SEQUIM — Though nothing’s in the bag just yet, the School Board has made it easier for boys at Sequim High School to field a competitive dive team next spring.
The issue first surfaced as a controversy involving the school’s girls dive team, technically grouped in with its swim team.
Board members of the Sequim School District in August adopted a coaching allocation schedule which set the number of participating students each sport or activity would need before it would trigger the hiring of more than one coach.
The swim and dive team’s allocation was set at 30.
Board members lowered that number to 18 after a lengthy discussion Monday night.
They were tasked in September with weighing a grievance filed by parents of divers on the girls’ team — which competes each fall — whose program was cut because only 27 athletes were on the roster by the specified deadline.
That comfortably allowed for a girls team, but athletes and parents involved in boys diving were even more concerned, since typically fewer boys sign up to compete in swimming and diving.
Combined sports
The problem centers on the combined nature of the two sports, and the fact that the swim team’s head coach, Linda Bingler, has told district officials she does not feel comfortable coaching diving.
Sue Craig, a former collegiate diving champion who has coached the sport in the Sequim district for several years, has been working on an arrangement with Port Angeles High School’s swim and dive team to share diving coach duties for both schools.
She currently coaches both schools’ girls dive teams, traveling between Port Angeles and Sequim to run practices and supervise at meets.
The proposed agreement would net Craig a combined season salary of $4,600 per year — $2,800 from each school — and would have language written in to give Sequim High the edge in the event that the two schools have conflicting home meets scheduled for the same time.