down. I'm happy to be judged because I'm not going off the edge. Matt Galloway visited the Saskatoon Diving Club last month. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.