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NMH Magazine : Winter 2005

Olympic Dream

The Coach, The Diver and the Olympic Dream 

by Adam Orth 

 

Despite being a freshman and a newcomer to diving , Kai Robinson ’05 was the favorite to win the Western New England championship in 2002.

Then disaster struck on the last day of competition. During what should have been a routine back dive, Robinson hit the diving board. He was unhurt, but the resulting score was abysmal. With only two dives left to go, winning seemed impossible. Swamped with embarrassment, he stood by the side of the pool, away from the other divers.

“I became an emotional wreck,” says Kai, who recalls fighting back tears as his coach, Grace Robertson, approached.

“Grace came over, looked me in the eyes and told me, ‘Suck it up. You can’t let your competitors see how you’re feeling.’”

Kai, who’d already proved his mettle during a remarkable but erratic dual-meet season, dug deep and found what he needed. The next dive was so-so; the last dive beautiful. He walked away with the title of Western New England champion—the first NMH diver ever to do so.

Now, don’t get the idea that Kai makes a habit of blowing dives. He doesn’t. There were no disasters when he went on to win the season-ending New England prep school diving championships. What made that win remarkable was that he was the first NMH male diver to achieve it—and he’d only been diving for one season.

Now entering his senior year, Kai routinely dominates his opponents. He hasn’t lost a meet since his freshman year. Last year he won his third straight New England championship with an astonishing 100-point lead. Named to the All-American diving list, he’s ranked second in the nation in independent school diving.

However, disaster on the diving board struck one more time. It happened his sophomore year, coincidently during his second Western New England championships.

This time, the dive was more challenging: an inward double somersault. To this day, Robertson vividly recalls Kai launching off the board.

“It was the most gorgeous takeoff,” she says. “He got so high off the board with so much force, he did a triple. It wasn’t even in the book.”

Rattled by his unexpected height and concerned he might land on the board, Kai stayed tucked throughout the dive and hit the water in a ball. He’d botched the entry, but that was the least of his problems.

If you don’t complete the dive you’re supposed to—even when you do an amazing inward triple somersault instead— your score is a big fat zero. Looking back at it now, Kai can laugh. To this day, that dive isn’t done in competition. The closest he gets is an inward 2 ½ . “It was actually kind of cool, since an inward triple somersault is, like, almost impossible,” he says.

But at the time, he was mortified. Here he was, the defending New England champion, and it looked like his season had come to an abrupt halt.

Once again, Robertson worked to calm her diver. While she agreed a win was beyond reach, she urged him to relax and give the remaining three dives his best effort. The next day, to the universal astonishment of everyone at the meet, Kai won, beating his nearest competition by more than 15 points.

“He pulled off three absolutely fabulous, gorgeous dives,” says Robertson. “He did a forward two and a half that was out of this world.”

The following Monday, she announced Robinson’s win on NMH’s intranet with a posting titled “Do you believe in miracles?”

 

The Coach

Come April, Robertson will turn 75 and, truth be told, she wanted to retire years ago. However, after coaching Kai his freshman year, she couldn’t leave. She was having too much fun.

A spry, erect woman, Robertson has a fondness for gathering up her long gray hair into a ponytail and topping it off with a large hair bow. Her hands are festooned with silver rings, many set with large, colorful stones. She’s become a second mother to Kai and keeps his parents updated with frequent e-mails.

Robertson came to Northfield 48 years ago as a physical education instructor. She moved into administration two decades ago and is currently secretary to the NMH Board of Trustees. She also lives on campus as a dorm resident in Marquand Hall.

Beanie Babies fill the dashboard of Robertson's white Oldsmobile, which bears the license plate USFHA. The acronym stands for the United States Field Hockey Association, which Robertson presided over for eight years. She’s served on other national hockey organizations and even had a tournament named after her. Now an honorary member of the USFHA, Robertson’s involvement in US field hockey has taken her around the world three times. Recent career highlights include the 1996 Olympics, where she supervised office operations for field hockey, and the 1993 Intercontinental Cup, where she was director of the 12-nation tournament.

Robertson was herself a successful athlete: She earned state and national recognition in archery and was ranked tenth in the nation. She also won a state championship in roller skating and competed in fencing.

Ironically, however, she didn’t compete in either swimming or diving. Parents routinely kept their children out of public pools when she was growing up in Brooklyn, New York, because of the polio epi demics common back then. Robertson didn’t learn to swim until she entered Barnard College. Later, while getting her master’s in physical education at Smith, she became involved with synchronized swimming. Diving instruction was also part of the graduate program.

Her late start in aquatics didn’t keep Robertson from a decades-long career in c oaching swimming and diving. She helped organize the first New England championships for girls, which NMH won. By the time Kai arrived at the school, Robertson knew to be intrigued when she learned he’d studied gymnastics as a child.

Gymnasts can make great divers because they’re already familiar with how to control their body positions on both a horizontal and a vertical axis, she explains. This kinesthetic sense—the awareness of your body’s position and alignment even while flying through the air—can be taught. However, some people—Kai being a prime example—are born with raw ability.

During a recent practice, Robertson watched and gave advice as he completed dive after dive, dialing in his technique. The official start of the season was a day away, but he kept practicing until his legs felt dead. While clearly self-motivated, he tends to overindulge a fondness for forward dives, confides his coach.

“He’d ignore the twists if I let him,” she says. “He just likes that feeling of sailing.”

Robertson has coached other great divers, including Gail Majdalany ’75, who was New England champion in 1974 and 1975. However, she considers Kai to be the best natural athlete she’s ever worked with.

“The very first dive he did in competition was a one and a half (somersault)—and he scored a seven on it,” says Robertson. “I just sat on the side of the pool and went ‘Yes!’” Recalling the dive, Robertson breaks into a wide grin and pumps one clenched fist.

Kai, who’s just finished a practice dive and is swimming back to the side of the pool, overhears her. “I remember that dive,” he says, smiling up at her.

“I know you do.” She smiles back.

 

The Diver

Kai turned 18 in early December. Shortly afterward, he received his acceptance letter from Brown University, which had already recruited him for its dive team. All the Ivy Leagues had heavily courted him, as well as some top diving schools (the University of Minnesota was his favorite); Brown was his top pick.

Brown isn’t a powerhouse diving school. But it does offer an Ivy League academic program, and that’s important. Kai is thinking about entering pre-med; maybe he’ll go into sports medicine. He knows there’s a lot more to life beyond diving.

Compactly built, with taut stomach muscles and powerful legs, Kai has slightly tousled dark-blond hair. His clothing hangs on him loosely, comfortably.

He looks forward to college-level competition, to going up against divers who will challenge him. He doesn’t expect that to happen his senior year at NMH. “I’m kind of like a big fish in a small pond,” he says.

This year, his focus won’t be other divers. Instead, he’s gunning for the 578.45-point record for an 11-dive meet set by Hopkins diver Grant Gritzmacher in 1996. Robinson’s personal best is 516.60 points, which makes him the third best all-time New England diver. Breaking the record will be difficult but not impossible.

Kai is the youngest child of Marty and Annie Robinson, and the name they gave him is fitting: Kai means ocean in Hawaiian. Actually, that’s his middle name. Few call him by his first name, which is William. He was born in Texas, but his family has also lived in Indonesia and Alaska. Eight years ago, they moved to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where his father, a geologist, works for an oil company.

As a young boy, Robinson studied gymnastics, but his lessons stopped in Saudi Arabia, so he turned to swimming. He also competed in Little League baseball; two years in a row he was on the team that represented Saudi Arabia in European regional competition.

When he followed his brother Peter ’02 to NMH, Kai chose diving as the closest thing available to the gymnastics he loved. One of his parents has always managed to attend his big diving meets, despite the 24 hours it takes to travel from Saudi Arabia. They’ve funded his study at summer dive camps, where he studies with Olympic-level coaches, gets to work with top-notch equipment, and practices on the higher diving boards he will face in college.

At NMH, he and Robertson work to keep his skills up, even during the months before and after the winter diving season. They shoehorn in extra pool time whenever they can, often on Sundays. Meanwhile, Robertson keeps current as a diving coach through workshops, watching diving tapes, reading, talking with other coaches, and “picking Kai’s brain” after he goes to diving camps.

“One of the main reasons why I work so well with Grace is that we’re both completely ecstatic about the sport of diving,” says Kai. “When only an athlete or only a coach is obsessed with a sport, I don’t think the chemistry is as great as ours—and I don’t think great results are possible.”

Robinson also competes at the varsity level in baseball and water polo. He studies piano and clarinet and spends all his extra money on movie DVDs. “I think of myself as a balanced person, but most people identify me strictly as the diver,” he says.

 

Life after NMH

When Kai earns his diploma in June, Robertson will be graduating in her own way. After nearly five decades at NMH, she’ll retire to Philadelphia, where she’d like to coach diving, perhaps at an independent school. First on Robertson’s travel list is Alaska: she wants to see polar bears.

As for her protégé, he nurtures hope of competing in the next Olympics despite his late start in diving. Kai knows the odds are against him since many Olympic divers start as young children. Still, he sees no reason why he shouldn’t try. “Okay, it’s a stretch, a huge outside chance,” he says. “But it’s a goal—it’s something to aim for.”

Should he make the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, there’s no question his former coach will be cheering him on from the stands. As it is, their upcoming separation is eased by the certainty that she’ll be doing exactly that during his college career. It turns out that several of Brown’s meets are within easy driving distance of Philadelphia. Should Kai feel the need for his old diving coach, she’s already promised to be there for him.