If you're looking to meet a diver with international experience, you won't have to wait until 1996 to travel to the Olympics. All you need to do is go down to the Duke Aquatic Center and meet sophomore Peter Mackrill.
Mackrill, a native of Oslo, Norway, has been a member of the Norwegian diving team for the past four years, and his performance at Duke has made him one of the best divers in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"We haven't had a diver of his caliber since I've been at Duke," said head swimming coach Bob Thompson, who has coached the Blue Devils for the past 17 years. "He's a very superior athlete, one of the few that is at the level of a scholarship athlete."
Thompson's comment refers to the fact that the Duke swim team does not give scholarships. And even though the team does recruit athletes, it was Mackrill who wanted Duke more than Duke wanted Mackrill.
"Peter recruited us," Thompson said. "He wanted to come to Duke. We knew he was a diver, but there was no way of knowing he was the quality of diver he is."
Mackrill also looked at the University of Pennsylvania and Michigan before deciding to venture to Durham.
"I was mainly looking for a top academic school which also had diving," Mackrill said. "I'm more concerned about my education than my diving, because I realize there's no future in diving. I'm mainly doing diving for fun."
Mackrill was a rather pleasant surprise for Thompson and the Blue Devils' diving coach, Jennifer Zaterka.
"We hadn't seen any video tapes of him," Zaterka said. "He looked really good in practice, but it was still a surprise once he started diving in the meets, especially against the harder competition. He does his best against harder competition."
Mackrill first became interested in diving at an early age, after he became fascinated with the divers at a public pool he attended. He began with once-a-week lessons. He continued practicing more frequently, and then joined a diving club.
Mackrill was forced to look to the older members of his club for inspiration in a sport that has few well-known heroes.
"The people in my club were especially [motivational]," Mackrill said. "I wanted to be able to get on the national team, to travel and go different places. That's been my main driving force--to travel and go different places and meet different people."
One of the hardest things Mackrill must face is not having any other divers at Duke. He has to find the inner drive to improve, instead of being pushed by teammates of a higher caliber.
But at the same time, Mackrill enjoys being one of the best in the team's dual meets, where the competition is inferior to that which he faces in Europe.
"If you have better divers, you obviously look up to them and they push you to improve," Mackrill said. "But that's the situation I'm used to being in. When I practiced with the British and French National teams, I was often the worst one. If you do that for a number of years, it has a detrimental affect on you.
"When I came here, I was the best one. That's good because it makes you feel better, and if you feel better about yourself, it helps you dive. But you must not get too happy with how good you are, because you have to be aware you're not diving against top people."
Even with all of his accomplishments, Mackrill is rather realistic when talking about possible international success and his chances of obtaining the ultimate goal of any diver--going to the Olympics.
"It's the ultimate goal, but I don't really think that's a realistic goal for me to have," Mackrill said. "Even if you're best in your country, that doesn't mean they send you to the Olympics. In Norway, they have to think that you're a potential finalist in the Olympics to bother to send you. You have to go to the European championships and I don't even go to the European Championships because there are other people who are better.
"I'm just going to continue to dive in college and if I want to continue, I can always continue. Most Americans, when they're done at college, if they're not at a very, very high level, there's nowhere to go. But I can always go back to my club in Norway and continue, even though I may not be at an Olympic level."
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