Diving back in, feat first

Marriage has helped Wilkinson stay focused on another golden performance

By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

In 12 days, Laura Wilkinson again will walk to the edge of the precipice and beam benevolently at those below. She will recite her favorite Bible verse, count to three and hurl herself into the unknown.

It's a comfortable place, those moments in Wilkinson's life when she steps into the ether and trusts that training, talent and faith will enable her to prevail against the hard smack of reality three stories below the diving tower's edge.

Four years ago, that sense of serenity brought her a gold medal at the Sydney Olympic Games. If she can repeat in Athens, she will further cement her legacy as one of the greatest American athletes in the history of her sport.

Whatever happens, it likely will unfold in dramatic fashion. Wilkinson, 26, of The Woodlands, seems to have a knack for the dramatic, of keeping her head while those about her are losing theirs, of fixing that laserlike smile on the world when reason dictates that her senses should be screaming at the tension, the pressure and the expectations.

She did it in 2000 at Sydney, Australia. She did it again earlier this year at the World Cup in Athens, a year after the hard-eyed diving cognoscente wrote her off as a has-been. She did it in June at the Olympic trials in suburban St. Louis.

"She is one of the great competitive minds — or maybe non-competitive minds — in sports," said Cynthia Potter, the former Olympic medalist from Houston who will be in Athens as an analyst for NBC Sports. "It's amazing that she does what she does without being distracted or thinking that she has to win or beat people at their own game."

A legendary tale

Wilkinson's story from 2000 is, by now, the stuff of Houston sports legend. She suffered three broken bones in her foot in a training accident six months before the Olympic Games, still qualified for the Olympics, entered the final round of five dives in eighth place and won the gold medal by 1.74 points.

Today, the drama of 2000 has been distilled into a few matter-of-fact lines in Wilkinson's official biography, alongside her graduation from the University of Texas, her marriage to Eriek Hulseman, whom she began dating in 2000, six months before the Olympic Games, and ...

Wait a minute.

That would mean that at the same time Wilkinson should have been in the throes of despair, scrambling frantically to get back on track before the 2000 Olympics, she was taking another leap into the ether by attempting to combine rehab with romance.

Was she absolutely out of her mind?

"People told me a lot of things," Wilkinson said, laughing. "I didn't listen to them."

The story of how Wilkinson got to know Hulseman, a former swimmer at the University of Minnesota who moved to The Woodlands to coach swimmers in September 1999, is more conducive to a Lifetime Intimate Portrait than an NBC Olympic moment.

"It took me a few months to get up the nerve to talk with her," Hulseman said. "She's an elite athlete. She looked very focused and intimidating, and I wasn't sure I wanted to get into that sphere. We would look at each other but never would know what to say."

In March 2000, though, the focused, fast-moving diver had been slowed to a crawl, hobbling around the pool with a big purple cast on her foot. And Hulseman finally worked up enough nerve to approach the great Laura Wilkinson, armed with one of the hoariest, most transparent strategies in the book.

"He came up to me at the diving well to tell me about one of my friends who had just gotten engaged," Wilkinson said. "Of course, I already knew that, and he knew that I already knew that, but that was his in. And we kind of never stopped talking."

With her leg in a cast, Wilkinson spent what would have been practice time at the top of the tower, visualizing and going through the motions of her dives. Kids would walk past and giggle at her. She had a lot on her mind, and she needed to vent. And now, she had a willing listener.

"When I was upset or didn't know if I could do it, I would tell him everything," she said. "And he was just so open to listening and not trying to fix things and telling me he thought I could do it.

"He made a CD before the (2000) trials that was just incredible. He had dubbed the interviews I had done with NBC into the background of an inspirational song, something about how there might be clouds but there's always a rainbow at the end. I was just a mess after I heard that. I didn't think there could be anyone who would take the time and who believed in me that much."

The acid test

Wilkinson made the Olympic team, and Hulseman made plans to accompany her parents, Ed and Linda Wilkinson, to Sydney for the Games.

"When they first began dating, I didn't think too much about it," Linda Wilkinson said. "Laura had really never had any long-term relationships before. To tell the truth, guys didn't stay around because she was so focused. I knew that it would take somebody special who would have enough confidence to be around somebody that focused."

The Wilkinsons didn't know Hulseman well when they traveled to Australia. That ended quickly.

"We thought we were getting a one-bedroom hotel suite and that he would be in the living room," she said. "When we got there, we walked into one teensy little room. Eriek stayed with us for 10 days, and I knew that if he stayed with her after living with her parents, it was real."

The relationship survived bunking with the prospective in-laws, Wilkinson's sudden rush of fame after the Olympics and her return to Austin in 2001 to complete work on her degree at the University of Texas. Both knew they would eventually marry, but it was the manner in which Hulseman broached the subject that showed he learned a lot by growing up as the only male in a house with his mother and three sisters.

"It was the day before my birthday, Nov. 15, in 2001," Wilkinson said. "We hadn't seen each other in a month, so I thought it was cool when he said he was coming up to see me. I came home and went to my door, and there was a rose on the door and a sign that said to knock. He had totally cleaned up my living room and had flowers and presents.

"There were these three odd-looking boxes. I went to open a big one that looked like a shoe box, and it had a little card that said, 'With this rose will you love me today, and with this ring will you love me for the rest of your life?' "

Partner and sounding board

They were married in September 2002. Five months later, she made a disappointing return to diving, failing to make the finals at an international meet in China. Once again, she needed a sounding board.

"We were adolescents (in 2000)," Hulseman said. "Now, it's a mature relationship. I give her support and a shoulder to cry on if she needs it, or a chance to talk about something other than diving. I don't judge her or expect things out of her other than what she expects out of herself."

Oddly enough, being married is the norm on the women's Olympic diving team. Of the five competitors — Wilkinson, Kimiko Soldati of Magnolia, Rachelle Kunkel of West Valley City, Utah, and Sara Hildebrand and Cassandra Cardinell of Bloomington, Ind. — only Cardinell is not married.

"That sometimes helps the situation," said Kenny Armstrong, coach of the Olympic team and Wilkinson's longtime coach at The Woodlands. "Marriage can be a heavy burden, but it can be solidifying."

Hulseman left coaching earlier this year and now works as a pharmaceutics salesman. He still doesn't claim to be a expert in diving, but he thinks the Laura Wilkinson of 2004 is a better athlete than the Wilkinson of 2000, with new goals as well.

"Before, the focus was on getting there and doing it," he said. "Now. it's how far God can take her and what kind of limits he has put on her, if any.

"She made history at the last Olympic Games. I think she can do it again."

david.barron@chron.com