Abernethy Named Cal Poly Diving Coach
8/26/2023 4:30:00 PM | Swimming and Diving
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly swimming and diving head coach Phil Yoshida recently announced the newest addition to his 2023-24 coaching staff with Laurel Abernethy joining the program as the new diving coach.
"I am so excited to have Laurel joining our Mustang family," Yoshida said. "Her extensive background in diving plus her family experience with swimming gives her a unique, in-depth understanding of our combined sport of swimming and diving. The teams that Laurel has helped coach have been routinely at the top of the diving leaderboard and I am looking forward to watching her guide our divers to success within our conference and beyond."
Abernethy comes to Cal Poly after spending the past two seasons (2021-23) as a volunteer assistant diving coach at her alma mater, BYU. She also served as the head development coach for the BYU Cougar Dive Club for the last seven years.
Abernethy, who previously lived in Sacramento for almost 20 years, is excited to be back in California and looking forward to building a high-level diving program at Cal Poly.
"I always thought that Cal Poly was an excellent school, it's just a great place to be," she said. "I think it could be a really great program with a little bit of time and work. I'd love to see it turn into a school kids want to dive at."
At this year's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Swimming and Diving Championships, Abernethy helped BYU score the most points in the conference on the diving board and win three of the six MPSF individual titles. The Cougars' performance in diving allowed the men to place first as a team and the women third.
In college, Abernethy had plenty of success on the diving board herself. She was a six-time West Athletic Conference finalist on the 1-meter and 3-meter springboards while competing for the BYU diving team from 1990-94.
After wrapping up her career at BYU, Abernethy immediately got into coaching, mentoring a pair of NCAA standouts in Aaron Russell (BYU) and Danny Bergman (Nebraska). Then she began coaching for the Capital Divers in the Sacramento area, overseeing countless high-level high school divers that went on to capture league and CIF section championships, including Jake Crayne, who qualified for the Olympic Trials and was an All-American at Utah.
Abernethy also served as a volunteer assistant at UC Davis from 2012-16.
Abernethy's husband, Glenn, was a two-time conference champion in the 200 backstroke at BYU, and two of their three children also competed for the Cougar swimming and diving team.
