When Eric Blevins `04 first approached the diving board at Grinnell College after a football injury sidelined him, he had no diving experience whatsoever. But for those who knew “Country,” as his teammates affectionately called him, his eventual victories would not be much of a surprise.
This summer, after a Hall of Fame career at Grinnell, Blevins claimed gold at the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Singapore. Nearly two decades later, representing the East Coast Masters Diving Club, he scored 232.60 points in the men’s 40-44 division 3-meter springboard competition. He also earned bronze on the 1-meter board with a score of 209.05.
“As soon as I got in the water, I already started celebrating because I knew I hit it,” Blevins, aged 43, recalled of his gold medal dive. “I really couldn’t believe I was even in that position.”
The path from Grinnell’s old diving well to international competition began with an unlikely transition. After football teammates encouraged the injured wrestler-turned-football player to try diving, Blevins discovered a sport that would define his life.
“He had an extensive wrestling background,” Erin Hurley, his former coach at Grinnell, said, “so I knew he had good spatial awareness skills, which is key when your body is flying through the air after leaving the diving board.”
Blevins achieved rapid success despite his late start. He became the first diver — male or female — to win eight Midwest Conference diving championships, earn All-American honors twice, and be inducted into the Grinnell College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014.
“I was relentless in practices,” Blevins said. “I frequently took advantage of open pool hours because I wanted to go further than just winning Conference. I wanted to go to that next level.”
Hurley recalls having to kick him out of the pool and described him as “an incredible student of the sport” who memorized the entire diving table — a comprehensive list of all dives and their degrees of difficulty — and studied VHS tapes for his technique. Football players would watch from the second-floor window of the old pool, holding up score cards and cheering him on.
Perhaps the most memorable moment came when Blevins literally broke the diving board. “Eric had tremendous power when he pressed the board on his approach, often dipping the end into the water,” Hurley explained. “Well, this time he heard a cracking noise and launched himself as far away from the board as possible. The board was cracked in the middle and hanging over the water. He was our most expensive diver.”
After graduating in 2004, Blevins transitioned into coaching, spending 21 years developing college divers while running the Jersey Diving Academy for young athletes. When he moved to New Jersey and discovered masters diving at age 31, he was surprised to find he could still perform most of his college dives.
“I won both boards at my first national meet in 2014 at Rutgers,” he said. “I was like, ‘Okay, well, this is fun.’” He has since won 15 national championships in masters competition.
The road to Singapore wasn’t easy. Just a month before the championships, Blevins injured his calf muscle so severely he couldn’t walk for two weeks and had to relearn his dives on one leg.
“I was really just going into that meet thinking there’s really no chance I’m even gonna medal,” he admitted. Going into his final dive trailing by five points, he pushed through the pain to nail a dive he hadn’t been able to complete in three weeks of practice.
Currently, Blevins coaches at The College of New Jersey while running programs for 70 young divers. Though he’s considering time off for shoulder surgery and other injuries, he hasn’t ruled out competing again.
For current Grinnell divers, who have been sending athletes to nationals regularly in recent years, Blevins offers simple advice: “Just step out of their comfort zone and think outside the box. There’s always a method to the coach’s madness, and have fun with it.”
“I always bring the Grinnell flag, I always bring my Grinnell diving stuff,” he said of international competitions. “I wouldn’t be in the position I’m at if it wasn’t for Grinnell. Whatever I can do to help put Grinnell on the national stage, international stage, I’m more than happy to do that because I owe them pretty much everything.”
