As the 2012 Sunset League Diving Season is about to start, team captain Adam Payne learned of his admittance to USC and the top ranked dive team. He will be training with Olympian and 2004 Olympic Assistant Coach HongPing Li. Li coaches Seal Beach natives 2008 Olympian, Haley Ishimatsu and her synchronized diving partner, 2007 CIF Champion and sister, Tori Ishimatsu.
Payne got the news from coach, Debby McCormick while training for the upcoming U.S.A. Diving Junior West National Championships. At first, Payne says he was a bit shocked, “but now it’s starting to sink in that it’s real.”
He started diving with McCormick Divers in Long Beach eleven years ago when he was in First Grade. He loved the water and could swim since he was three, but racing triggered his asthma. Diving gave him a break to breath between dives, and he loved the thrill of throwing his body through the air. He was winning medals from his first meet. “I just did what my coaches told me to do and then I’d get a medal,” Payne laughs at how easy it seemed. He admits that winning medals takes a lot more hard work now.
Two years into his diving career, his family moved to Sydney, Australia where he trained with Australian Olympic coach, Chava Sobrino. While in Australia, he was the School Sport Australia 10-year old Boy’s National Champion and won countless medals at National, International and local competitions.
Upon returning to Southern California in 2007, Payne took time off from diving. He tried other sports like baseball and indulged his thrill seeking nature through skateboarding and parkour. But in 2009, when his thrill seeking threatened to get him into trouble, his former diving buddy, then Los Al Dive Team Captain, Steven Jones, told him how much fun he was having on the high school team. Payne helped Los Al win its first ever Sunset League Boys’ title. Los Al Coach, Shane Butler encouraged him to keep up his diving in the off-season. Payne saw McCormick Divers head coach, Charly Collins at CIF Division I that year and coach Debby McCormick had kept contact while Payne took his break from diving. They were thrilled to have him back on the McCormick Divers team. Payne’s coaches helped him with life lessons he can use outside the pool.
Payne and the Los Al Dive Team are set to dominate Sunset League when the season starts at the Los Al High Pool on March 22.
