Competitive Diving

The Editor - Dr. Pete Andersen is a behaviorist, author, speaker, coach, publisher, and top performer. His Ph.D. studies emphasized behavioral, educational, and personality psychology to observe what top performers have in common for over fifty years and has been helping people improve their lives and performance with principles of intrinsic motivation. He is a retired school superintendent with experience coaching All-American collegiate women and high school boys' swimmers. His experiences in business have been in medical sales and marketing. He has been a national sales trainer, hospital distributor rep, regional sales manager, and owner of a rep and publishing company, Trius Publishing, LLC. As a top performer, he holds world and national records for his age-group in Masters Swimming competition and won 31 Senior Olympic National Championship Gold Medals. As a speaker he has presented intrinsic motivation leadership strategies to teacher conferences and authored and published the multiple award-winning for leadership and business and Amazon bestseller, The 3 Secret Skills of Top Performers - Powerful Lessons in Transformational Leadership. He published in 2012 now his brand, Teach Yourself to Swim book and 4-DVD set of a complete learn-to-swim curriculum for all the strokes plus water safety in unfamiliar places. Then repurposed that into a series of over a dozen smaller paperbacks specific swim strokes titles and e-books on swimming and water safety instruction. He has associated with top performing athletes and Internet marketers to present transformational leadership strategies to improve performance in less time.

Against all odds to be a success, Hobie overcame insurmountable odds to become the World's Greatest Diving Coach in the history of the sport. At the young age of 3 his father walked out on the family leaving him and his older brother and mother penniless during the Great Depression. He fought through hunger and homelessness with the help of two men who mentored him at the Erie, Pennsylvania YMCA. At an early age, he taught himself to swim and when the team needed a diver he tried out and liked the challenge. Eventually he would also become a gymnast and cheerleader for the high school.As his diving skills improved to become the Pennsylvania state high school champion, the coach suggested he compete at the National AAU Championships. There, the top Ohio State University divers gave him pointers he could take back to his coach, and he became the first high school diver to place in the finals of a national championship. He enrolled at Ohio State and became the first All-American for all four years. World War II called him into service in Okinawa where the war with Japan ended and he resumed his college diving career, and head athletic cheerleader on the sidelines for all the football games. After college, Hobie and Bruce Harlan formed a popular clown diving act performing at schools, hotels, and country clubs all over the United States. After a short high school coaching stint, he became only the 2nd diving coach ever hired by a college or university. In 1959, he came to Indiana University to start an unequaled diving dynasty that continues today. He started with very poor facilities and no committed divers with any skills. Then Rick Gilbert came to Indiana when they moved into the new Royer Pool facility. Rick became his first national champion his freshman year that attracted other great talent to the school. He was the first to coach women in any sport, and did so without pay well before Title IX guaranteed equal rights for women athletes in 1972.Along with head swimming coach, Doc Counsilman, together they won 23 Big Ten Championships and 6 NCAA Division I titles. Hobie was selected as the Olympic Diving Coach 5 times and coached 132 National Champions. After retiring in 1989 he gave diving clinics and judged major competitions all over the world, and in 1996 was selected to administer the Olympic Oath to all the judges at the Atlanta Olympics - a great honor. His leadership was evident by forming the World Diving Coaches Association and the United States Diving Coaches Association. In 1983, he received the high honor of being inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He continued to have a profound effect on the diving community with the publication of - Diving Illustrated and A Comprehensive View of Competitive Diving, and lectures to divers in summer camps, high school students, and collegiate athletic departments. Born December 2, 1926. Died July 16, 2022