National Championship Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

National Diving Competition Brings A New Sport, Development To The State

Dozens of athletes from across the country converged on West Virginia last week for one of the biggest diving events in the country.

From Dec. 14 to Dec. 18, the Aquatic Center at Mylan Park in Morgantown was host to USA Diving’s Winter National Championship.

“It’s our top event of the year,” said Jen Lowery, communications director for USA Diving. “We’ve got about 150 of the nation’s top divers here competing for national titles. It’s a chance for them to all compete, see where they stand, earn national titles. And so it’s a fun week for them to all see each other.”

USA Diving is the country’s governing body for the sport, and selects and trains teams to represent the United States in major diving events including the Olympic Games. Lowery said one of the benefits of large events like the Winter Championship is not only to bring athletes together, but also to help prepare the next generation to represent the country.

“We certainly are always looking toward the future. We’ve got the Paris Olympics coming up in about a year and a half, but we also have LA 2028 in six years,” Lowery said. “We want to make sure that these younger divers, who are going to be representing the United States in Los Angeles in six years, get the experience they need so that they’re ready when it’s their turn.”

Samantha Pickens is one of the divers who competed last week. She traveled from Midland, Texas to compete in Morgantown, and on Wednesday, won a bronze in the women’s three meter synchronized dive.

“I just partnered up with a new new partner, and we tried for the first time about two days ago, never had done synchro before,” Pickens said. “So two practices together, and we made a podium third place finish. It was pretty awesome.”

While wins are always nice, after 15 years in the sport, Pickens said it’s the community that keeps her coming back, and the chance to pay it forward to the next generation.

“I think a lot of it is the community, the people, you meet so many great people. In USA Diving I’ve met just so many great people,” she said. “And now I’m coaching as well, so kind of giving back to what USA Diving has given me to give back to the younger generation. I love it. I don’t want to leave the sport ever.”

Pickens grew up in Myersville, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Competing in Morgantown is something of a homecoming, and she said she’s excited to see such a modern facility in the region.

“This facility is fantastic here. I’ve never been here, this is my first time,” Pickens said. “To be so close to home and have such an amazing facility here so close to my hometown, and my family and everything like that, it’s been really awesome.”

Jennifer Lainhart is the director of Aquatics and Track Center Complex at Mylan Park. The Aquatic Center opened in 2019, but Mylan Park as a whole has been slowly growing and developing for more than 20 years, and hosting a national championship is something of a culmination.

“I think if you are aware of what was here prior to this, this is reclaimed surface mine land that Mylan Park, in conjunction with the local schools and some of the local government, really look to build and rebuild on and make it a space where a community could come together because it was a big open dirt space,” Lainhart said.

The Aquatic Center at Mylan Park has previously hosted other USA Diving and NCAA Diving events.

In September, Gov. Jim Justice announced that West Virginia submitted a bid to host the 2024 Olympic Diving Trials at Mylan Aquatic Center. The bid for the Olympic trials is set to be announced in the coming weeks, and the Mylan Aquatic Center could soon be hosting more world-class athletes. Regardless of the bid’s outcomes, Lainhart thinks the future is bright for the facility.

“We do think, whether or not we get it this year, that there’s an opportunity for a future year’s bid, even if it’s not this coming year, and then USA Diving has a number of events,” she said.

Mylan Park continues to expand. There are plans to build another world-class sports facility, this time for BMX racing, as well as a Kampgrounds of America location.

Opportunities abound, not just for the facility but for the community that it serves. Like Pickens, Lainhart sees the facility’s biggest value in its impact on the community.

“It’s a great event, it brings people to the area, introduces them to ‘Mountaineer Country’ and everything that we have to offer,” she said. “But it also introduces our kids to the sport of diving and allows them to see it and maybe think ‘Well, maybe I would like to try that someday.’ The hope is that we will build a community of diving around this. ‘If you build it, they will come,’ and so you have this world class facility where kids can start to gain interest in the sport.”

Appalachian Roots Of NFL, Super Bowl Celebrated

On a December weekend, a small town came together to celebrate a legacy of gritty professional football from the early 20th century that endures today.

The football chatter is palpable at the historic Stadium Lunch Tavern in Portsmouth, Ohio. It’s a football Sunday in December and there is memorabilia from two NFL franchises on display.

The crowd has come from nearby Municipal Stadium where the infamous “Iron Man” game was played on Dec. 4. In that contest, the NFL’s 1932 Portsmouth Spartans played the same 11 men the entire game and shut out their bitter rivals, the Green Bay Packers 19-0.

That championship game paved the way to dividing the NFL into two divisions, leading to what we now call Super Bowls.

Detroit sports historian Charles Avison brought his podcast, “Detroit, The City of Champions,” to Portsmouth for a weekend of dedications and remembrances. Portsmouth’s NFL franchise became the Detroit Lions, which won the 1935 NFL Championship. Avison said the 12 or so players who played in both championships deserve to be honored as local football heroes.

“You literally cannot tell the history of the Detroit Lions without factoring in the Portsmouth Spartans team,” Avison said. “It wasn’t like some random team name and they transferred a bunch of equipment in the back of a wagon. These were the players from Portsmouth who came to Detroit and they brought with them the rivalries that had been built in Portsmouth and so that’s when they came to Detroit with some of the greatest players of their era.”

Players like the legendary Jim Thorpe and Dutch Clark.

Avison’s podcast refers to the year 1935 in Detroit, when the Lions were one of more than an unprecedented 30 professional and amateur national and world sports champions including the Football Lions, Baseball Tigers, Hockey Red Wings, Boxing’s Joe Louis and Golf’s Walter Hagen.

To remember the Iron Man game and honor those leather helmet wearing legends, a volunteer group raised the funds needed to replace the old crumbling sign that welcomes visitors to the still-in-operation Portsmouth Municipal stadium.

Prof. Drew Feight, director of the Center for Public History at Portsmouth’s Shawnee State University, has worked tirelessly to insure the Iron Man game, and the Spartans-turned-Lions who played in it, won’t be forgotten,

“Portsmouth really is a football community. It has a really rich history. Its history is tied in with the early days of the NFL. And everybody loves the NFL today,” Feight said. “Just the fact that Portsmouth has such a fantastic team that really went toe-to-toe with the Green Bay Packers and other greats of the time, we are cherishing this history and taking care of our stadium.”

The walls of Portsmouth native Wil Mault’s restaurant, The Scioto Ribber, are covered with Spartan team pictures and memorabilia. Mault is one of many here thrilled with having a weekend of memories turned into monuments.

“I’m overwhelmed. I love the Portsmouth Spartans, and I love the current Detroit Lions which were the Portsmouth Spartans,” Mault said. “We have great camaraderie and great friends from Detroit, and we enjoy ourselves when we get together.”

Also making the trip in from Detroit was 82 year old Tom Eurich. In 1985, as a Motor City radio reporter, Eurich covered the 1935 Lions team’s 50th anniversary reunion. That’s where a few of the old, converted Spartan players felt slighted that the Portsmouth connection to the city of champions was forgotten. Eurich promised them he’d make that right. 88 years later, we’re not just dedicating a new sign this weekend, but putting up plaques honoring those players in Tom Eurich’s name.

”I told them, I would do everything I could, it raises a tear to my eye a little bit, to help Portsmouth know that they were included in the city of champions,” Eurich said. “It’s taken 88 years, but it’s now official. Portsmouth is part of the city of the greatest sports situation ever known.”

Without Eurich’s tenacity, none of this weekend’s small town, big emotion events would have happened.

“Tom Eurich felt that the story of Portsmouth really had not gotten the attention that it deserved, and that was what the old Spartan players felt as well,” Feight said. “Tom made them a promise, years and years ago, that he would do what he could to help keep this history alive. And we’re here today to make that happen.”

Can Huntington Prep Win a National Title?

Next week Huntington Prep will get the chance to play for a National Championship for the first time.

Since being founded in 2009 Huntington Prep has not been able to play in the end of season championship tournament because of a lack of affiliation with the state organization, the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission. But the guidelines have changed this year and Huntington Prep will play in the 2014 Dick’s High School National Basketball Tournament Championship. Huntington Prep along with seven other schools will take part in the tournament that runs from April 3^rd to April 5^th. Head Coach Rob Fulford said the team feels like the selection is deserved.

“I think as a team we felt we deserved to be in the tournament and I think we’ve proven that we’re one of the top teams nationally year-in and year-out and for us to be able to finally participate is a lot of pressure right now, we’ve lobbied to get in for a couple of years and now that we’re in you obviously want to go up and play well,” Fulford said.

Huntington Prep was picked as the four seed and will play the five seed La Lumiere School out of Indiana. They’ll tip-off in the opening game of the tournament Thursday April 3^rd at noon. The first two rounds of the tournament will take place at Christ the King High School in Middle Village, New York. The championship game will take place at Madison Square Garden, home of the NBA’s New York Knicks. Fulford said there’s pressure to be successful especially since Huntington St. Joe’s Prep wasn’t able to participate the past two years.

Huntington Prep wrapped up its regular season March second in a win at home over Legacy Charter, a school from South Carolina. Fulford said the month lay-off does present some interesting issues in preparing for the national tournament.

“We gave the guys a week off after our last game and then we had a week of conditioning and weights, just individuals and then they had a week of spring break and now we have them in for a full week and then we’ll practice next Monday and Tuesday and then get on the road,” Fulford said.

Fulford said he’s trying to relay the message that guys on the team should not let the moment pass by without realizing it’s a rare opportunity to play for a national championship.

“This might be the only opportunity these guys get to play for a national championship and I want to put it in perspective because when they get to college that may be their only chance,” Fulford said. “I think that kind of hit home with them to understand that might hold some weight and so I think it will start to him them as it gets closer.”

The games will be televised on the ESPN family of networks.