Trust fall

Coach Eric Blevins’ enthusiasm springboards his divers to success.

Words by Liz Leyden

Eric Blevins coaches TCNJ diver Beth Evaldi ’26 / Photo credit: Michelle Gustafson

When TCNJ diving coach Eric Blevins left home in Virginia for college in the Midwest, he brought along a thick drawl that earned him the nickname “Country,” and an unmistakable zest for life.

A natural athlete who played football and wrestled in high school, Blevins could often be found doing backflips on the campus quad. His energy and agility caught the attention of a swimmer who suggested he join the dive team.

Blevins was surprised — his skills at the time were strictly land-based — but also intrigued: How hard could it be?

The answer (very, very hard) arrived a month later when he washed out of his first competition with dismal results.

“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not going to happen again,’” he says.

Blevins began skipping lunch to spend extra hours at the pool, his days soon defined by classes and chlorine. By season’s end, he beat his nearest competitor by more than 100 points; by graduation, he’d twice been named a Division III All-American and collected a record-breaking eight conference titles for Grinnell College. He’s driven not by a sense of competition — well, not only — but by the unexpected joy he discovered in pursuit of the perfect dive.

“Diving really changed my perspective about sports and competition and life,” Blevins says. “You get out what you put in. It meant so much to me that I wanted to give that back.”

Since arriving at TCNJ in 2018, Blevins has won the Metropolitan Collegiate Conference Diving Coach of the Year award four times and sent divers to the NCAA regional championships and beyond. Last spring, senior Ethan Weiss earned a spot to compete at the 2024 Olympic Trials Qualifier in Indiana. The key to the team’s growing success is in part the determination of its athletes. But Blevins’ approach — at once rigorous and exuberant — is equally critical.

On a recent fall day, a carefully curated playlist, from Lady Gaga and Britney Spears to Pat Benatar, rose above the steady churn of splashing waves. The upbeat mix is intentional, one way to offset the intensity of the dives themselves, a series of somersaults and twists and backward flips midair. Blevins stood parallel to the boards, delivering detailed feedback in a playful tone that, too, is no accident.

Square it out!

Push through your toes!

Pull your shoulders in!

That’s gonna be a nice bruise!

“I personally thrive more in a positive, fun atmosphere, especially in a sport that’s so mentally taxing,” he says. “So that’s how I coach. Diving is fun. That’s the whole point.”

Creating that atmosphere requires more than just delivering critiques with a smile. Blevins spends hours outside of practice conjuring the details he believes help his divers succeed, from assembling the 500- song, profanity-free playlist (“Not easy!”) to hosting ugly-sweater holiday parties and epic Halloween scavenger hunts. And then there are his infamous workouts.

On “Vegas Day,” the divers roll dice to determine drills and repetitions. For “Hell Mile,” the team runs laps while drawing from a stack of Blevins’ handwritten notecards that might add 100 burpees to the challenge. During “Diver Jeopardy,” they tackle trivia questions about diving history, sports trivia, and Blevins himself; each mistake earns a special exercise.

“It’s very, very creative what this guy comes up with,” says Weiss. “And it definitely brings us all together because he does it all with us. He’s not a coach who’s like, ‘Do this, do that.’ He’s right there doing the workout with us.”

The method to his madness, Blevins says, is to build camaraderie — and serious core strength — so the divers challenge themselves.

“It’s so much more fun to try the hard stuff that you’re afraid of if you have that kind of support system,” he says.

Growing the team’s success is one piece of Blevins’ mission to spread the gospel of the sport. In 2018, he founded the Jersey Diving Academy, whose lessons and competitive club team draws young divers from across South Jersey.

Beth Evaldi ’26 first met Blevins when she joined the JDA club team during high school; the attention he paid not only to divers’ abilities, but also to their fears, was part of the reason she chose to go to TCNJ.

“It’s very hard when you have a more intense coach,” she says. “If I’m struggling to get a dive off, Coach Blevins will come talk to me afterwards. And the first thing he says is, ‘So what’s going on in your head? Talk to me.’ Other coaches just expect you to go do it and don’t really focus on that aspect.”

Throughout practice, the divers use Blevins’ voice as a beacon, asking him to call out when they’re midair to signal when to spring up and out of a tuck. They trust him not only because he is their coach, but because he’s also a competitive diver.

Since 2015, Blevins has competed in five World Aquatics Masters Championships, winning two gold medals along the way. He will travel to his sixth competition in Singapore this spring with hopes of getting “back on the podium.”

Blevins understands that serendipity — the backflips on the quad, the suggestion to check out the dive team — led him to the sport that became central to his life. So, he continues to welcome beginners to his teams, hoping they might find their lives changed for the better, too.

Josh Bouchard ’27 had never touched a diving board before he joined TCNJ’s team last fall. Blevins patiently helped him build his skills. Now, Bouchard is astonished to find himself doing reverse dives off the 10-foot board.

“He makes everything feel like it’s possible,” he says. “Sometimes you smack the water, but you trust him. So that’s why you trust yourself.”