GoHeels Exclusive: Emily Grund Q&A

Throughout the 2019-20 season, key members of the Carolina swimming and diving teams will sit down with GoHeels.com to share their thoughts on the season and the program. Next up is sophomore diver Emily Grund.

On looking back at her freshman year:
"It completely exceeded my expectations. I came in just trying to get a feel for school and athletics and everything, and I tried to come into practice every day with a positive mindset, trying to put myself in meet situations as much as I possibly could, and that really showed to my benefit, which was really nice. And if it didn't go my way, that's okay. So in the following year, if it doesn't go as well as it did my freshman year, that's okay. I've got two more ahead of me, so I'm really excited."

On the energy coming off of the offseason and entering a new season:
"We took it very slow, we were doing a lot of basics, like a bunch of fall and dives, some tuck dives, just jumping and landing on your head, not a lot of flipping, which was nice. It's nice to kind of take a step back and really work on those basics because once you get the basics down, then you can really start to focus stronger on your more competitive dives. So it's really been nice being able to do that and take the time to do that in these past few weeks."

On her first impressions and interactions with the new coaching staff:
"So I knew Gamboa probably my whole diving life, for as long as I can remember I've always known Gamboa. I've known his coaching style and everything, and so I just knew coming in that he and I would mesh really well as coach and diver, just because his coaching style is very close to where I came from, my club team."

On her past and relationship with Gamboa:
"Just going around at meets and kind of chit-chatting with him. The diving community is very small, unlike the swimming community. I would just see him around at meets, and I would talk to him. He would make little comments about my dives, like congratulating me after meets, which was really nice. It's nice to hear that from a different perspective, like, 'Hey, you did a great job today.' That made me become really good friends with him, and to have him as a coach, it's amazing."

On information/advice for people who are unfamiliar with diving:
"There's a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes. What we have to do on dry land is a lot more than what we do in the water. Every little thing that we do, whether it's a tuck-up or a forward roll on the ground or actually doing flips on the dry board, everything matters when it comes to the pool. And not only physical preparation, but it's very much a mental preparation sport. If you're not in it mentally, you won't perform your best. If you go into a competition saying, 'No, I won't be able to do this, I can't, everyone is much better than I am,' then you will never no what you're capable of. But if you go in saying, 'You know, these people are better than me, but I'm going to try my hardest and see how close I can get to them,' the way you put your mind to it really does change the outcome of everything."

On diving being such a quick sport with little room for error making it a mental challenge:
"I think so. So in practice, there are these things called balks where if you go to the end of the board and your hurdle wasn't as perfect as you wanted it to be or you landed it a little wrong, it's kind of nice to, in practice, take those hurdles and figure out what to do if something like that were to happen in a meet because, most likely, it's going to happen to you. It will happen to you. So it's nice to be able to be like, 'Okay,' if you're on the end of the board. 'Okay, it's okay. I know what to do with this because I practiced this way. I didn't only practice the perfect ones, I practiced the bad ones, too.' And so you can save it, it's just some people are better at it than others because they take them in practice."

On her performance in the first meet:
"I was (happy). I did a new dive on the 3-meter which went really well, that was really exciting. It was nice on the 1-meter, my competitor, Paige Burrell, who came in second behind me, we were neck-and-neck the whole time, and it was nice to battle it out with her. She's a freshman, so it's a lot of fun."

On a positive vibe and encouragement surrounding the team:
"I just notice everyone coming into practice, like our practices are not easy, this year they've been really difficult, and if we all didn't have a positive attitude, we wouldn't do it, we wouldn't show up, we wouldn't be thriving. Having a positive coaching environment and positive vibes from the athletes, it's very motivating to want you to do better. Even our weight coaches say, 'When you come to weights, you guys are so much more lively.'"

On the week leading up to the Georgia meet:
"My goals are to try to make every competition better than the one prior. In preparation, we are still doing some basics at the beginning of the week and towards the end of the week doing more of our more difficult competition dives. It's good that we're still doing basics to try to keep that in the back of our minds."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Paige Burrell

Emily Grund

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