How empathy helped this Saskatoon diving club reach the Olympics
The Carrolls are coaches at the Saskatoon Diving Club and are dedicated to developing well-rounded athletes
Steve Carroll and his wife Mary are dedicated to nurturing well-rounded athletes.
"When they're younger, we just really make sure that they care about each other. We teach them character before we teach them how to compete," Steve Carroll told The Current's host Matt Galloway.
"We teach them how to have empathy for other kids. And we think that all is very important in becoming a full, rounded athlete."
The Carrolls started the Saskatoon Diving Club, where they both serve as coaches, after moving from Newfoundland to Saskatchewan in 2008.
The coaching duo bring technical expertise from their own diving careers — Steve won a gold medal at the 1985 Canada Summer Games, and Mary competed in the 1992 Olympic Games.
The club offers a variety of programs for all skill levels, from beginners to advanced divers, at two facilities in Saskatoon: The Shaw Centre and the Harry Bailey Aquatic Centre.
Carroll says their nurturing coaching philosophy has been an approach he's developed from the very start.
"You don't come in and say, 'I want this culture, I want you guys to be confident, I want you to win. I want an attitude. I want hard work.' You got to create good people around you," he said.
Making Olympians
Two of their divers, Margo Erlam and Rylan Wiens, along with their daughter Sydney Carroll, a synchronized swimmer, competed at the Summer Olympics in Paris earlier this year.
Erlam competed in the three-metre springboard diving event, while Wiens participated in both the 10-metre synchronized and individual diving events.
"I don't think there was an hour that went by when I didn't think about everything and just filled up with tears," said Carroll.
"It was just so emotional. It was incredible."
Wiens, with his diving partner Nathan Zsombor-Murray, won a bronze medal in the 10-metre synchro event, becoming the first Canadian men to earn a spot on the Olympic podium in this event.
On the night of the final competition, Wiens says their emotions were high.
"We looked at each other and were like, 'This is what we've been working for the last 16 years for,'" said Wiens.
'This club means the whole world to me'
Erlam says she couldn't have achieved her lifelong dream of competing at the Olympics without the Carrolls.
Before joining the Saskatoon Diving Club, she trained in Calgary where her coach's strict approach drained her passion for the sport.
Feeling lost and on the verge of giving up, Erlam says she was in a very dark place.
Just before quitting, she reached out to Mary to ask for a trial coaching session. Erlam quickly fell in love with her coaching style and decided to move to Saskatoon.
"This club means the world to me. [They] just opened their club and their home to me, and I made it my home," said Erlam.
"Mary Carroll [was] basically my mom here. My parents didn't move when I was 16, so she made sure that I was loving the sport again."
In a tight-knit and loving community, Erlam was able to achieve what she had once believed was impossible. She says it was at the closing ceremonies that she truly soaked in the realization that she was an Olympian.
"Seeing all those people being there for me and for Canada, and for the whole world and these athletes, like we're such a small population of the world," she said.
"I think having that big of a crowd, just being there, supporting us, was the start of me realizing that I was an Olympian."
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Audio produced by Julie Crysler and Austin Pomeroy