Kenyon’s Diving Coach Andy Scott Speaks to the Hearts

Photo Courtesy: Kenyon College Athletics Andy Scott (middle) at NCAC Championships, where he was named Women's Diving Coach of the Year

By Sarah Lloyd, Swimming World College Intern

In a large, dimly-lit dining room in a hotel in Houston, Texas the 32 members of Kenyon College’s National swimming and diving team sit at a number of tables with parents and siblings, picking at the last remnants of food on their plates. It’s late, about 11:30 p.m., on the last night of competition at the DIII NCAA meet, but there’s a vibrant buzz about the room.

Head coach Jess Book and assistant coaches Doug Lennox and Fernando Rodriguez have already spoken, but diving coach Andy Scott, an unassuming, dark-haired man with a salt-and-pepper soul patch, is up next.

Standing there with his new National Champion shirt and hat with the tag still hanging off of it, he looks a bit goofy, but there’s a glint behind the thin-framed glasses as he takes the microphone from Lennox.

“I have one question for you,” he says into the microphone and glancing around the room. With that, he runs over to the men’s first place trophy and yells “WHERE DA GOLD AT?!” hoisting the trophy over his head to roaring laughter and applause from the swimmers and families as they recognize his reference to the Youtube video he had shown to the team on the third morning of competition.

This exuberance from Scott is a bit uncharacteristic, but his speeches usually take on a different tone from Book’s talks with the team.

“I like to think that [Book] speaks more to the heads and I speak more to the hearts, but it’s so important that those two aspects connect,” Scott says of his partnership with Kenyon’s head coach, whose team talks at meets usually precede Scott’s. He adds that he feels that he and Book share a unique quality of story telling when talking to the team, allowing them to connect with swimmers and divers on a deeper level.

Scott and Book go back to a fateful day on the deck of the Ohio State University’s pool deck during the men’s practice.

Scott and his family had just moved to Ohio from Texas and he was in the market for a new coaching position. Book was the assistant coach for the Ohio State men’s team. Five months later, Book had been hired as the head women’s coach at Kenyon College and called Scott to offer him a job.

“I felt like the Yankees had called me,” Scott recalls, referencing Kenyon’s legacy in Division III swimming and diving, which he has incidentally added to in his time at Kenyon. Scott can claim three NCAA titles in the past three years along with coaching Maria Zarka to two NCAA championships on the three-meter board and one NCAA championship on the one-meter board.

And while Zarka’s success is on the top of Scott’s list of accomplishments, he also cites the improvements that all of his divers, especially the walk-ons (some of whom have never even “bounced a board”), have had. Scott seems to possess the remarkable ability to make anyone into a diver.

While the Kenyon team knows him as “Andy the diving coach,” Scott is also the father of two young children and a full-time seventh grade science teacher. He and his wife are opening their home to foster children in the community and training a beautiful golden retriever/labrador mix named Juju to be an aid dog.

Driven by his strong faith and his genuine belief in doing good, Scott embodies the diversity of the Kenyon community and the lasting legacy of Kenyon swimming and diving.

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Patrick McCloskey

8 years ago

Awesome!
Jonathan Brandt Jeremy Navarro Phillip A Davis

Remy

8 years ago

Yeah, I never did bounce on a board before.