John Santeiu IV, a 2010 graduate of University of Detroit Jesuit High School, shows off his gold medal as the collegiate Southeastern Conference platform diving champion last year. Santeiu credits his faith and prayer with sustaining his college development as a world-class diver.Dearborn Heights — The making of a champion.
John Santeiu IV didn’t start out to become one of the top collegiate divers in the country, nor one of the best high school divers in Michigan.
At Auburn University, from which he graduated this spring, Santeiu was a six-time All-American, the 2014 Southeastern Conference 1-meter board champion, the 2013 SEC platform champion, the 2013 NCAA Zone B diving champ, and a member of the 2013 All-SEC swim and dive first team. A major in chemistry and a minor in math, he also was named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll.
“What a career,” said the Tigers’ coach, John Shaffer, “and what a great contribution he has been to our program these last four years.”
A 2010 Detroit U-D Jesuit graduate, Santeiu won the state Division 2 diving title in 2010, and the same year set a Catholic League record diving off the 1-meter board that still stands. He was selected to All-American and all-state swim and dive squads.
And, to think, his dive career got its start because he tired of gymnastics.
“I took gymnastic lessons from age 4 for about eight, nine years,” Santeiu said over the phone from his parents’ home in Dearborn Heights. “I was a beanpole. I wasn’t built for the sport. Everyone else in gymnastics is usually shorter, smaller.” He eventually leveled off at 6-foot-2 and 175 pounds in high school and up to about 190 at Auburn.
He and his sisters, Samantha and Keri, attended Dearborn Divine Child elementary school. His sisters moved on to Ladywood High School in Livonia, where they were members of the swim team.
“One day I was watching them practice, and the divers. I said to myself, ‘I can do that.’ I asked the coach if I could try some dives. I did some flips and twists I learned from gymnastics and everyone was surprised.”
He began his diving career in earnest. In high school he trained two to three days a week on the 1-meter board (the only competition allowed in the state) with the Cubs and two to three days working on the 3-meter and platform under the direction of Buck Smith, the nationally respected diving coach for the past 14 years at Eastern Michigan University and also coach of a club team at Legacy Diving there.
Santeiu, 22, is helping Smith this summer “to pick up some coaching tips” before he heads to Western Illinois in the fall, where he’ll be a grad assistant diving coach (“That’ll help me pay for part of my tuition.”) while pursuing his master’s degree in math.
While competing in a juniors national meet for the Legacy club team in Georgia, Santeiu toured the Auburn campus and “fell in love with it immediately.”
It was there that he also developed his leadership skills and strengthened his Catholic faith.
“I was the only junior and senior on the diving team. Suddenly, the pressure was on me to score points. I did what I had to do, and I gained my success by treating every practice as a competition. I always strove for perfection, which I know is unattainable. But I worked on my dives over and over. Consistency was my biggest weapon.”
He realized, too, the important role his faith played. “This is how I was raised. It was an important part of our family. Because I was away at college, I didn’t have my parents to push me to go to church.
“God gave me talents to use to the best of my ability for my teammates,” Santeiu added.
“Before competition, some of us would gather for a prayer. I never prayed to win, but to perform to the best of my abilities.”
Of course, John IV is the pride of his family: his father, John Santeiu III, who manages the John Santeiu and Son Funeral Home in Garden City; his mother, Elizabeth, and his grandparents.
They attended many of his meets, from Alabama to Washington and points in between. “Without my family, I would have had a whole different kind of experience,” he said.
His mother is especially pleased to have her son home for the summer for the first time in four years.
“I have a chance to see what an awesome man he has become,” she said.
And, a champion, too.
Don Horkey is a freelance writer. He may be reached at [email protected].
