The pink rainbows and unicorns have one last thing to do before they settle into retirement: help Derek Krause win a State title.
Krause, the Emporia High senior who was entering today’s Class 5A diving preliminaries at Topeka’s Hummer Sports Park as the top seed, has become known over the last couple of years for his use of those novel mental images before he dives.
After this meet, it appears, his career as a student-athlete diver will be over. So it’s time for Krause and his mental refugees from a children’s book to cap his career with recognition as the state’s best in Class 5A. He finished sixth at State each of the past two years, and with 5-1A now split from Class 6A into its own meet, and only two other qualifiers to beat, Krause is the clear favorite.
“Basically, it’d mean the world to me,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be a state champion, and especially (in) a high school sport.”
Why pink rainbows and unicorns? Well, Krause wants to clear his mind before his dives by thinking about “something totally off the subject.” So, can you think of anything less relevant to diving than pink rainbows and unicorns? Didn’t think so.
Krause doesn’t always use those images; if there’s music playing at the meet, he’ll focus on that instead. But other than those instances, his pre-dive routine is pretty constant.
“As the speaker is saying the dives, I say the dive exactly the same way they do, while they say it,” Krause said. “That really helps me, and then I concentrate on the dive. Then I think of pink rainbows and unicorns right before I start to walk, and I just say, ‘Pink rainbows and unicorns,’ over and over and over. And then I get to the end of the board, and the dive pops right back in my head right before I (get ready to dive).”
You might have gathered from his preparation method that Krause is a bit of a character. It’s probably safe to say that few people on the planet have a tattoo of their own face on their, um, backside. But Krause is among those few after getting a pair of tattoos — the other being a ladder-like design running down his left side — this offseason. The very top of the face tattoo — which he got for no reason other than humor’s sake — is visible on his lower back when he competes at meets, so he does get a few inquiries about it.
“I think all the other divers kind of joke about it a little bit,” he said. “... Some random person at a meet asks, ‘What is that?’ Then I tell them, and they all tell everybody. I can always catch people looking at it.”
Even with the sillier facets of his personality, Krause is serious about excelling off the board. The owner of both the school six-dive and 11-dive records — he’s broken the 11-dive mark several times — Krause spent part of last summer at a diving camp in Austin, Texas.
“He learned a lot in different skills and drills to build up his approach and stuff, so it helped,” EHS diving coach Barbara Clark said. “And he brought some of that to the other boys.”
Krause had explored going to college at Florida Atlantic to dive for its Division I program, but instead, he’ll be attending Kansas State next year. So as far as student-athlete competition goes, the State meet is the last hurrah for him and his pink friends.
“Since my freshman year, I’ve qualified every year,” he said. “It’s the state’s biggest meet. It’s the meet I want to finish confident. I know that last year, I was pretty disappointed, because my sophomore year I ended up finishing sixth, and last year, I finished sixth, too. ... But I was still happy with sixth, and this year, I really want to win.”
The other State qualifiers in 5A are Steve Singharaj of Salina South and Adam Lower of Wichita Collegiate. Diving preliminaries begin at 2 p.m. today, with the semifinals taking place at 6 p.m. The finals will be Friday at 2 p.m.
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