As a new high school coach or diver, you will need to understand dive sheets, numbers and the rules that must be followed to compete in the regular season and perhaps qualify for your divisional championship. This is your guide to high school required dives.
This guide is based on the rules as we follow them in Pennsylvania District 7, WPIAL with a 6-dive list in the PIAA. Check with your own specific state and district for any rules particular to your team.
The High School 6-dive list requires that a valid diving sheet include at least four of the five diving categories. These four categories must be represented in the 5 non-required dives. The required dive does not count toward the minimum four categories.
- Forward
- Back
- Reverse
- Inward
- Twist
Required Dive
Each week of the regular season has a required dive assigned to that week (regular meets but not invitationals). The required dive must be performed first in the list and must not fail. A fail of the required dive disqualifies the diver from the event. Coaches must prepare divers for these required dives. This system helps insure that each high school diver demonstrates every category before the end of the season, which is a requirement for the championship.
The required dive has a maximum value of 1.8 dd. The required dive may indeed have a value larger than 1.8 but you will only receive credit for the 1.8. In a competitive environment, you may choose to sacrifice a larger dd dive in order to “max-out” the 1.8 for the required dive. One of my divers defeated another diver by a fraction of a point by using this technique.
It works like this:
Let’s say that the required dive is the front dive; it’s common for divers to perform a 103c in this case, with a value of 1.6. In a highly competitive meet, you may not want to settle for only 1.6 when you’re allowed 1.8; you want the full maximum 1.8 dd. In this case, you’d perform a 104C with a value of 2.2. You get credit for 1.8 in your score but you’re willing to throw away the extra .4 dd to prevented your competitor from doing this to you… as my diver once did to win a meet over a close competitor. This presumes that you will not need this 2.2 dd dive in the remaining 5 dives; you have high value dives in the other categories to cover.