Columbus East junior Gavin Day is The Republic Boys Swimmer and Diver of the Year. He is pictured at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, February. 28, 2024.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Gavin Day played basketball and baseball growing up, but at 5-foot-4, he realized he may not have much of a future in those sports.
So when Day was in eighth grade, one of his teachers, who was the wife of Columbus East swimming coach Doug Trueblood, asked him if he was interested in swimming. Day didn’t have a ton of interest in swimming, but thought he might try diving.
Three years later, Day is one of the state’s top high school divers. The junior finished 11th at the state meet and is this year’s The Republic Boys Swimmer and Diver of the Year.
“She asked me if I wanted to try out swimming,” Day said. “I can’t swim. I think swimming fast is cool, but it’s just not for me. I’ve always done flips on my trampoline, and I can do backflips on the ground and stuff, so I just tried diving. It shot up from there.”
A regional diving qualifier as a freshman and a state qualifier as a sophomore, Day took a big leap this year. He won a sectional title and finished fifth in the regional before making a splash at state.
“I didn’t think I’d get to this level back then,” Day said. “Back then, I thought I was decent, but looking back on it, I wasn’t the greatest. Now, I’m a lot better, so always progressing. I think I ended up pretty strong. Nothing much to be mad about. Nothing sad happened, so that was good. It was just an overall great season.
“I didn’t really get mad at myself this year, which is something I kind of regret doing (in the past),” he added. “Last year, I went too hard on myself and just didn’t have fun. This year, I tried to have a lot of fun, and it worked out. I did my best.”
The summer after his freshman year, Day started going to Indiana University to practice with the Johansen Diving Academy, owned by Drew and Jenny Johansen and coached by Andrew Capobianco, Cole Vandevender and Zain Smith. East lost diving coaches Cordell Glass and Nancy Snyder after last year, so he had a new diving coach in Lisa Lykins.
“You could tell Gavin did a lot in the offseason,” Trueblood said. “Going over to IU and working with that club helped because we don’t have a diving club in Columbus. We have two swim clubs, so our swimmers can be in the water year-round and still working. Between his sophomore and junior years, you could see how much he improved.”
Day set the 11-dive school record of 478.45 at the Jasper Regional. He hopes to better that mark and also break the six-dive record as a senior.
“I was pretty excited, but it’s nothing too crazy because I already knew I was eventually going to get it my junior or senior year,” Day said. “I put in the work. I put in the hours, and it’s just really helped me. I’ve figured out so much as a diver in a little amount of time, so I plan on progressing more and more every day. I want to get top eight (at state), and I want to take down that six-dive record and I plan on taking down the 11-dive record again.”
Five of the 10 divers who finished ahead of Day in the state meet will be graduating.
“He was four points shy of 10th place, and a lot of those kids in front of him were seniors,” Trueblood said. “He is going to continue to get better. I think the kid is just starting to see his potential because he has only been diving for three years now. He’s a good teammate, and he’s just a great kid. You like to see people like that succeed.”
Day wants to dive in college and study finance or marketing and minor in business. He had talked to coaches from Youngstown State, Air Force and Towson School of Business.
“Freshman year, it didn’t really cross my mind that I could dive in college,” Day said. “Whenever I started doing club, and I started getting better, I thought maybe I could go to college for this. I believe in myself, and I plan on going D-1. Not sure where yet, but D-1 is the goal.”
The Republic 2023-24 All-Area Boys Swimming and Diving team:
Gavin Day, Columbus East: The junior won the sectional and finished second in the regional and 11th at state in diving.
Judah Nickoll, Columbus East: The senior finished third in the 100 backstroke and fifth in the 200 freestyle in the sectional and swam on the state qualifying 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
Misha Machavariani, Columbus East: The junior finished second in the 100 breaststroke and fourth in the 100 butterfly in the sectional and swam on the state qualifying 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
Cavan Stilson, Columbus East: The senior finished fourth in the 100 freestyle and sixth in the 50 freestyle in the sectional and swam on the state qualifying 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
Todd Hundley, Columbus East: The junior third in the 200 individual medley and fourth in the 100 backstroke in the sectional and swam on the state qualifying 200 medley relay team.
Keaton Stephenson, Columbus East: The junior finished third in the 200 freestyle and fifth in the 500 freestyle in the sectional and swam on the state-qualifying 400 freestyle relay team.
Ethan Hall, Columbus East: The junior finished seventh in the sectional in the 200 individual medley.
Diego Cotero Tapia, Columbus North: The junior finished third in the 100 butterfly and sixth in the sectional and was a state qualifier in the 100 butterfly and 200 freestyle relay.
Jude Abdallah, Columbus North: The senior finished third in the 100 breaststroke and fifth in the 50 freestyle in the sectional and was a state qualifier in the 100 breaststroke and 200 freestyle relay.
Isaac Proffitt, Columbus North: The senior finished seventh in the sectional in the 50 freestyle and swam on the state qualifying 200 freestyle relay team.
Aarush Mahato, Columbus North: The sophomore swam on the state qualifying 200 freestyle relay team.
Dagan Kleffman, Columbus North: The freshman finished sixth in the sectional in diving.
Honorable mention
Columbus East: Eli Isaacs, Jesse Isaacs, Jameson Kessler, Jasper Nickoll. Columbus North: Nicolas Bowers, HP Devaguptapu, Mateo Gamez-Lamadrid, Victor Joergensen, Brock Smith, David Zhang. Jennings County: Charlie Witt.
