Posted on: Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Wallace honors ex-coach with dive of his life
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By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer
Punahou School senior Drew Wallace did not want to save his best dive for last this year.
Wallace wanted to attempt the dive Jan. 29 at the Sandra Serai Invitational, in part to honor his former coach for whom the meet is named. Serai, a former state champion from University High who coached at Punahou from 1991 to 1999, died Jan. 12, 2003, during surgery for a multiple-organ transplant. She was 34.
"I trained with her in the summer after seventh grade and she was a great coach," said Wallace, who already has won two state championships. "She was demanding, but she taught us a lot. Just the fact that this meet is named for her and her parents would be there as organizers and announcers, I wanted to try it in front of them."
Punahou coach Wally Nakamoto said the back two-and-a-half tuck is one of the most difficult dives he has seen anyone attempt in 47 years of watching high school meets.
"This boy is exceptional," said Nakamoto, who coached for 30 years at the University of Hawai'i and is in his 15th year (two different stints) at Punahou. "It's a tough dive, but this was a special meet for him. It had a lot of sentimental value."
Wallace pulled it off and ended up winning the meet with a score of 450.5 points, well ahead of teammate Michael Ono (394.40) and third-place Eric Schaefer (242.00) of Kaiser.
Not only was Wallace's dive difficult, but he also had less time to prepare for it than he would have liked.
"I had my wisdom teeth pulled three weeks ago, and that set me back a few days," Wallace said. "But I worked really hard on this dive, and I think I did a good job with it."
Wallace said the dive's degree of difficulty — a 2.6 dive is considered challenging for high school — mainly comes from the number of rotations jumping off a one-meter springboard.
"It's a huge relief knowing I can do it in competition," Wallace said. "We've got the (Interscholastic League of Honolulu) and state championships coming up, so maybe now I can make some changes and put in a few more similar dives for those."
Wallace, who has a 3.76 grade point average and 1,320 SAT score, said he is hoping to attend Princeton but also is considering Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke and the University of Denver.
"He will leave a legacy for other kids here to follow," Nakamoto said.
Reach Wes Nakama at wnakama@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2456.
Instead, he circled a special date on the calendar to attempt a back two-and-a-half tuck, which has a 3.0 degree of difficulty — unusually challenging for a high school competition.
