Remember when life was all cannonballs, can-openers, and belly flops? When your main concerns upon leaping off of the diving board were danger, novelty, and soaking your friends? Ahh, that was a far simpler time.

Competing in the NCAA is a whole different can of worms.

If you want to be a competitive diver in college, you'll have to worry early and often about your training. To be safe, you should probably get into diving as a wee bairn. Many dives and positions should be second nature to you by the time you aim to attract the attention of recruiters.

NCAA diving events include the one-meter and three-meter springboard in Divisions I, II, and III, and the platform competition in Division I (source). Each event comes with a different strategy or technique based on how high the board is, with six different types of dives offered in each (source).

But you probably already know that. You're not a wee bairn anymore, are you? Of course not. Babies can't read.

There are a few specialized dives you'll have to master in your career, but that's not all. There are a certain number of required dives specified at each meet. These are chosen according to the level of competition (source).

Since each category and position has its own set of mechanics and techniques, college divers are expected to be pretty versatile. The most successful athletes can perform a diverse, well-rounded list of dives with at least a moderate amount of ability (source).

Curious to see how good a diver's form is? Check out their pike position. A diver's flexibility, strength, and foot position in pike are all tell-tale signs of their training…or lack thereof (source).

When judges score an athlete's dive, they always take a peep at these five basic elements of the dive: the starting position, the approach, the take-off, the flight, and the entry (source).

Also, don't forget to S-M-I-L-E. You probably won't get a bad score if you don't, but it's always nice.

And you thought it was all just running, jumping, and screaming "Geronimo!"… (Source)

Judging differs from high school to NCAA to FINA. An excellent score in high school is an okay score in college, which is an okay score in FINA. So if you mainly got scores of seven to eight in high school and you're still getting those scores in college, you might want to train up a bit.

That's if you make it to the NCAA big leagues at all.

You'll have to work super hard to earn the privilege of being scrutinized by a group of judges in college. Only about 8% of high school swimming and diving athletes actually move on to continue competing in their sport at the college level (source). Ouch.

Okay, that's a little above average for high schoolers, but still.

Of 138,373 boys who participate in high school diving, only 10,338 go on to become college athletes. That lucky 7.9% is divided between all three divisions, with 2.8% being recruited by teams in Division I, 1% hanging on at the Division II level, and 3.1% ending up in Division III. The rest chill out at other non-NCAA affiliated institutions (source).

The odds are a bit better if you've got two X chromosomes. Even then, they don't reach double digits. Of the 165,779 girls diving in high school, only 13,679 get the chance to keep diving in college. That 8.3% breaks down like this: Division I (3.3%), Division II (1%), and Division III (3.2%)…with the rest being relegated to the lower levels of competition once again (source).

So if your life plan includes competitively diving into pools, you'll need a lot of ambition, drive, and focus. Like we mentioned, student-athletes have to start competing at a very young age to get as much experience and exposure as possible. Diving is one of the less popular sports, so it falls more on students to market themselves aggressively (source).

Find some warpaint and practice your growling, because unless you take initiative, your high school diving career will fly under the recruitment radar (source). And you want to be a blip. Seriously. Be a blip.

And if you get in, congratulations. That's pretty impressive. The challenges don't end there, though.

If you do make it onto a team, you better be ready for full-on training and epic levels of sleep deprivation. Training as an NCAA athlete is practically a full-time job. Members of the diving team should expect to spend upwards of thirty hours a week at practice, excluding any kind of private conditioning (source).

There are other hurdles, too. Diving isn't particularly expensive, but it's somewhat of a niche sport…since you need access to a pool to participate and all. Like, try diving without a pool. Actually, wait, don't. We like you better alive.

"Did I remember to fill up the pool…?"

On top of that, diving tends to be a fairly isolating activity. Divers are organized into teams, obviously, so there's some teamwork and camaraderie involved. But at the end of the day, diving is still an individual sport. Each athlete is ultimately alone in the spotlight, left to their own devices, either to be a big flop or make a big splash (source). Well, unless you do doubles.

If you're looking to get fancy, we've got some bad news (or good, depending on what you're into). Diving isn't a sport with a super high televised viewership, but you will get exclusive access to the best pool facilities and training equipment, a sense of purpose or belonging (…maybe), and, of course, the recognition that comes with success in any competition (if you're not terrible).

Just don't expect your diving career to lead to fame and glory, even if you're the crème de la crème. A lucky few are able to turn diving into a professional coaching career at the college or international level, and the absolute best of the best can go on to become Olympians. News flash: even that isn't always lucrative.

But don't worry, Shmooper: if all else fails, you can always be an over-qualified lifeguard.