Everybody into the pool.
The Aquatic Center at Mylan Park is making its second big splash in the world of competitive diving next month, and that means a lot of people will be needed to help staff the event.
Some 150 divers from across the nation will be at the park and its showcase center May 16-24 for this year’s USA Diving National Championships.
The competition is a qualifier for the 2023 World Aquatics Championships and the 2023 Pan American Games.
Ushers, ticket-takers and others to help with registration and general upkeep during the competition are needed, organizers said, ideally for four-hour shifts.
Visit https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0e48ada92ea2fbc70-2023#/ to register.
This round will be the aquatic center’s second trip to the medal podium in the infrastructure Olympics, as it were.
Last December, the center hosted the 2022 Diving Winter National Championships, where positive ripples for the venue were generated.
So much, in fact, that Morgantown and the center was barely edged out by Knoxville, Tenn., to host diving trials for the Summer Olympics.
In Ron Justice’s world, the latest overture just means Mylan Park as a community destination is cresting the wave.
When he was Morgantown’s mayor 22 years ago and the park complex was still in its pencil-sketch stages, he wasn’t necessarily thinking all that much about national significance.
For Justice, who now serves on the park’s board of directors, the motivation was local, as he told The Dominion Post previously.
It was a matter of creating a nice expanse townspeople could enjoy.
The park has since grown.
A sports addition to the Hazel and J.W. Ruby Community Center last spring came in at nearly $7 million.
Public relations dividends for which dollar amounts can’t be attached have also been kicked up over the past two decades at Mylan Park, which is now a destination for everything from craft fairs to craft brews, lumberjack events, American Legion baseball and all cultural events in-between.
There were five big reasons, in the form of five golden rings, that were the motivating leaps in the construction of the aquatic center, the former mayor said.
“We wanted an Olympic-caliber facility. This is what we were envisioning and hoping for.”
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