When she was younger, graduate student diver Brooke Schultz refused to consider a career in the sport of diving, despite having a collegiate diving coach as a father.
“I told my parents that I was never going to be a diver. I was adamant about it,” Brooke said. “And then I ended up going to the pool, playing in the pool and then started diving, and turned out I was pretty good at it.”
Fast forward more than a decade later, “pretty good” has turned into a pair of SEC championships and some individual honors at the University of South Carolina. Her father, South Carolina head diving coach Dale Schultz, has been there to witness it all.
Dale coached college diving during the late 1980s and 1990s but took a break after Brooke was born. He returned to coaching when Brooke was nine-years-old, and was her coach.
“He coached me from a young age,” Brooke said. “There was only a year-and-a-half period when I was in high school and I had moved to Indiana, and then he started coaching in Florida, that I didn’t dive with him. But then, from my junior year on, he’s been coaching me again.”
In the year the two were apart, Brooke remained in close contact with her father as they grew closer despite being hundreds of miles away.
“When I was at the University of Florida, she would call me every day wanting to come down to Florida," Dale said. "It actually strengthened our relationship — being apart — and (now) we’re at where we’re at."
After spending most of Brooke’s undergraduate career together at the University of Arkansas, the two reunited in South Carolina. Both came for their own reasons — Brooke for academics and Dale for his previous connections with head coach Jeff Poppell.
“Between (the sport management program), and my dad came here to coach and the whole coaching staff change, everything kind of just fell into place and made sense,” Brooke said. “It was not something that I planned on, but between my extra eligibility from my redshirt year and the COVID year and everything, it just made so much sense.”
In her first two months at South Carolina, Brooke has already made some additions to her collegiate diving trophy case. She swept the 1-meter and 3-meter dive events at the SEC Championships for the third time in her career and has earned two SEC Diver of the Week distinctions since joining the program.
"Whenever those individual things come, it's a really good feeling in knowing that your training is paying off," Brooke said. "It really makes the tough days worth it. It makes the good days better, so it's really exciting and very rewarding."
Dale said the relationship with his daughter, like other parent-child relationships in the sports world, “just works.”
“It is unique, especially on the world stage. There’s a few — one of the Russian coaches and her daughter, (the) Timoshinina(s). They make it work, but it’s very far and few between,” Dale said.
Brooke said it helps a lot knowing that her father understands her better than almost anyone else in her life.
“He just knows me, between being his daughter but then also being his athlete for so long,” Brooke said. “He knows me so well as a person that he knows what I need. He knows how to read me better than most, if not everyone.”
The adventures she and her father have been able to experience through diving make it all the more enjoyable, according to Brooke.
“It’s really fun because we’ve been able to travel the world and visit countries that we never would have without diving, so being able to travel — and it’s brought some great opportunities — and when you get to an SECs and whatever, being able to share those experiences is really special,” Brooke said.
Dale said he also enjoys those trips because he knows few parents and children have the opportunity to do so.
“Most parents and children, unless they just get a ... sum of money, don’t get to do that, and we’ve got to do that at the world stage athletically, and that’s been fun,” Dale said. “It’s something so few parents get to experience at this level, and I’m not taking it for granted, especially the rest of this year and next year, and I really want to enjoy it.”
Poppell, who has known the Schultz family since before Brooke started diving, said it has been fun seeing Dale “wearing both hats” while coaching Brooke.
“I’ve been able to stay in contact with (Dale). I’ve been able to watch Brooke compete in collegiate competitions, so it’s been fun for me,” Poppell said.
According to Brooke, her father is her “biggest supporter” and the dedication he shows at practices, meets and anywhere outside the pool shows how much he wants her to succeed.
“You can tell how much he cares,” Brooke said. “He cares so much, and he wants what’s best for me and he knows the potential that I have.”