In this article, Oliver Quinn and others sat down with Scott Donie, who won the silver medal for diving at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. He went to college at Southern Methodist University, and coached at New York University. He currently coaches at Columbia University.
When talking about his career, Scott Donie doesn’t have many negative things to say. He started off on his hometown swim team in New Jersey. However, after his coaches told him to swim through a cramp, he started sneaking off to the diving boards. After being caught, he was told to just join diving. He was encouraged to continue by his parents and uncle. When talking about his idols, he brought up how “There were two divers I looked up to, Bruce Kimball and Greg Louganis. They were two of the best divers in the country and the world. In the 84 olympics Greg was a medalist in both events. Bruce was the silver medalist. I aspired to dive like them.” On the training end, he would train for specific parts of the dive, and would listen to music and play on his Game Boy. He preferred doing platform diving, despite a fear of heights, but stopped after winning a medal at the ‘92 Olympics. He brought up how he wanted to compete in the Olympics after he saw how it united a country. He said realizing he won the medal makes you feel like you were levitating, it’s even disorienting.
On the coaching end, he said he got back into diving when going to NYU to train for a spot in Cirque De Soleil where he was noticed by the current diving coach. When that coach retired, he was given the job offer, forgoing the Cirque. He switched to Columbia in 2017. He said he’s still learning to coach after all these years, but for his favorite person to coach is clear. Jonathan Suckow is arguably the greatest college diver ever. And he was coached by Donie himself. Scott loved how Suckow pushed both of them. It was difficult, but satisfying to see him break records.
