Biographical details | |
---|---|
Born | circa 1964 East Longmeadow, Massachusetts |
Alma mater | Springfield College |
Playing career | |
1981–1985 | Springfield College |
Position(s) | 1-meter, 3-meter Diver |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
1984–2024 | Springfield College Diving Coach |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
7 National Championships | |
Awards | |
23 x NEWMAC Diving Coach of the Year 2005 NCAA Men's Diving Coach of Year 4 x NCAA Women's Diving Coach of Year 8 x NE Diving Coach of the Year 1991–2000 2014 Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame | |
Peter Avdoulos is an American former competition diver for Springfield College, who coached the Springfield College Diving team for forty years from 1984 through 2024, leading them to seven national championships, though he began his career on a part-time basis when the position became open shortly after his graduation from Springfield. [1] [2]
Avdoulos was born around 1964 in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, in the greater Springfield area, where he attended High School. By his Senior year at East Longmeadow High in 1981, Avdoulos had achieved the rare triple achievement of taking top diving honors in Western Massachusetts, Massachusetts state, and New England competitions. At East Longmeadow, Avdoulos was coached by Janet Kerr and with the Springfield Springers Club David Laing, a former All-American diver at Springfield College, who would later become the Head Diving Coach at Westfield State. In both his Junior and Senior years, Avdoulos won diving titles at the Western Massachusetts Championships. In three successive years as a High School diver at the Massachusetts State Championships, he advanced from fifth to third, and finally first in 1981 as a Senior, also winning the New England title that year. At the New England High School Championships in Gardner, Massachusetts, Avdoulos scored on a forward two-and-a-half tuck, a reverse one-and-a-half, and a forward one-and-a-half with a full twist, becoming only the second East Longmeadow diver to win the New Englands. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Attending from 1981 to 1985, he competed for Springfield College, where as a Senior he took third in 1 meter diving event at the March 1, 1985 New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Championships, finishing only two points behind the second-place finisher. He also scored well on the 3-meter board. [7] In 1984, Avdoulos was an All-New England selection, and in December trained at London's Crystal Palace, the facility for the English National Team. [8] As an exceptional and consistent performer, he was a recipient of the Charles Batterman Award as the top New England collegiate diver over a four-year period. The Batterman Award was named in honor of Charles Batterman, a long serving MIT diving coach, national champion, author, and pioneer in using the principals of physics in the analysis of dives. At Springfield, he was coached by John Bransfield, who Avdoulos credits both with improving his diving, and making him aware of how to best coach the sport. [5] [9] [10]
Avdoulos never fully left the diving program at Springfield. After graduating in 1985 with a business degree, and beginning work in the area, the diving coach position was eliminated by the university. After work, Avdoulos would stop by and help coach his former teammates who were without a coach. Though he wasn't fully recognized as Head diving coach in 1990, Avdoulos began coaching the team as early as 1986 on a part-time basis, and has remained as diving coach since then. [5]
During his tenure as diving coach, he led his teams to seven national championships. [5] Outstanding swimmers he coached during his tenure include four-time All-American Mike Shaw, the first national title winner at Springfield, and eight-time All-American Lindsay Moore. Other national title holders include Nora Kelly Westkott, an NCAA Division III Diver of the Year and a winner of the Charles Batterman Award for diving and eight-time NCAA All-American Alison Mellage Campise, a 2003 graduate. [5] [9] [11] [12]
Avdoulos's strengths can best be expressed by his swimmers and fellow coaching professionals. His High School Coach David Laing has said of Avdoulos, "Every diver that enters his program (at Springfield) leaves with not only a great and highly successful diving experience, but also that they have been part of an unbelievable, fun and educational environment.” Maintaining a thirty-year correspondence, Avdoulos's coach at Springfield, John Bransfield has said of Avdoulos, "He is unwavering in his personal convictions and his dedication to doing things right. Springfield College and the sport of diving have been fortunate to have his service". Avdoulos believes his primary objective in coaching is to bring out the best in each of his divers by appreciating their unique character and building on their strengths. He has stated in interviews, that “I may not have achieved everything I wanted in my diving career, but I think that’s what makes me a better coach because I want everyone else to live up to their potential beyond what they think their potential is.” Avdoulos's high achieving Springfield swimmer Jen Thompson has said “Just seeing him believe in me, I suddenly began to believe in myself,” she said. “I’m so much more of a confident athlete now. He’s the first coach that’s really taken the time to sit and discuss our personal goals, discuss what we want, and really taken an interest in us as people [to] help us get there”. [5]
Avdoulos's honors are unique in their frequency and recognize the unique contributions he has made to the sport of diving. In College, he won the Charles Batterman award in 1985 for excellence in his sport, an award given for consistent excellence over a four-year period. He has been the recipient of the New England Men's and Women's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Diving Coach of the Year Award twenty-three times, and was the 2005 NCAA Division III Men's Diving Coach of the Year. Since 1996 he was the NCAA Division III Women's Diving Coach of the Year four times, and has been recognized eight times as the New England Diving Coach of the Year from 1991 to 2000. He was named both the NEWMAC Men's and Women's Diving Coach of the Year for the 2002–2003 season and the 2012 and 2013 campaigns. In recognition of his contributions to diving at the university, he was inducted into the Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014. He has also received the rare honor of being selected for the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America's (CSCAA) Centennial Celebration, consisting of the 100 Greatest College Swimming & Diving Coaches of the past 100 years. [5] [9]
Richard Walter Quick was a Hall of Fame head coach for the women's swim teams at the University of Texas from 1982 through 1988 and at Stanford University, from 1988 through 2005. In an unprecedented achievement, Quick's Women's teams at Texas and Stanford won a combined 12 NCAA National championships, with his Men and Women's team at Auburn winning his final championship in 2009. His teams won a combined 22 Conference championships. He was a coach for the United States Olympic swimming team for six Olympics—1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004.
Springfield College is a private university in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. The institution's mission, called the Humanics philosophy, calls for educating students in spirit, mind, and body for leadership in service to others It is also notable for its historical significance as the birthplace of basketball, which was invented on campus in 1891 by Canadian-American instructor and graduate student James Naismith.
The Michigan Wolverines swimming and diving teams represent the University of Michigan in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Swimming and Diving Championships. The men's and women's teams, which had been coached separately, were combined in August 2012 by the University of Michigan Athletic Department.
Scott Richard Donie was a former American diver for Southern Methodist University who was a silver medalist in 10m platform diving in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and participated in springboard diving in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics placing forth. He later became an accomplished Head diving coach for New York University and then Columbia University.
Ed Reed was coach of Brown University’s water polo team from 1971 to 1992, where he led the team to seventeen consecutive New England Championships between 1975-1991. Prior to 1974, Brown's Water Polo team had been a Club Team, but achieved Varsity status that year. Initially, he was also head coach of the varsity swim team at Brown.
John "Jonty" Alexander Skinner is a former Hall of Fame South African competition swimmer and world record-holder, who for over forty years served as an American club and college swimming coach primarily at his alma mater, the University of Alabama before retiring as a coach in 2020. He coached the US national team in the mid-1990s, remaining as a Director of Team Performance through 2008.
Robert Lynn Clotworthy was an American diver and swimmer for Ohio State, and a 1956 Olympic gold and 1952 bronze medalist in the 3-meter springboard. He later had a successful career as a coach from around 1955-76, with his longest stint at Princeton from 1958-1970 where he led the team to the 1962 Eastern Seaboard Championships, and produced Princeton's first Olympic gold medalist in swimming, Jed Graef.
Dick Kimball is an American former diving champion and diving coach at the University of Michigan. He was the NCAA springboard champion in 1957 and the Professional World Diving champion in 1963. He coached the University of Michigan diving team from 1958 to 2002 and also coached the U.S. Olympic diving teams in 1964, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1992. He has been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor.
Karen Marie LaFace is a retired American female diver for Ohio State University and a 1992 U.S. Olympic competitor in 3m springboard diving. She later worked as a physician and coached diving in Ithaca, New York.
Leigh Ann Fetter, later known by her married name Leigh Ann Witt, is an American former competition swimmer and accomplished coach who represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
Ray Bussard was a Hall of Fame collegiate and Olympic swimming coach from the United States, best known for coaching the University of Tennessee Swimming team from 1968-1989. A specialist in developing sprinters, his overall career winning percentage in dual meets was .926, an unprecedented achievement. Earlier, he had been a gifted collegiate athlete at Bridgewater College and had coached field sports in Tennessee and Virginia High Schools.
Donald de Wayne "Don" Harper was an American diver who competed for Ohio State University and won a silver medal in springboard diving at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
William Winfield Farley was a 1964 Tokyo Olympic competitor in the 1500-meter event, and an All-American competition swimmer specializing in distance freestyle events for the University of Michigan. He worked as an American businessman in the Philippines, Tokyo and Hawaii, and served as a swimming coach for over 25 years, best known for leading Princeton Varsity Men's swimming to six Eastern Seaboard championships and five Ivy League titles from 1969-1979.
Don Megerle, a competitive swimmer at Bethany College, was a long-serving coach of the men's swimming team at Tufts University, a Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference school. In his 33 years as Tufts Head Coach from 1971 to 2004, he led the team to an overall record of 268-81, producing 92 Division III All-American swimmers, and 2 National champions.
Carl Samuelson swam freestyle for Springfield College and was the swim coach for Williams College from 1966 to 1999, where he led the team to 14 Men's New England Championships, and 13 Women's New England Championships. The Women's team were National NCAA Division III Champions three times, and the Men's team were in the top five NCAA finishes 10 times. In an exclusive honor, Samuelson was named to the College Swimming Coaches of America Association's (CSCAA) 100 Greatest Swim Coaches of the Century.
Donald Ericcson Leas was an American gymnast, diver and diving coach who dove for the University of Michigan and coached diving at the Clarion University of Pennsylvania from 1966 to 1990. Divers trained by him won 36 individual national championships and posted 234 All-America placings. He chaired USA Diving, AAU Diving, and the USA Diving Rules Committee. He was selected in 1999 to receive the Paragon Award by the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Dave Hrovat was a competitive diver and coach who dove for Clemson University and coached diving at the Clarion University of Pennsylvania from 1990 to 2021, where he led his teams to 48 individual championship titles and 294 All-American finishes.
Charles Eaton "Red" Silvia was an All-American competitive swimmer for Springfield College, and a Hall of Fame swimming coach for Springfield from 1937 through 1978 where he led his teams to ten New England Intercollegiate Championships. A 1956 Assistant Olympic swim coach, he was an outstanding contributor to the swimming community and served as President of the College Swimming Coaches Association of America, as well as chairing the Board of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He authored seven books on swimming, Life Saving, and Scuba Diving, and was best known for his book, Life Saving and Water Safety Today.
Harry Wilfred Rawstrom was an All-American collegiate swimmer for Springfield College and the Head Swimming Coach for the University of Delaware from 1946 to 1981, leading them to the 1947 Mason-Dixon Conference and the 1954 Middle Atlantic Conference titles. At the University of Delaware, his teams earned an overall record in dual swim meets of 211–154.
Jim Stillson is an American former competition diver for Ohio State University, who coached the Southern Methodist University Diving team for thirty-three years years from 1984 through 2017, where twenty-one of his divers won 89 conference championships, and ten of his divers won U.S. National Championships. Recognized for outstanding contributions to sport of Diving, two years before his retirement from coaching at SMU he received the Paragon Award from the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2015.