As many know and can relate to, the balance of being a student-athlete proves to be one of the greatest challenges for high schoolers. Finding the balance between time for yourself, academics, family, friends and the sport that you love is extremely important. RJ Snyder ‘25 executes this balance perfectly as an accomplished diver of WA and the Atlanta Diving Association at Georgia Tech.
Prior to moving to Atlanta at the age of ten, RJ flourished as a tumbler at his local gym in Chicago. However, when moving to Atlanta, finding a tumbling center proved to be challenging, so his parents offered him the decision between gymnastics and diving. Both sports would allow RJ to use his skills from tumbling, but he chose to dive. He began the process of joining a club team and starting his diving career.
“When my parents were looking into it, they saw that Georgia Tech had a club team… so I started off with the lesson group, and after a year, my coach moved me up into the top team and I’ve been on there ever since,” RJ said.
RJ’s weekly routine is constantly filled up with school, diving practices and time at home or with friends. While balancing between club team practice and WA’s practice, RJ is diving five days out of the week. RJ begins his day with school and immediately has to leave to beat traffic to get to his practice on time. RJ comes to WA practice one day out of the week – Monday – and club practice four days out of the week – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings.
“I have to get to Tech by 5 pm, but I get there at 4:30 to be able to get in on time, and then we stretch,” RJ said. “We get in the water at 5:45, get out at 7:30, and then we do a little conditioning and I get home at 8:30.”
During the fall, RJ competes in high school meets for WA, but in spring and summer, he competes in meets for his club team. While most high schoolers get to spend their summer traveling and having downtime, RJ’s dive season is in full swing at GA Tech. Although the season restricts him from traveling over breaks, RJ enjoys all of the meets that he gets to compete in over the summer. When asked about a memorable meet that he competed in, RJ recounted the memory of his first time qualifying for Nationals.
“I was 12 and I had just started basically… and I ended up having a really good meet and I qualified for Nationals in the last spot, and my coaches were not expecting that,” RJ said. “Since then I got moved up to the top team.”
Today, RJ has since placed 19th in Nationals.
When coming to WA during his freshman year, RJ attended one day of WA dive tryouts because that was the only time he was allowed to attend by his club coach. RJ easily made the team and began competing for WA in the fall of 2021. Ever since, RJ has qualified for state in all three years of his high school career. RJ clearly has an appreciation for both his club team and the WA team.
“I don’t go to practice here a lot, but I love the team here,” RJ said. “I have really good relationships with everyone, but I’m not at practice as much as I would like to be here.”
Every season so far, RJ has successfully qualified for State, and he explains the gradual process of competing to dive at this prestigious meet.
“For the meets in high school – I think we have about eight – you have to get a certain score to qualify for State, and I think we had five divers qualify for State, including myself,” RJ said.
At the State meet, there were 30 divers from both 6A and 7A divisions. Out of both of those divisions, RJ had to first score in the top 10 to move on to Finals. After competing in the first and second rounds, RJ did a total of twelve different dives, completing six dives in each round. When Finals is completed, the judges separated divers from 6A and 7A into their individual divisions. RJ finished first in 6A, which is a major accomplishment for himself and WA’s Dive Team.
To RJ’s complete surprise, his friend group appeared at the State meet in support of him and his teammate Dillon Craig ‘25. RJ was extremely grateful for their support and explained how much it meant to him.
“They didn’t tell me that they were going to go, and I thought that was so cute because they made a poster and everything,” RJ said. “It was just good vibes, and I loved that they were showing their support.”
It is clear that the WA community is so proud of RJ and all of his accomplishments as a diver. As RJ is finishing his junior year, he is looking to the future of diving in college. RJ has received three offers so far, and it seems that he has already fallen in love with one of the lucky schools.
“I should be making my decision in the next one or two weeks,” RJ said.
