Poplar Bluff junior Allison Williamson’s unexpected journey to the diving board

When Allison Williamson twisted and turned through midair in one of her signature 1-meter dives at the City of Roses Invitational on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Cape Aquatic Center, she penciled into the water in the straightest line one could imagine.

But, ironically, her path to high school diving was nowhere near as straight and narrow.

That is because long before the Poplar Bluff junior continued to carve a name for herself with her City of Roses Invitational championship, Williamson had aspirations of becoming a high-level gymnast.

“I became a gymnast between the ages of about 3 and 4,” she said. “I found out it was a really big passion for me, and I loved it. I was good at it. There was hardly a meet where I didn't place first and I was sweeping it all. I went to state, and I won state for multiple years.”

Yet, with dreams of someday earning a college scholarship and competing at the Olympic level, Williamson eventually had to face the harsh reality it was not meant to be.

“I was really good at it, but I had some rough coaches,” she said. “I went through a lot of mental struggle with it and it turned my mentality away from it. It just created this negativity around the whole sport itself and made me really lose a lot of interest in it. So, it had gotten to the point where my last season was my last season, and I had to call it quits.”

Then the sport of diving came knocking on her door.

Williamson, who is also a member of the Poplar Bluff track team, is currently in her first season as a diver. Shortly after her unconventional path to the diving board began, she, like most first-timers, was unsure of what to expect.

However, for being a lifelong gymnast, it did not take Williamson long to translate her athleticism and acrobatic ability to the sport.

“A lot of the techniques and stuff that you learn from gymnastics help you tremendously in dive,” Williamson said. “You've already got that muscle memory of the flipping, the rotation and the control over your movements, and it just makes it so much easier. There's no way I could do this if I never did gymnastics. I would struggle so much.”

What she quickly realized, though, was that she and her Lady Mule teammates were put at a disadvantage compared to most programs.

Because Poplar Bluff does not have a diving board at its high school pool, the divers are forced to practice 1 hour and 15 minutes away at the Cape Aquatic Center only once a week, every Saturday.

“It is annoying to have to do that, but it's understandable,” Williamson said. “I’m so thankful that we get to do that. We get up really early every Saturday morning, travel here to Cape, practice, and then go back home, and then swim at practice through the week. But it would be awesome if we had diving boards.”

So far, the sacrifice is paying off.

Before capturing a City of Roses title with a final score of 298.65 — a mere 61 points higher than second-place finisher Kaedyn Lewis of Webb City High School — Williamson was busy earning a runner-up finish at the coveted Ladue Invitational in St. Louis. Two days later, she shattered the girls diving record at the West Plains Invitational at the Civic Center on Dec. 9.

What’s next remains to be seen. With her first official season slowly winding down, Williamson said she did not expect to have grown this much this quickly. She also has learned to take everything “one dive at a time” during competitions and plans to remember that motto moving forward.

“I hope to just keep progressing,” Williamson said when asked about her future goals. “Get better and better and, hopefully by the end of the season, be at a point where I'm interested enough that I can maybe do some offseason summer work with it. That way I can stay in shape for it. Then, my senior year, come back and just hope for a college scholarship.”

It turns out Williamson’s monumental decision is starting to work out just fine indeed.

“You can't be afraid to try new things,” Williamson said. “Even though you may expect it to go wrong, it’s going to go great. I’ve loved it. I've loved joining new sports and even joining a team so late in the year that's been together for so long, I still feel so much in place. It’s nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. And, obviously, I'm doing pretty good at it so far.”

Other diving results

Freshmen Leeanna Cross and Zionah Johnson were the other two Lady Mules to compete on the diving board at the City of Roses Invitational on Friday night. Despite earning several impressive scores in the early rounds, both divers were disqualified from the competition when finals time rolled around. Poplar Bluff competed against Webb City, Ladue, Cor Jesu, Lutheran Veritas and North Point.

Looking ahead

The swimming portion of the City of Roses Invitational continues at 11 a.m. Saturday morning, Jan. 18, at the Cape Aquatic Center.