Diver Magliulo of Manhasset learns to relax, excel
Call him the Mentalist.
That's because Peter Magliulo's transformation on the diving board, going from middle-of-the-pack to the leader of it, has as much to do with mental preparation as it does hard work.
"Some people think it's really easy, because you just run off the board, do a couple flips and it's over," he said. "But it's not. You have to really concentrate on what you're doing."
The Manhasset sophomore was the top diver in Nassau during the regular season and earned his first bid to states after taking first place in the county championships Wednesday night.
To get a sense of how far Magliulo (pronounced My-EW-low) has come in 12 months, check the numbers: in his regular season as a freshman he posted a high of 173.92 and finished 12th overall. This regular season, his high score was 271.57, nearly a hundred-point jump. And that's not even the most impressive thing. Magliulo came in 17th with a score of 234.2 at the county championships in 2009, but destroyed that mark with a 429 this year, handily beating the state qualifying score of 396.
The difference, he said, is all in his head.
"If you're on the diving board, if you're thinking about something else - what happens after the dive, what scores you're going to get - it's not helpful because you're not thinking about your approach or mechanics," Magliulo said. "If you go in really tense you restrict your ability to throw or stretch out and it makes the diving a lot harder. I guess that's what happened last year."
Magliulo gets ready to concentrate by pumping dance music and hip-hop tracks into his headphones. "It kind of calms me down and gets me relaxed and focused," he said.
After about half the divers in front of him have completed a rotation, he lies down and begins serious concentration and focus, blocking out everything in preparation for those few seconds of complicated twists, tucks and curls.
When that rotation is over, after the applause dies down and the scores come in, he runs in place to keep his muscles ready and energy flowing as he readies for his next trip to the board.
"Remarkable, really remarkable, he's one of those kids," Manhasset swimming coach Matt McGrane said. He's one of those rare high school students, self motivated and extremely disciplined."
But to show how fragile veering from the routine or losing focus for a moment can be, a few days before his first-place showing at the Nassau championships on Wednesday, Magliulo came in third in the Division B final, posting just a 324.3.
"He was much, much better at counties than he was at the division championships," McGrane said. "And my take on it was that he was just more relaxed. He was smiling a lot more and was more at ease. His first two dives he scored 79 points. He got into a roll, he warmed up well. He was loose, hit his first couple of dives and was building his confidence through there."
Magliulo said he was tense at the division final because "I saw all these kids doing really well and I thought I was going to do bad. But going into counties, I thought about last year and how hard I worked and just went in there thinking whatever happens, happens. So I was calm."
Now all he has to think about is how far he can go at the state competition.
"I'm sure this being his first time, the adrenaline's gonna go," McGrane said. "He's going to feel some pressure, but hopefully with the way he responded at counties, he's got that experience behind him. Hopefully he can carry that through to states."
Magliulo said his only goal is getting onto the award stand. "I really don't know what to expect," he said. "I'm a little nervous about going to states, but I intend on being really focused and relaxed."
It'll be a New York States of Mind.
