By Ron Piemonte
I first met Tom Trapp when I was diving as a teenager. I attended the Stanford Diving Camp for two consecutive summers when I was about 15 or 16 years old, and Tom was helping Rick Schavone with his camps. After that, I also knew Tom when he was coaching at Santa Clara as I competed there in Junior Nationals, as well as a couple of Senior Zone meets when I was in college.
When I started coaching, I spent a few years in Phoenix (where I grew up diving), and the majority of the meets that we would attend were in California. I would see Tom at pretty much all of those meets, and I always enjoyed seeing “Coach Tom” as I called him at diving camp. He was fun to sit with and talk about diving. He had a great knowledge of the sport, as well as the history of diving. In talking with him, you knew it was his passion. He was always striving to be the best coach he could be, and always wanted to contribute his knowledge, work ethic, and ideas to help make the sport of diving better.
Upon my becoming the coach of the Tualatin Hills Dive Club in Oregon, this is where our friendship became even closer, as the both of us were now at EVERY meet together. Regionals, invitationals, zones, nationals… We would hang out all the time, and when I hosted competitions at THDC, he would always stay at my house. My children loved him, and loved when he would come visit.
As well as becoming great friends, when our teams were competing together all the time, we developed a mutual respect for each other’s coaching abilities and accomplishments.
Tom was a great coach. He started the Santa Clara Divers in 1981 and in his time there, produced countless junior national finalists. He was regularly qualifying divers on junior international trips and was a multi time Junior National Team coach.
After moving up to the Pacific Northwest in 1997, he spent a couple years coaching with Tualatin Hills, then moved to the Seattle area where he coached with both Pacific Northwest Diving and Emerald Dive Club. It was at this time that he started on the judging circuit, being the head referee for the ACC for a few years, referee for the Big 12 conference for a few years, judge for the Big 10 conference, diving coordinator for the Pac 12 conference, and was also a judge for both men’s and women’s NCAA Division 1 National Championships. Tom was also an essential volunteer for USA Diving during the entire week of the 2012 USA Diving Olympic Team Trials, when it was hosted by King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Washington.
Besides diving, Tom was an avid sports fan. He loved acrobatic sports and was really into trampoline competitions, gymnastics, Red Bull, etc. He was also a die-hard Cirque du Soliel fan. For a while, Tom got hired by Cirque when their traveling shows would come to Northern California. He also loved college basketball. To tell you how old I am, I remember Tom bought a Sony Watchman. It was a little 3” tv (back when tv’s worked on antennas) so he could glance at the Final Four games that were going on – while he was on the pool deck.
Another one of Tom’s passions was music. He had large picture frames on his wall that were collages of concert tickets that he had attended. His collection was amazing, as was his collection of bootlegged live concert tapes and CDs. In the late 80’s Tom followed Bruce Springsteen around the country during a couple different tours. He knew everyone in the band, and they all knew him. He told me how it was funny when he would recognize celebrities waiting in line to go backstage after a show, and the guy in charge would say, “Hey Tom… come on in!”
I feel that everyone who knew Tom whether as a coach, judge, or a source of information to bounce ideas off, always enjoyed being around him and talking with him. I know that I will miss our phone calls. All the late nights talking about diving, music, college sports, and all the solutions to solving the world’s problems.
Until we meet again, my friend….