Senior Graham Rittiluechai was in second place behind his friend, senior Pearce diver Michael Evans, until he saw the last diver perform and take his spot. When Evans came up to him on the pool deck, he was upset. The goal was for them to take the top two spots no matter what. It took Rittiluechai ten minutes to cool off from the adrenaline and the expectations in the locker room and Evans telling him third place is such a great accomplishment for him to realize he still podiumed and it wasn’t a complete loss.

Rittiluechai placed third for the boys one meter dive at UIL Swimming & Diving State Meet with a score of 509.35 on Feburary 21. He is the first recorded diver from RHS to make the state podium.

Rittiluechai and Evans have known each other since pre-K and did backyard trampoline flips together before eventually diving at the Dallas Metroplex Diving Club. Over the years, they’ve been right on each other’s tails and go back and forth in placing above each other at meets. Rittiluechai said in the last two years, Evans has been placing above him, but he’s catching up to him.

“It’s never been a heated rivalry,” Rittiluechai said. “I mean we’re more friends than anything.”

While they both have different coaches, they show up to the club pool every day at the same time. During practices, they hype each other up by saying you got a dive. The words of encouragement helped them a lot when they first started diving and were too scared to dive on the big platforms. Now, they push each other to do bigger dives by going into the pool right after each other.

“We’re always there for each other, and it’s great having him by my side throughout all those practices,” Evans said.

Dallas Metroplex Diving Club coach Parker Hardigree said there’s a friendly competition between Rittiluechai and Evans. There’s a little bit of trash talk, but for the most part, they encourage each other. When they do something cool, they cheer each other on, and when they learn something hard, they laugh when they mess up.

“You want to see each other succeed, and I see that a lot between the two of them,” Hardigree said.

Evans said he feels they both progressed pretty parallel to each other, but recently, Rittiluechai has grown more exponentially as a diver. In the months leading up to state, Rittiluechai has been putting in the work and hitting harder dives.

Hardigree said Rittiluechai was very eager to learn and is willing to make corrections that other athletes might not be willing to make, even if it’s uncomfortable. Rittiluechai would also ask to work on specific dives and tell him what dives he wants to do at state. Even if he didn’t think it was ready for competitions, he still liked that Rittiluechai was confident in them and is always going to push for that if it’s going to help him.

“He likes pushing himself outside of his comfort zone,” Hardigree said. “He’s very hard working, and I really enjoy coaching him.”

At the state meet, Rittiluechai and Evans warmed up together by putting on their headphone to listen to music and get into their own mental space. They separate themselves from talking to people and visualize their dives.

Rittiluechai performed eight dives during the preliminary round and three in the finals. He said he took a lot of risks by performing big dives he hadn’t done before in both of his rounds. He performed two and a half flips in every direction, along with a gainer twist that he hadn’t performed in years. He was able to do those big dives by putting himself in a position where his mindset believes that he can succeed.

“Once your mindset is there, then you can succeed,” Rittiluechai said. “That’s the mental part of putting myself in that position.”

During prelims, Rittiluechai performed a gainer two and a half in his last dive, which was the highest scored dive of the day with 67 points, pushing him to second place. Afterwards, Evans performed a big dive and took his spot for second place, with less than a point apart from each other.

While Evans tries not to look at his competitor’s dives, he got to see almost all of Rittiluechai’s dives because he performed right before him. He said his gainer two and a half was crazy to see and it was the best dive ever.

Hardigree said the gainer two and a half is considered one of the harder dives to do, especially at the high school level. While the dive was pretty easy for Rittiluechai to do, he can get in his head a lot and overthink it. Hardigree instilled in his mind that he knows how to do it and to let his body do all the work.

“You just have to be confident and trust the work that we’ve put in, so I think he went into it with that mindset, and I think it worked out,” Hardigree said.

Rittiluechai also performed an inward two-and-a-half somersault and the back two-and-a-half somersault, which Hardigree taught him a couple of weeks before the meet. Hardigree said those dives have one of the highest degrees of difficulty, but Rittiluechai worked very hard on trying to make them better.

“I’m glad that he was able to compete those at the meet,” Hardigree said.

Going into finals, Rittiluechai kept a level head and knew he had to perform each dive to the best of his ability. He performed a back twister, back two and a half and lower two and a half. He decided to perform everything backwards because he didn’t want to risk doing a hurdle and falling off the board. He only performed his lower two and a half once before so the risk-reward ratio was pretty big, but he pulled it off and earned 45 points. He said he could’ve done better in his final dives, but he still feels pretty accomplished.

After going on the stage and receiving their medals, Rittiluechai and Evans celebrated by holding up their friend, senior Marcus Miller, over their shoulder as a trophy.

Despite Rittiluechai wanting to get second place after Evans, he said it still feels good to receive a medal.

“I’m so happy to bring home some hardware,” Rittiluechai said.

Rittiluechai said he beat three divers who are going D1 that he’s never beaten before. He said they’re more consistent in doing bigger dives, but when he went out there, he did way better for himself. While he doesn’t want to rub it in their faces since they’re his friends, it felt good to come out on top.

Even though there was some divers from the club that competed against Rittiluechai, he said he didn’t focus on any of the other divers because if he worried about how they’re going to perform, his dives won’t be as good.

UIL took Rittiluechai’s eligibility to compete in varsity last year because his residence doesn’t zone into RHS. He zones into Pearce and went there his freshman year before transferring to a charter school in his sophomore year, which didn’t have a dive team. In his junior year, when he transferred to RHS, Rittiluechai competed in jv and focused on coaching the dive team.

Rittiluechai said he feels like he deserves to be on the podium, considering he hasn’t gotten the chance to compete in varsity since his freshman year. He doesn’t feel bad taking anyone’s spot because they have another year to make it.

Evans said Rittiluechai 1,000% deserved to be on the podium. Since Evans got injured last year, he said it was exhilarating to finally compete with him at state, and getting that outcome feels like it was bound to happen. It was a dream come true, and all Evans could have ever hoped for.

“It is very crazy that we both ended up on the podium for our final high school meet of the year,” Evans said.

Hardigree watched the results live and felt proud and very excited for Rittiluechai. He said Rittiluechai has worked very hard, and it’s good to see that pay off.

Swim coach Tori Whitehead said she knew he was going to be on the podium because she was watching the scores and saw he had the highest score when there were only three people left. She said she was excited for him and this was something Rittiluechai has been working for a long time, especially since he couldn’t compete last year.

“He didn’t go into the meet seeded third place, so he improved and he needs to be proud of that accomplishment,” Whitehead said.

When Whitehead saw that Rittiluechai was frustrated over the last diver taking his spot, she said, “You don’t get to be upset about getting a medal.” She told him to collect himself and enjoy the moment because it’s such a great achievement.

While Whitehead isn’t an experienced diver, she said she’s made sure Rittiluechai is eligible to go to state this year, shows up and brings a water bottle and contacts. She’s able to build a connection with him because they both practice at the club pool.

Rittiluechai said Whitehead did all she could, considering she couldn’t coach him on diving and was like a mentor to him, so he’s appreciative of what she’s done for him.

Rittiluechai said it doesn’t feel that crazy to be the first diver to place and the first diver in 40 years to make it to state because diving is a small sport. But he hopes it’s not long before another diver goes to state and that the dive team continues on after he sparked it back up.

“I haven’t been here for that long, so I don’t think I’m extremely heavy in the school spirit department,” Rittiluechai said. “It felt good to represent something other than myself to a degree. Put on the shirt and still have benefit in something other than myself.”

Rittiluechai said going to state was really fun, especially outside the pool, because he knew the people there and the energy was hype. They had a light show with loud music while the swimmers were competing. He said that while some people may find it distracting or hard to focus, it helped him because there was a lot of background noise.

Rittiluechai said he’s done enough big meets where state didn’t feel as serious as his other competitions like nationals.

“The energy’s there for sure, but it didn’t feel like there was as much pressure on everybody,” Rittiluechai said.

Hardigree said he hopes Rittiluechai’s performance at state proves to him that he’s not an underdog and that he’s at the top of the pack and deserves to be there. Leading up to the meet, Hardigree worked on making sure Rittiluechai was confident in his abilities, prepared and knows he deserves to be there.

Whitehead said she hopes Rittiluechai learned how successful he can be when he shows up, because he only shows up for the things he cares about. She also hopes colleges were able to see him dive at a high level.

“This was an opportunity for him to have a real high note,” Whitehead said.

Hardigree’s goal for Rittiluechai now is to get him to nationals for the one-meter springboard, three-meter springboard and 10-meter platform. Last year, Rittiluechai only qualified for the platform, so he hopes to get him qualified for all three events.

Evans said he hopes they both compete at nationals together and do great there.

Rittiluechai is still looking at colleges with a decent dive program, but so far, nothing has been working for him. If he doesn’t end up diving at a school, he’ll pursue a video degree.

“My current plan is still to find a school to commit to for diving,” Rittiluechai said.