about us
About The Club
American Flyers Diving is an age group diving club designed to teach and develop athletes from the most basic diving safety and fundamentals to the highest ELITE level springboard and platform competition. The American Flyers diving team has been an official team member of United States Diving since 1995.
Message from the Flyers:
Our ultimate goal is to teach kids how to dive, how to be competitive, and still have fun. We strive to make a positive experience out of learning something new. Diving is very much an individual effort and every person has a different mental and emotional way of learning. With positive motivation and safe skill development, diving can be a great way to achieve both physical and mental confidence. As a club, each individual learns to contribute to the success of the team, building a sense of camaraderie and accomplishment. These are all skills which we believe are useful in life as well.
AFD Training Methodology
The American Flyers Diving Club utilizes 3 physical training approaches. The first is the most obvious - diving boards & water. The second is visual training. This includes a digital video system to record and play back each dive on a delay so each athlete can see their last dive as they exit the water. The Third and one of the most important is less obvious – dry land training. This includes a “dry board”, trampoline (both with overhead spotting rigs) & a work out area.
Dry land training is a key element in the progression of safe skill development for diving. This allows a diver to perform the skills at a basic level & master key body positions before progressing to more difficult skills. Correct form & increased repetition aids in a better foundation for muscle memory which are of great importance to any activity. The process of building muscle memory can be greatly sped up with dry land work. During dry land training a diver will get through many more repetitions in much less time than they will in the water. This, in turn, maximizes practice time. Another great reward this type of training can achieve for divers is a heightened level of confidence in a shorter amount of time
About The Coaches
Head Coach: Marc Cahalane
Marc began diving as a freshman in high school in Ohio then earned a 4-year diving scholarship to Ohio University in Athens, OH. He graduated in 1996 with a B.S. in Fine Arts. He then spent three years diving professionally at Sea World of Ohio in a high dive stunt show.
In September 2007, he was honored to take over the American Flyers Diving Club and continue the tradition of excellence here. His family moved from Colorado back to his home in the Northeast Ohio area where he began his coaching experience. Before moving to Colorado, he coached for Glen Oak High School in Canton and Nordonia High School in Macedonia. He also worked with the American Flyers Diving Team for one year and coached gymnastics at Gymnastics of Ohio in North Canton. As well as being owner and head coach of The Flyers, he is currently coaching several area high schools including: Solon, Aurora, Twinsburg, Chagrin Falls, Nordonia, and Garfield Heights.
During the three years in Colorado, he coached with the Mile High Dive Club in the Denver area, the CU-Boulder club diving team, various high school teams (including: Boulder, Fairview, Columbine, Dakota Ridge, Chatfield, and Summit) and his own club diving team in Boulder, the Flatirons Diving Club.
He has coached diving continuously since 1996 at the high school, collegiate, and club (USA Diving and AAU) levels in Ohio and Colorado.
(Marc is currently safety certified by the USA Diving and the AAU Sports organizations and current in first aid and CPR.)
Assistant Coach: Daniel Miller
Daniel has been coaching with American Flyers Diving since 2009. Dan started diving in high school, and has trained under Ron Kontura and Marc Cahalane. He was a 4 year letter winner, team captain, conference MVP and still holds both the 6 and 11 dive school records at Nordonia High School. Dan has also competed at the NCAA Division 1 level. His coaching résumé includes head coach and assistant coaching experience at the high school level in diving as well as track and field and junior elite level baseball and basketball.
In 2009, Dan's first year with the American Flyers, he helped guide 9 athletes to the Ohio State Championship Meet (the most in the club's history), 15 district qualifiers, a conference champion, multiple division champions, a sectional, district and state champion, a district and state runner-up.
What Dan enjoys most about coaching is seeing kids progress in ability, both physical and mental. He likes to see kids set and achieve goals that they may have originally never thought possible. One of his personal goals for high school athletes is to help them receive scholarships for diving at the collegiate level. Dan also created the AFD facebook page and blog page, where regular updates from meet results, practice changes, awards earned by divers, etc., are posted…
Dan's educational background is in kinesiology and professional background has been in sales and marketing as well as coaching. In his free time he enjoys reading, going to sporting events and playing with his two dogs, Bailey & Sheba. He is also an instructor for Nordonia High School's marching band. Dan is also engaged and will be getting married in October, 2011.
(Dan is currently safety certified by USA Diving & the AAU and is certified in first aid and CPR)
