COLIN HART
Special to The Leader
Twisting, turning, flipping, spinning — Arron Carlson makes diving into a pool look like a work of art. The senior diver has had great success in his four years at Fredonia, including qualifying for nationals every single season. It’s a truly amazing feat and one that very few athletes in any sport are able to accomplish.
Carlson grew up in Batavia, New York, and attended nearby Notre Dame High School. Originally, he did not see his athletic career involving diving. He had previously done track, cross country, wrestling and martial arts, but didn’t take up diving until his sophomore year of high school. A couple sectional titles were all it took for Carlson to realize that this was his calling.
Now, he’s the best that Fredonia has ever seen. Two weeks ago, Carlson set the Steele Hall pool record with a score of 321.1 off the 1-meter board. A week later at the next meet, Carlson shattered his own record with a score of 352.55. These high marks have already qualified him for nationals, which will be held in Texas next March.
“It makes me really happy,” Carlson said in regards to qualifying for the fourth straight year. “To see where my scores are now compared to when I made it freshman year, it gives me a lot of confidence. With my 1-meter dives where they are now, I’m pretty confident in them, and it makes me a lot more relaxed.”
While he is certainly focused on and capable of placing high in nationals this season, he doesn’t let it stress him out.
“It’s there in the back of my mind knowing who’s going to be there and how the competition is going to go, but it’s so many months away that you can’t really dwell on it right now,” said Carlson.
Men’s and women’s diving coach Ryan Fuller, a former graduate now in his third year coaching at Fredonia, has not been surprised by Carlson’s streak of success.
“Getting to know him over the years, I’ve learned to know his consistency and work ethic, so it hasn’t really surprised me this year at how well he’s started off,” said Fuller.
When asked about what makes Carlson so good, Fuller noted his strong work ethic.
“He works really, really hard, and he really pushes himself,” Fuller said. “He’s a perfectionist and super hard on himself, but I think that really drives him to be better. He expects himself to be great and sets such high standards for himself. He’s also got great awareness and rotational ability.”
Teammate and fellow senior Jake Storms agrees.
“His attitude is honestly what makes him so good,” said Storms. “Arron’s a perfectionist, and he wants to do everything right, and he gets upset with himself if he doesn’t get it. But that’s what drives him to keep working hard and improving.
“He’s a really great guy and a great teammate,” Storms elaborated. “He really cares about everybody, and we’re a really close team, so we always have each other’s backs.”
It’s safe to say that Carlson is something of a diving obsessive.
“It’s basically my life,” Carlson said of diving. “I do have other hobbies, but I’m always thinking about how I can improve my scores and trying to figure out what can make my list better, how I can coach my friends better, how I can coach the club kids better and how their meets are going. It’s really an obsession, so I don’t think I’ll ever step away from the sport.”
Even when not jumping off the Fredonia springboards, Carlson stays actively involved with the sport year round. He has worked and coached at the Texas Longhorns diving camp, where he got the opportunity to meet and be trained by Olympic diving legend Greg Louganis. Not only that, but Carlson has also participated in a high-diving stunt show, which included him having to do freefall dives from a platform 70 feet high.
Carlson is a geology major, with a minor in geographic information systems. While aiming to work for Google Maps after graduating, he doesn’t see himself ever stepping away from the sport he loves, hoping to come back to Fredonia to coach someday. But he’s not ready to put a cap on his competitive diving career just yet.
“If I do well at nationals, I would like to find a job coaching, and if someone would be willing to train me, I’d like to train for Tokyo,” said Carlson, referring to the 2020 Olympic games. “I know I can hit the qualifying score, but it just comes down to if I can find someone to train me for three years even though I’ll be out of college.”
Having won all six events he has entered this season, Carlson claimed the first SUNYAC Men’s Diver of the Week award of the season. He’ll look to carry on this early season dominance all the way to nationals.
The Fredonia swimming and diving team have upcoming road meets at Alfred University and Nazareth College later on this month. Their next home meet will be the Blue Devil Invitational, occurring the first weekend in December.