Hinsdale Boys' Dive Season Compromised Due to Unsafe, Shallow Pools: Officials

The Hinsdale District 86’s boys swim and dive team’s season might be compromised due to pools that are too shallow for sport, officials have announced.

According to a pool consultant, pools need to be 12 feet deep for diving purposes, the Chicago Tribune reported. The National Federation of State High School Association is the organization that sets these rules.

Pools at both Hinsdale South High School and Hinsdale Central High School are both 10 feet, making them 2 feet more shallow than federal standards require.

Even more, a ledge for swimmers to stand on while they’re not swimming extends a foot from the pool wall and impedes the space of the diving well, actually making the depth of the pool less than 10 feet in some areas.

The girls’ swimming and diving season has ended, the Tribune reported, but the boys’ continues through February. The recent realization that the schools’ pools could be unsafe could affect both practice and conferences.

“We potentially could be sacrificing a conference championship,” Stephanie Palmer, Hinsdale South’s principal, said, according to the Tribune. The tournament was set for Feb. 3, but it will likely have to be moved to another school.

District Superintendent Bruce Law told the Tribune that he immediately prohibited diving in either pool due to the possibility of injury.

“This is big and I am very concerned,” he said. He instructed principals to not allow teams to practice diving.

The pool at Hinsdale South was originally built in 1965, and the pool at Hinsdale Central was opened in 1958, according to Scott Hester, an engineer with Counsilman-Hunsaker Aquatics for Life.

According to Hester, pools built before 1987 can technically be “grandfathered in” to the rules and acceptable for diving. What makes that difficult is the pool ledge that makes the diving well even more shallow than 10 feet in places.

Palmer and Hinsdale Central Principal Bill Walsh said there haven’t been any injuries due to pool depth in recent history, though a school board member had previously said a Central diver had complained about hitting her head on the bottom of the pool when she dives.

Possibilities for remedying the situation include deepening the pool, replacing or repositioning springboards or building completely new pools.

Even just deepening the diving side of the pool would cost a pricey $840,000.

Right now, the district has hired Counsilman-Hunsaker for a second phase of pool evaluation, which will go beyond evaluating the pool shell and filtration system to include looking into the size and shape of the pool, locker room conditions and pool decks. The process, which will cost an additional $5,000, will also provide cost estimates for fixing the district’s safety problems.

The school board is meeting Jan. 4, at which point members hope a facility report will be available for review.

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