Jacob Shinn will be the first to admit, he was handful as a child.
“My mom has old videos of me on her Facebook of me just doing handstands in the kitchen or back flips on the couch,” he recalled.
But one thing was clear- Jacob belonged in gymnastics.
“She put me in it when I was little because I was always hyper and I was pretty good at it,” he said. “I loved it and so I always stayed with it. It was also the sport I was best at too.”
But as you’ll see in this story Jacob is good at a lot of things. Some of his more recent success comes from diving but the transition from the spring to the diving board wasn’t as seamless as one would think.
“Its like having to install a new version of how to land in my brain,” Jacob said, describing how in gymnastics he’s used to landing on his feet but now in the pool, he’s essentially landing on his head.
“Every time I land on my head, I’m like, ‘that’s not right,’ and then I always over rotate and land on my back and that does not feel good. But once I’m on that board I’m like okay, I just have to do it once.”
And that little pep talk seemed to work for Jacob, who recently became a state champ in his first year on Hickory’s swim and diving team.
“Most people can’t say, ‘I’m a state champion,’ at anything. But now I can say I hold that title.”
Jacob has put in the work to excel in the pool even with his rigorous gymnastics schedule training at Gymstrada 5-6 times a week, but the cross training does work to his advantage at times.
“Gymnastics helps me know how to twist, flip, and it helps my body control,” he said. “When I’m in the air I don’t even think.”
Now as a sophomore Jacob will look to clinch a second straight diving state championship which head coach Shamus Riley says isn’t very far off.
“I honestly don’t think he lost in the district last year diving, so he was the male winner every time,” he said. “I know a lot of coaches hope to get a state champion one day and they coach so many years and sometimes it never happens so when you have one of those come along its really nice to see and it makes you feel good as a coach.”
