Monica Dodson shows the form that made her one of the top women’s divers in the Southeastern Conference while at the University of Florida.
Submitted photos
Those looking into Monica Morand’s past run the risk of getting splashed.
Of course, droplets were kept to a minimum each time the former Whiteland diver hit the pool water with complete verticality, something she did often.
A 2007 graduate, Morand, who was previously known as Monica Dodson, was a three-time medalist at the girls state meet before soaring to even more impressive heights at the University of Florida.
The daughter of Roger Dodson, the former football coach at Indian Creek (1983-85) and Franklin (1986-95), and his wife Kathleen was in preschool when she began taking gymnastics lessons. She was a student in the Franklin school district through the eighth grade, but transferred to Whiteland for her four years of high school.
It was while in middle school that Morand started to transfer her skills on the mat to diving.
“It was just something new, and I was getting a little burned out on gymnastics,” she said. “Because of gymnastics, I had the fundamentals to be good at it.
“Totally similar mechanics, but a different challenge, I guess.”
The transition proved both quick and impressive. She finished fifth at state as a freshman, third as a sophomore, didn’t compete as a junior and was runner-up as a senior.
“Monica was one of the athletes who was fearless, and she was very tough,” said former Whiteland swim coach Corey Ervin, who now holds the same title at Mooresville. “Just the type of athlete who could just compete very consistently whether she was sick or injured.
“Monica had a good mindset. Very positive and very coachable.”
When the time came to select a university, Morand wasn’t initially sold on becoming a Gator, but that quickly changed.
“When I was first looking at colleges, when I got to Florida, it was just seeing the camaraderie between athletes of different sports and the camaraderie between those on the (swimming and diving) team,” Morand said. “It was awesome.”
Her college diving career followed suit.
Morand, a telecommunications major while in Gainesville, was a five-time All-American — four of those on the 10-meter platform and another on the 3-meter springboard.
As a Florida senior in 2011, she not only won both events at the Southeastern Conference meet but shattered the meet record for points with 373.85 in the 3-meter and 325.20 in the 10-meter.
The Gators captured an NCAA championship at Purdue in 2010, and was seventh a year later in Austin, Texas, in Morand’s final collegiate meet. (Florida was sixth and seventh in Morand’s freshman and sophomore seasons, respectively.)
Now 34, Morand is the district account manager for the Shred-It division at Stericycle, a medical waste disposal company.
She and her husband, Frank, a Cincinnati native who played football at Cornell, live in Indianapolis. The couple stays plenty busy as parents to sons Miles, 3½ , and Mack, 1½ , and daughter Rory, five months.
Life has put distance between Morand from the era of back two-and-a-half pikes — once her dive of choice — but she’s enjoying this comparatively new set of challenges while watching her children grow up.
“Diving is a very mental sport, and just dealing with all the different elements that go with it,” she said. “As a mom, especially as the kids get older, going through all the changes and emotions they’re going through, you have to learn to roll with the punches.”
