From the Beam to the Board
Peterson makes a splash in a new sport.
By Paul Perillo
Cindy Peterson planned on becoming a gymnast. She began competing in
gymnastics at three years old and continued into high school, making it
to level ten, one notch below the elite stage, where girls train in preparation
for the Olympics.
But midway through her junior year at Nashua (New Hampshire) High School,
Peterson's plans were derailed. She hurt her right wrist while practicing,
yet continued to work out, never allowing the injury to heal. After a month
of playing through the pain, she finally had the wrist looked at. What
the doctor found was a bone so badly broken that it required a graft to
restore the full range of motion. It also signaled the end of Peterson's
gymnastics career.
"When I found out I could no longer compete in gymnastics,"
she says today, "I immediately looked for another sport to fall back
on." Diving would be her answer. She had already tried it in the ninth
grade-"I hated it," she says-but decided it was worth another
shot. She worked out throughout the following year at the Westford (Massachusetts)
Swim and Tennis Club, and progressed quickly enough to pursue the sport
at the collegiate level.
"There's a lot more finesse in diving than gymnastics," says
Peterson.
"I do a lot of the same things, but it's not as scary with water.
A lot of my quickness and skills are from my gymnastics background."
Peterson began her diving career at Towson State University in Maryland
in the fall of 1994. She quickly discovered, however, that Towson was not
the place for her. "I really loved the campus and the area,"
she says. "But I was used to competing at a more serious level than
the rest of the team was. At the time, I wasn't very good, but I wanted
to improve . . . I was doing all the hard dives, but I was coming in last.
I knew that once I got the experience, I would get better. Actually, my
coach there suggested that Northeastern would be a better place for me
if I wanted to be more serious."
Peterson was still reluctant to make the switch. Her mother stepped
in. "She basically forced me to interview at Northeastern when I was
home for Christmas that year," Peterson says.
So she moved on to Huntington Avenue, and swimming and diving head coach
Roy Coates had himself a true diamond in the rough. Brad Snodgrass jumped
on board as diving coach in 1996, and the diving team has gone unbeaten
ever since, in dual meets and conference championships alike.
Peterson is one of the main reasons for that dominance. Last year, competing
as a junior, she won the America East conference championship by more than
100 points and qualified for the NCAA Division I Championships, where she
finished twelfth on the three-meter (high) board and fourteenth on the
one-meter (low) board. This season, she broke the pool record at Harvard
on November 25, racking up 335 points.
"She didn't look much like a diver in her first year," Snodgrass
remembers. "She was still making the transition from gymnast to diver,
and that took some time. It's not really a common change. It would be kind
of like assuming a track star would automatically be a good running back."
"Her ability to follow directions and her drive to be the best
have put her among the elite divers in the nation," adds Snodgrass,
who is also the New England regional technical director for U.S. Diving.
"I have never been around anyone who has gotten this good in such
a short period of time." Snodgrass also credits Peterson's athleticism
and tumbling background as keys to her success. The physical difficulty
of gymnastics and her history of competition at a high level work in her
favor as well.
As Peterson's final season of NCAA eligibility comes to a close, she's
hoping for a return trip to the nationals, held March 1921, this time
making it to the finals (only the top eight qualify). Beyond that, the
2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, appear to be a realistic possibility.
Peterson, a biology major who will graduate in 1999, will then prepare
for the prequalifying zone meets that are used to select the Olympic team.
And there's hope for Olympics beyond Sydney. "In gymnastics, 13-
to 16-year-old girls compete and their careers are over by 18," says
Snodgrass. "Diving is a lot less strenuous on the body and careers
can last well into the 20s and early 30s. Greg Louganis won the gold medal
at 30 and Mary Ellen Clark was 32 when she won the silver in Atlanta.
"Cindy has the opportunity to get there. She is getting to the
point where her confidence level is where it was in gymnastics. This sport
is ninety-nine percent mental. She needs to believe she is as good as she
is."
N.U.'S BIG MACK ATTACK
Watching Northeastern play basketball, it's hard not
to notice Ty Mack. With his trademark high socks, headband, and nonstop
energy, Mack has a hard time blending in among the other players. At six
feet five inches and 205 pounds, he's not the most imposing figure-except
on the stat sheet.
"He's deceptively athletic," says second-year N.U. coach Rudy
Keeling. "He doesn't look like he runs real fast or is real strong
or can jump very high, but he is a warrior. He makes impossible shots and
works like a bear in the weight room. He's clearly our leader."
That holds true on and off the court. His infectious smile and personality
have had only positive effects on Keeling's young team. Since arriving
as a junior college transfer from Odessa College in Texas last year, Mack
has taken charge. He finished fourth in America East scoring last season,
averaging 16.7 points per game. He also led the Huskies in scoring in 19
of the 24 games he played. Still, the Huskies lost 20 of 27 for the season.
This year, Mack has improved his game and the Huskies have followed
suit, hitting .500 overall and in conference play at the end of the regular
season. Mack "is another in the long line of selfless stars we've
had," says assistant coach Keith Motley, who is in his twentieth year
with the Huskies. "Peter Harris, Perry Moss, Mark Halsel, Reggie Lewis
. . . these guys were as valuable off the court as they were on it. Ty's
the same way. He doesn't need to tell you how good he is like other guys
sometimes do."
Maybe that attitude is a product of the hard work it took for Mack to
get to Huntington Avenue. After starring at Automotive High School in Brooklyn,
Mack hoped for a Division I scholarship offer. Although he attracted plenty
of attention and achieved the required scores on his SATs, he failed to
meet the NCAA's minimum core curriculum requirements and wound up at Odessa.
"Nobody wants to go to junior college," says the twenty-two-year-old
Mack. "But it was a good situation for me. My first week there, [N.U.
assistant] Coach [Ken] Dempsey approached me while he was recruiting for
Monmouth. He was the first Division I coach to contact me, and I remembered
that when I made my decision.
"The tradition of Northeastern as a powerhouse in this league is
something that I took into consideration. I looked at it as a challenge
to get us back to that point. We've got something positive started now,
and we want to continue that until we get back to where this program should
be."
Northeastern defeated league rival Hofstra on January 8, surpassing
last season's win total. Mack once again is terrorizing opponents with
his array of baseline maneuvers, but has added a complementary perimeter
game. His ability to step away from the basket and remain effective has
left him virtually unstoppable.
Mack, a criminal justice major who will graduate in 1999, raves about
his Northeastern experience. He is eagerly awaiting his first co-op job
this spring, which he hopes will allow him to work with kids as a counselor
or probation officer.
"I'd have to rate Northeastern as one of the best," says Mack,
who hopes to play basketball professionally in Europe next year. "Anyone
thinking about combining basketball and academics should strongly consider
this place. Life on and off campus has been great, even last year when
we weren't doing as well. We're going to make it back on top."
-Paul Perillo
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