Goltman Improves in Diving : She Becomes Best in Mission Viejo by Staying Home

RALEIGH, N.C — The athletes who made the Mission Viejo Nadadore diving club famous now dry themselves with the towel of a different club, the Mission Bay Makos of Boca Raton, Fla.

But Karla Goltman remains.

When Greg Louganis, Michele Mitchell and Wendy Wyland were training for the 1984 Olympics and, later, enjoying their successes, Goltman was still an age-group diver at Mission Viejo.

Now she joins them at most major national competitions during the summer months, often the only representative of the once-dominant Nadadores.

Goltman, 20, gave Mission Viejo its best showing here at the U.S. Olympic Festival, finishing eighth in the three-meter springboard finals. She had finished sixth in the preliminaries, advancing to the final field of 12.

Jeff Symons of Ames, Iowa, a four-time NCAA finalist at Iowa State who trains with the Nadadores in the summer, finished 12th in the men’s springboard finals. Another Nadadore, Dave Pichler, failed to make the springboard or platform finals.

“It used to be very different at Mission Viejo,” Goltman said, referring to the days before the Olympians and other divers left to follow Coach Ron O’Brien to the Florida club. “Now, I’m one of the main ones.”

Goltman, a Capistrano Valley High graduate and a junior at UCLA, generally places around 12th in major national competitions. But at the Indoor Nationals at Baton Rouge, La., in April, Goltman finished seventh in the one-meter platform, 13th in the three-meter.

At the NCAA championships this year, she was eighth in the three-meter springboard, after finishing 12th the year before.

She attributes what appears to be a gradual improvement to more consistent performances--and not coincidentally--the health of her right shoulder, which was operated on in the fall of 1985. The same surgery was recently performed on Wyland, a procedure that involves placing a pin in the shoulder to prevent it from repeatedly popping out of the socket on the forceful impact with the water.

Goltman, who describes herself as a diver strong in mechanics, not sheer strength, has come back, as Wyland hopes to.

No matter how much Goltman improves, however, she has next to no chance of making the 1988 Olympic team. Only two divers will make the team in each event, and Mitchell, Wyland, Kelly McCormick, Megan Neyer and others, including Wendy Lucero, the springboard gold medalist here, are ahead of her.

Goltman says she will wait them out. Most of the top women are about 25, and will retire after 1988.

“If I was 22, it might be different,” Goltman said.

As it is, she’ll bide her time behind the former Nadadores a while longer.

Goltman trained in Michigan with reknowned coach Dick Kimball, father of 1984 Olympian Bruce Kimball. In 1984, she moved with her family to Mission Viejo when her father was transferred, landing purely by luck in a diving hot spot.

In the days while the Olympians were still there, Goltman remembers, her 15-17 age-group won a national championship.

“That was about the last time Mission Viejo was Mission Viejo,” she said.

She thought of leaving with the others in 1985, but decided against it.

“It was too complicated,” said Goltman, who was a college freshman then. “I thought I’d try (staying), and if I wasn’t happy I could change.

“I’m just going to keep diving.”