Half of the Michigan men's swimming and diving team is forgotten. Experts associate Michigan swimming with Olympians like John Piersma and Tom Malchow, not divers Brett Wilmot and Al Fleming.
Yes, the divers are hardly even thought about when there are discussions surrounding the success of the team, but they should be included.
The diving team will attempt to earn some respect at the Diving Zone Meet in Minneapolis on Friday and Saturday. The Zone Meet is the only chance for the divers to earn a spot in the national championships.
The Zone Meet provides an opportunity for the best divers of the Big Ten Conference and the Mid-American Conference to gain a berth in the national finals in two weeks. The top three finishers in the meet will advance.
Despite their strong impact at the conference championships, the divers were overshadowed by the excellence of their swimming teammates. Without the contributions of Wilmot, Fleming and the other divers, the conference crown may not have returned to Ann Arbor.
Wilmot finished seventh in the three-meter competition and a more important third in the platform competition. Joining Wilmot in the top 10 in the platform were sophomores Fleming and Nate Shepard.
All four Michigan divers that head to the Zone Meet made important contributions throughout the dual-meet season.
Michigan divers won events at every meet except against Michigan State and Ohio State. The Wolverine divers swept the top three spots against Purdue, California and Stanford. In the Cal and Stanford meets, Michigan swept both diving events.
However, the biggest contribution the divers made this season was during the Purdue meet.
The Wolverines had never lost to the Boilermakers and the meet was much closer than anticipated. The clutch diving of Wilmot, Fleming and freshman Josh Trexler provided much of the 14-point margin.
"The diving really helped," Michigan swimming coach Jon Urbanchek said that day. "Without the diving we would have lost."
Indeed, the 16 points that the divers provided gave the flu-stricken Wolverines the win.
Michigan enters the Zone Meet without an NCAA champion in any diving event since 1984. Olympian Kent Ferguson took the three-meter title that year. Cracking the top three in the Zone will be difficult, but the divers have been up to the challenge all year.