Rider Diving Coach Eric Blevins at
FINA Masters World Championships
KAZAN, Russia—Rider University diving coach Eric Blevins will participate in the 16th FINA Masters World Diving Championships, which take place in Russia at the Aquatics Palace from August 9-14.
Blevins is in his fifth season as the head diving coach for Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
Opening ceremonies for the competition are August 9 with Blevins competing August 12-14 as one of only five United States athletes in the competition.
“I'm super excited for this opportunity,” said Blevins. “I've never trained this hard in my life. It's going to be an awesome experience representing the United States.”
In August, 2014, Blevins won both the one-meter and three-meter boards in a meet at Rutgers University and at the Spring Master's National meet, hosted by Stanford University, Blevins was third on the three-meter and fourth on the one-meter, earning a spot on the United States Masters National team.
Blevins came to Rider after spending two seasons as diving coach at the University of Evansville, and inherited a program that saw two divers, Rider grad Tom Smallwood and then junior Brendan Cavallaro qualify for NCAA Zones in 2011 with Cavallaro placing 10th on the three-meter.
In 2012, Cavallaro and then sophomore Trevor Hiller qualified for NCAA Zones with Hiller and then freshman Wayco Bailey making the NCAA Zone meet in 2013. In 2014, Bailey made NCAA Zones for the second time and became a three-time NCAA Zone qualifier in 2015.
As coach for the Purple Aces, Blevins had three divers compete at NCAA Zones and two of his divers broke career records for the one-meter and three-meter.
Prior to serving with the Aces, Blevins was head diving coach at Minnesota State University where he coached three All-Americans and five NCAA qualifiers. While at MSU, Blevins was responsible for practices, diving recruitment, meet management and rehabilitation for swimmers and divers and the diving program was ranked as high as seventh in all of Division II.
Blevins began his coaching career at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and also coached at Saint Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., both on the Division III level.
Blevins competed collegiately at Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa, where he was a two-time All-American and eight-time Midwest Conference Champion and in August, 2014, Blevins was inducted into the Grinnell College Athletics Hall of Fame.
Blevins graduated from Grinnell College in 2004 with a degree in economics, and later received his master's in sports management from Minnesota State. He is certified to coach diving, football and track at the collegiate level and to be an instructor for Level I gymnastics and trampoline.
From 2015, the FINA World Masters Championships will be held in conjunction with the FINA World Championships, taking place in Kazan (RUS) on August 5-16.
The 15th and last stand-alone edition of the FINA World Masters Championships took place in Montreal (CAN) from July 27 - August 10, 2014.
The FINA World Masters Championships is the Federation's biggest competition in terms of participation, for the reason that it welcomes, every two years, swimmers, divers and water polo players aged 25 to more than a 100 years old from all corners of the world.
The vibrant Masters movement actively promotes fitness, friendship, understanding and competition through its five disciplines (swimming, diving, water polo, synchronised swimming and open water swimming).
FINA officially created the Masters movement about 30 years ago, the first edition being held in 1986 in Tokyo (JPN).
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