Purdue University’s own David Boudia is training to qualify for what could be his second Olympic games.
Currently training for the 2012 Olympics, this fourth year student in the Brian Lamb School of Communication has enjoyed a successful NCAA diving career and recently began a career as a professional diver.
Boudia warms up prior to his platform competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Boudia began diving for Purdue in the fall of 2008. In the three years he was on the Purdue dive team Boudia won six NCAA national titles and was named the NCAA Diver of the Year each year that he dove.
Along with beginning his college diving career with Purdue in 2008, Boudia also dove in the 2008 Olympics. Boudia said he told his parents he wanted to compete in the Olympics when he was a seven-year-old watching the 1996 games. Currently he is training for what would be his second chance to dive in the Olympics.
The star diver has a different attitude going into this set of the Olympic games than his first appearance.
“The first time I qualified to be in the Olympics my goal was to fulfill my dream of diving in the Olympics,” Boudia said. “This year my goal is to win.”
To reach this goal and begin his professional diving career Boudia forfeited his fourth year of eligibility to dive for Purdue in the NCAA conference. Instead, Boudia began diving professionally this summer and now balances his time out of the classroom training and diving.
Despite all of his accomplishments in the NCAA, Boudia considers his greatest feat to be winning the silver medal during the Diving World Championship in Shanghai earlier this summer.
Adam Soldati, Purdue’s head diving coach, was both Boudia’s head coach while he dove for Purdue and his personal coach for the World Championship.
“David had to hit every single dive at his optimal level, and he did,” Soldati said of Boudia’s World Championship performance.
He said working with Boudia has been an enjoyable experience.
“He’s a great kid with a tremendous amount of character; the most dedicated I’ve ever seen both in and out of the pool,” Soldati said.
Boudia (left) on the medal stand after winning the silver medal at the 2011 World Championships this summer in China.
Although Soldati enjoyed his experiences with David he said it was not without difficulties.
“An athlete at that level is much more challenging to train because they need training that is much more refined,” Soldati said. “It’s much harder to stay at the top then to get there. Training David ultimately made me a much better coach and challenged me in technique and mentally.”
Soldati still trains Boudia and is helping him prepare for the Olympic trials in June of 2012. Boudia will not know if he passed the trials to dive in the 2012 Olympics until July during the opening ceremonies in London.
Members of the Purdue community will be interested to learn the outcome of these trials, including Glenn Sparks, associate head of the Brian Lamb School of Communication, who has followed Boudia’s progress in the news.
“I’ve always been a supporter of Purdue athletics and watching him as been exciting for me,” Sparks said.
A proud Purdue student, Boudia hopes that his communication training can help him with both professional sponsorships and keynote speaking.
Written by Logan Lampton
Senior, Public Relations and Rhetorical Advocacy