Murrysville's Pickens sets sights on Olympic diving berth

As an elite athlete, Samantha Pickens lives in the present while drawing motivation from a future ripe with possibilities. “My own little world” is how she describes the space filled with training, competition and dreams.

Lately, the former Franklin Regional diving star has opened her world to embrace past struggles and success, both of which are considerable. This, she said, “makes me smile.”

Pickens reached the peak of women's collegiate 1-meter springboard diving as a fifth-year senior at Arizona earlier this year, winning the Pac-12 and NCAA championships and every other event she entered. It was a remarkable comeback from missing the previous season with torn ankle ligaments caused by a freak trampoline mishap. Preceding that, in 2013, Pickens won her first NCAA diving title, the first Arizona woman to do that.

It has been this way for Pickens — pain and gain, tribulation and triumph — spanning years and distance. About 2,000 miles separates her family home in Murrysville and her newer home in Tucson.

Competing in Bloomington, Ind., on May 17, Pickens failed to qualify in the 3-meter dive for the U.S. team heading to Kazan, Russia, in July for the World Championships. Pickens finished third, with the top two divers qualifying.

She did, however, qualify for the World University Games in the 3-meter in July in South Korea. She previously qualified for the 1-meter at the World University Games, as well as the 1-meter in the World Championships.

“I knew she'd be very successful, but her success in the pool largely comes from her growth as a young woman,” said former Arizona diving coach Michele Mitchell, who recruited Pickens.

Mitchell, the athletic department director of operations, defines Pickens' growth as “a level of confidence in herself and decision-making abilities and learning how to stand up for herself, how to deal with adversity and conflicts with other people — all the things young people learn from 18 to 22. We like to say she pulled up her big-girl panties, in all situations.”

“Sam is a very kind-hearted woman that any woman should aspire to,” Mitchell added. “Smart, on time, great grades. Everyone loves her. She's just a grounded, stable young woman.”

With a decorated college career over, Pickens, who earned a degree in psychology, can take a moment to appreciate her considerable body of work. But only a moment. There is work to be done.

Olympic hopes

Pickens qualified in December for her second World Championships in the 1-meter competition after winning the USA Diving Winter National Championships — she also qualified in 2013. Qualifying for the 3-meter (two divers will make it) would be perhaps even bigger, representing a step toward her ultimate goal, the 2016 Summer Olympics, where the 3-meter is offered but not the 1-meter.

In 2012, with back problems, Pickens placed among the final 12 Olympic qualifiers. She said that was mainly for the experience. Next year it's for keeps.

“I've dreamed of going to the Olympics since I was 10,” she said. “It's definitely in the front of my mind since the NCAA is over and I can focus a lot more on the Olympic training schedule.”

Arizona coach Omar Ojeda, who replaced Mitchell after Pickens' freshman year, described Pickens' chance of making the Olympic team as “really good.”

“There are a few things she'll be working on, but she's improved year after year,” he said.

Doe Krug, Pickens' former coach with the Pittsburgh Aquatic Club along with her husband, Julian, said, “I don't think anyone would consider her a front-runner, but, yes, she has a chance.”

Julian Krug is the Pitt diving coach. Their daughter, Cassidy, was a three-time PIAA champion at Chartiers Valley, a Stanford All-American and a member of the 2012 Olympic team. They all remain close with Pickens. Doe Krug is known for telling it like it is.

“Sam Pickens needs to believe in herself,” she said. “She's got every piece, all the parts you need in terms of diving skills and the ability to do them. ... For whatever reason, I don't think she's ever had the confidence in the 3-meter as in the 1-meter.

“But she's tough. And sometimes when she struggles with things, she has so much passion for the sport and so much desire, she backs it up with work. Sam is a workaholic.”

Unlike in the 1-meter, Pickens' performance in the 3-meter is “more volatile,” Mitchell said. “She doesn't have the same confidence, which makes everyone here scratch their heads because you watch her train, and you think, ‘My God, that girl's brilliant.' In 1-meter, she exudes, ‘She's not gonna lose.' In 3-meter, she doesn't quite have that personal stance.”

Pickens, as hard on herself as any coach, agrees.

“I can honestly say I'm way more confident with the 1-meter,” mainly because she has been doing it longer, she said.

After taking the 1-meter in the NCAA championships in March, Pickens finished eighth in the 3-meter. Attempting a back dive with 2 ¹⁄₂ somersaults, she said she “got a little too much in my head and didn't want to mess it up and was little too careful.”

Such caution landed her literally on her back. It hurt, she said, “but not as much physically.”

Pickens rebounded by winning her first international medal, a bronze, in the 3-meter last month at the FINA Puerto Rico Grand Prix. Since then, “my training has been a lot more confident and consistent,” she said.

Dealing with issues

The ankle injury is but one of myriad issues Pickens has surmounted. When she was 12, competing in the junior national championships in Huntington, N.C., less than a year removed from her start in serious diving, she stood frozen on the board, rocking back and forth. Her mother, Debbie, said Pickens had struck her hand on the board during a previous meet, apparently instilling fear.

Pickens' father, Jack, wanted her pulled from the competition. So did Julian Krug. But Debbie and Doe were adamant: No way, they said, and prevailed. It wasn't pretty, but Sam finally hit the water and bobbed to the surface. The issue has remained submerged since.

“If we pulled her, she'd never have gone back in the water again,” Debbie Pickens said.

Her daughter said, “It was a really horrible time, but I think it's funny now.”

Less comedic were the injuries. Born on the Fourth of July, Pickens, 23, won the state title during her freshman year in high school despite a stress fracture in a vertebra. Less than two weeks later, she was encased in a plastic brace for the next four months. One doctor intimated she might never dive again. No, she insisted through her tears, “This is my life.”

The injury reoccurred during her first year at Arizona. She already was homesick, feeling out of place, calling her parents three times a day. Now this. She received injections, therapy, massage, “pretty much anything for the pain,” she said. “It was very, very hard.”

Still, she competed. Then Mitchell, the Arizona coach for 17 years and a big reason Pickens took a huge geographic gamble, resigned for family reasons and moved to a job with more reasonable hours. Pickens said she was “pretty devastated” at first, but Ojeda, a former diver for Mitchell at Arizona, has furthered her progress. Meanwhile, Mitchell remains present for Pickens as the “wiser, older female coach who has been around the block a few times,” she said.

“I knew she put me in good hands,” Pickens said. “I've learned so much with Omar. It's been a really good fit.”

When she arrived at Arizona, awestruck and instantly homesick, “I guess I was a little bit scared of my own shadow,” Pickens said. Since then she has emerged as a world-class diver, made friends and earned enough respect to fill an Olympic sized-pool. Even considering the pain and frustrations, she said, “It's turned out better than I expected.”

Bob Cohn is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bcohn@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BCohn_Trib.