Daring Diver: Her First Job Went Down in Flames

The new diving coach for the Kirkwood Riptides swim and dive team has a few tricks the competition might not have seen before – like riding a tricycle off the high dive while dressed as a clown or diving in while engulfed in flames.

But don’t worry, Michele Ferber is sticking with the basics when it comes to the kids she coaches. No fire, no props, no clown costumes.

"I don't think the pools would let me," she joked.

Ferber, 45, of Olivette, is a reading specialist at Avery Elementary School in Webster Groves during the school year. Her 7-year-old daughter is on the Riptides in the summer.

When team organizers found out Ferber was a diver – she was a Missouri state champion for Clayton High School in 1984 and a two-time All American while at the University of Illinois – they realized she wasn’t just another “dive parent.”

Julie Backer, the mother of a 12-year-old Riptides diver, said she was impressed when she heard about Ferber's stunt diving experience. But the kids have been all business, she said.

"It’s not about what their dive coach used to do," she said. "It’s about, ‘How in the world am I going to get a full twist in that dive I’m supposed to do?”

“She is such a skilled coach,” Backer said. “What she’s good at is teaching the little things that get you points, like pointing your toes, keeping your legs straight, looking confident on the board or making sure your approach is perfect.”

Ferber, who has also coached at Clayton High School and Washington University, said she was excited to be working with the Riptides. The team is made up of about 30 kids, ages 6 to 18, who train at the Kirkwood pool (Recreation Station Aquatic Center) each summer. Their first meet of the year is tonight at Kirkwood against Fenton.

It’s a bit different from her first job out of college when she went to work as a stunt diver for a company that produced shows at theme parks in Europe. She worked in Portugal and later in Germany.

As part of the stunt team, she performed straight dives like the ones that won her awards in college. She also did “clown” diving, fire diving and high diving.

“Most people go out and buy a suit after they get out of college,” Ferber joked. “I went out and bought a clown suit.”

In clown diving, she and other “clowns” would ride tricycles off the diving board, bounce each other off the board and dive through each other’s legs. All while wearing silly outfits.

In fire diving, she would plunge off a 30-foot platform trailing a cape that had been doused in gasoline and set on fire. “Just a straight dive,” she said. “You can’t really flip while you’re on fire.”

She was most nervous about the trick diving from a 90-foot platform. “It was dangerous, I guess. It’s pretty high,” she said.

In fact, Ferber said, she had to battle back a fear of heights for that one. “That’s one reason I did it. I thought that would be a good way to overcome my fears,” she said.

Ferber, who was a gymnast before becoming a diver, now coaches kids through their first “pencil” dives (feet first) off the spring board to more complicated dives involving flips and twists.

Ben Backer, 12, said most of the kids on the team don’t know about their coach’s stunt-diving background, but he heard about it from his mom.

“She said that she was lit on fire and jumped into a pool,” he said. “I think it’s cool but I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever do.”