Wright's record diving makes him a champ

Tennessee diver Michael Wright won the 1-meter springboard national championship Monday night at the USA Diving Winter Nationals in Columbus, Ohio, to become what is believed to be the first African-American to win a USA Diving national title.

Behind a school-record score of 396.00, Wright won the championship at Ohio State's McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.

"This is a real big step for Mike," diving coach Dave Parrington said. "We wanted to step up and do something great today. He was solid in the prelims and really stepped it up in the finals. It was very exciting."

After competing for the Vols as a junior last spring, Wright is redshirting the 2009-10 season to recover from a back injury. The Winter Nationals is sanctioned by USA Diving and not the NCAA.

"I think this just proves what I have and can bring next year," Wright said. "Three-meter was rough last week so I knew I had to come back and finish out strong today."

After a below-average first dive in the preliminary round, Wright used that as motivation.

"My first dive was - it wasn't rough, but it wasn't my best score," Wright said. "That gave me that drive and that edge to really push myself in the finals.

"When I got to the finals, I kept it basic and just took it one dive at a time."

With his championship performance, Wright broke the Tennessee one-meter springboard record previously held by 2008 Olympian Jevon Tarantino (388.65).

Baseball: The Vols will be featured in seven televised games in 2010, the SEC announced Monday. In addition, UT, in conjunction with the Vol Network, announced that 47 of the squad's 56 regular-season games are scheduled for broadcast locally on WNML-AM 990, FM 99.1 and 99.3).

The seven televised games are part of the SEC's 2010 baseball television schedule, the first under a new 15-year contract with ESPN. The regular-season package will include 46 broadcasts in 2010, up from eight games in 2009. In addition, all games from the 2010 SEC tournament will continue to be broadcast, with the championship game airing nationally on ESPN2.

All seven televised games will be at Lindsey Nelson Stadium

The Vols will play on CSS five times, FSS once and ESPNU once.

© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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