Arizona redshirt junior diver Delaney Schnell, a Tucson High alum, was crowned Pac-12 champion of the 1-meter dive on Feb. 24 and then broke the school and conference record in the platform-dive prelims on Feb. 26 at Arizona’s facility.
Her accomplishments merit her the Jet Sports Training Female Athlete of the Month honor.
Schnell won the 1-meter event by a landslide as she put up a score of 343.45, nearly 30 more points than the runner-up who scored 313.90.
Her record score in the platform dive was 383.35. She would go on to win the platform final with a score of 364.50. The previous Pac-12 record for the platform dive was held by Eline Eggers from ASU when she scored 345.60 total points at the 2011 Pac-12 Championships.
Schnell, a Tucson native who grew up training at Hillenbrand Aquatic Center, was a varsity diver at Tucson High as a freshman and she earned a state championship and broke records.
She was a two-time USA Dive National Champion during her high school years. She was also a two-time silver medalist at the Junior Pan American Championships.
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She is majoring in Psychology with a career ambition in Occupational Therapy.
During the recruiting process she chose to stay home. She picked Arizona over Texas, Indiana, Florida State and Purdue.
“I chose Arizona because I grew up in the Tucson community where everyone here supported me and on my trip I felt that same energy from the swim and dive team,” Schnell is quoted as saying on ArizonaWildcats.com. “Becoming a Wildcat felt like my way of giving back to the team and back to the community. I felt like I was becoming something bigger than myself.”
Schnell earned a bronze medal in the 10-meter platform at the World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, in 2019, becoming the first American woman to medal in the 10-meter platform since 2005.
She helped the USA earn two spots in 10-meter platform in the Tokyo Olympics. The four-time All-American at Arizona achieved a bronze medal in her first World Championship finals appearance.
Schnell, whose mom is an educator, has been a first-team CSCAA Scholar All-American both years she has been eligible. She has balanced her performance in the classroom in addition to her Olympic training schedule.
“It’s a lot,” Schnell told the university. “With the Olympics come a lot of outside competition preparation, because usually you’ll have World Series and World Cup and stuff. And those meets are pretty crucial leading up to the Olympics, because you want to be competing against those people and it can be really difficult trying to get to class and doing everything for school. And then you also have college athletics on top of that. There are days where I’m thinking to myself ‘I don’t know when I’m going to have time to do any of this.
“But honestly, I actually noticed that whenever I have break from diving, I actually procrastinate because I have so much time. So actually I think athletics really helps me stay on top of my schedule.”
Personal Bests
1-meter – 343.45 (2/24/21; NCAA Championships)
3-meter – 348.85 (2/21/18; Pac-12 Championships)
Platform – 383.35 (2/26/21; Pac-12 Championships)
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
