Lest any observers think diving defines Chelsea McCorvey, the Memorial senior is quick to say it doesn’t.

A diver since seventh-grade who next week will participate in her fourth state championship meet, McCorvey is looking forward to competing at LSU but already says that will cap her career.

“I just want to dive in college, then have a regular life,” McCorvey said. “I’ll probably meet someone, marry them, have a family. I just don’t want to go into that and actually be in the 30s before I have a life.”

But diving is her life now, and her work has paid lofty dividends.

McCorvey will seek next weekend in Austin to win her first state championship on the heels of sixth- and fifth-place finishes the last two years.

Her regional score of 450.4 places her sixth in the state-qualfying pack, according to the Texas Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association Web site.

It’s been a meteoric rise for McCorvey, who devoted much of her youth to gymnastics before switching to diving when she was in sixth-grade. A Level 8 gymnast – meaning she was highly advanced – McCorvey improved throughout junior high and immediately made her mark on the high school scene as a freshman, starting a four-year run of winning both the district and regional meets.

“After my freshman year I felt pretty comfortable competing in high school,” she said. “It’s just about being strong.”

Good gymnasts make solid divers, agree McCorvey and Memorial coach Jason Mauss.

“Gymnastics is more dramatic, I guess, and diving is more about being tight and being clean,” McCorvey said.

“She has great natural ability and her gymnastics background helps tremendously,” Mauss said. “Her tumbling skills are a big help, plus she has great flexibility. She’s a hard worker. You have to be mentally tough to get up on those boards every night.”

McCorvey committed to LSU in November, choosing it over the University of Houston.

She practices on the UH campus with the Cougar Diving Club. That club boasts at least six state qualifiers – McCorvey, Stratford’s Sara Mokhtari, Cy-Fair’s Hudson Rains, Chris Khosravi of Fort Bend Elkins, Pearland’s Sam Decker and Bradley Berryhill of Clear Lake.

McCorvey edged Mokhtari for the regional championship last week at Fort Bend ISD’s Don Cook Natatorium.

“I see (Mokhtari) every day at practice and we’re on the same club (team),” McCorvey said. “We don’t glare at each other and go like ‘You’re my competition,’ but you still want to beat them.”
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UIL Swimming and Diving State Championships

WHEN: Friday, Feb. 22 and Saturday, Feb. 23.

WHERE: Jamail Aquatics Center, corner of Martin Luther King and San Jacinto boulevards, Austin.

SCHEDULE: Friday, 4A swimming and diving, preliminaries and consolations begin at 10 a.m. The same rounds for 5A start at 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, the 4A swimming and diving finals are at 9:30 a.m. The 5A finals begin at 3:30 p.m.

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