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Tina Steck, who graduated from Barnard
in 1980, was an assistant district attorney in New York City and a trial attorney
with the U.S. Department of Justice, and she now lives with her husband and two
sons on the West Coast. But her memories of her years as an Ivy League athletic
pioneer stay with her. “Nothing can match being involved in athletics,” she says.
“Diving was a really big part of my day, and my life.”
In her freshman year at Barnard, Steck won the three-meter diving event in the first Ivy League championship, held in 1977. In all the years of competition since, her score of 507.45 remains the highest today. Steck also won the Ivy championships in 1979 and placed in the AIAW National Championships. The 1979 Ivy title was particularly notable from both the League and Steck family perspectives because Tina won it the same day her brother, Paul, a star diver at Cornell, became the Eastern Seaboard one-meter champion for the third straight time. That coincidence earned brother and sister a dual item in the April 9, 1979, Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd.”
Another top diver of the era was Brown University’s Noel
Keefer, who stands out not only because of her accomplishments on the diving
board, but also for the grit and grace she displayed throughout her injury-filled
career. In 1975, Keefer placed 13th in the three-meter diving event of the AIAW
championships and earned All-America honors as a freshman, becoming the first
female athlete at Brown to achieve such distinction. Plagued by chronic back problems
during her first two years, she spent the fall of her junior year in a body cast,
then struggled through a grueling recovery and training regimen before returning
to diving competition. Despite intermittent recurrences of back pain, Keefer proceeded
to post new dual meet records on both the one and three meter boards on her way
to an undefeated season. The following year, she won the New England Championships
and again garnered All-America status.
Had constant injury not impeded her promising career, Keefer’s already impressive list of achievements and accolades would likely have been much longer, but her performance under the pressure of severe pain remains an inspirational example of courage, confidence, and determination.
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