Dr. Rick Schavone has been the Director of Men's and Women's diving at Stanford University since 1978. One of the only Ph.D. holders in his profession, Schavone has turned diving there into one of the top all-around programs in the country. Analytical, detail-oriented, encouraging, and appropriately-perfectionistic, Schavone attributes a large part of his success to his background as a sports psychologist.

In a sport where mental preparation is just as important as physical training, Schavone has coached his men's and women's teams to eight individual NCAA championships, 76 All-American honors and 32 individual Pac-10 titles. Successfully balancing the psychological and the physical aspects of one of the most pressure-packed and mentally-challenging individual sports, Schavone has been applauded by his peers as well.

Schavone received the prestigious Coaches' Whosam Award in 2003, a trophy given to a coach who adheres to the highest standards of physical and mental well-being.

Rick Schavone was selected as USA Diving's 1984 Coach of the Year, was awarded the top coaching honors in the Pac-10 on numerous occasions, was NCAA Diving Coach of the Year repeatedly, and was selected as head coach for several US diving teams.

In addition to coaching, Schavone was an assistant to the Director of Athletics at a university where athletics and academia are often intertwined. Schavone has taught several courses on sports psychology and motor learning and helped organize seminars and colloquia on sports-related issues. Topics have included "The Athlete's Body," Building Character and Ethics in Sport, and "Limits of Performance." As moderator of the latter, Schavone delved into concepts of "performance" as they pertained to psycho-social ideas, cognition and conditioning.

"Is it possible to be in control of one's performance while it occurs?" - "How does one experience the limits of performance while performing?" - "When do individual acts of performance go beyond belief?" Up to what extent can conditioning guarantee successful performance, and can it push the limits of potential performance too far? Schavone is in a position to analyze and discuss.