Grace Zifcak '22 Recruiting Profile

Working Dive List:

3M: 105b, 205c, 303c, 405c, 5132d, 5235d

1M: 105c, 203c, 303c, 403b, 5132d, 5233d.   Placed 1st at Conference Divisional's Feb 2022

7M: 103b, 105b, 301c, 405c

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My name is Graze Zifcak and I am a Senior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, MD. I am the middle child of five in a large blended family. I aspire to be a competitive college diver and study psychology. 

My passion to excel began at a young age, when I started gymnastics at 18 months old! At age 3 I was invited to join the development team and by level 5 (age 7) I was spending 22 hours a week training. Gymnastics has been a large part of my life for the past 15 years and reaching level 9 has been rewarding. As a competitive gymnast I was taught discipline, focus and respect for my coaches, who push me to be a better person in so many ways. 

From a young age I have watched gymnasts graduate and head off to compete in College, wondering when I would do the same. Little did I know that at age 15 I would be faced with a life changing accident. A tree holding up the hammock I was in fell on me and broke my neck and injured my spinal cord, right as I was ready to jump into freshman year of  high school. With the best care at Children’s Hospital in DC, I was on the road to recovery with now two fused vertebrae. During my two months in the hospital, all I could think of was “will I be able to get back to gymnastics?'' I hit the gym as soon as I was cleared, but the repetitive pounding put too much strain on my body to continue training as intensely as before. I did not want to slow down but knew continuing  at that high level wasn’t what was best for my body. 

That summer I was doing flips at my neighborhood pool and the coach there asked me if I had ever dove with a team before. I never had but he said I should try out for the summer dive  team. Three weeks in, I broke the pool’s dive record. I realized that I could translate my years of gymnastics to diving without the toll on my body. I realized that I could pour my desire to excel into diving instead of gymnastics. Being fully recovered and cleared by my doctors,  I started to get serious about diving and trained hard. In the fall I tried out for a club program and made the National team.  In the winter I made the Varsity Dive team at my high school and came in 18th at Metros (DC, MD and VA) and earned "Most Improved" for the season. For the 6 month before the pandemic I was training 5-6 days a week. COVID has limited access to pools in my county over the last year and I have traveled with my coaches from Florida to West Virginia for any diving hours I could find (there were just not enough). Recently,  things have opened up a bit more and I am able to get 6 days of dive/dryland practice a week, 3-4 days of weights/strength training  a week and 3 days of gymnastics practice a week.  Recently I competed at AAU Nationals in Coral Springs, FL, where I placed 4th on 3M and 5th on 1M.  I am also building at platform list. I attended a dive camp at Stanford this summer where I learned a 405 on 7M, to add to my dive list. My goal is to complete my 05 list as soon as possible.  I am working on it! 

With how much I have improved  in the 18 months of my diving career, I am looking forward to even  more training hours as access to pools increases.  I spend all my free time training, between dryland practices, weight training, some gymnastics and every second I can get at any pool. I know I will improve even more. I feel primed for success and excited to join a strong competitive dive team, where my passion and perseverance can carry me closer to where I am my best. At the edge of the diving board.