Late Gig Harbor diving coach Liz Litsch inducted into WISCA Hall of Fame

Longtime coach at Gig Harbor Liz Litsch was recently posthumously inducted into the WISCA Hall of Fame becoming the first diving coach and the first female coach to be recognized.

Liz passed away in 2015 after a battle with pancreatic cancer at 67 after a 30 year career.

Her daughter, Diana Litsch, accepted the award on her behalf at the Class 3A state girls swim meet at the King County Aquatic Center last weekend and spoke about the experience as well as what her mother meant to her.

“The experience was definitely a little weird for me. I had been prepping myself because I was very close with my mom so I didn’t want to be overly emotional,” Litsch said. “It was a little surreal but in a good way. It meant quite a lot.”

That surreal experience came from how beloved she was in the community and how many people she touched.

“My mom had a great passion for diving and coaching. So many people loved her and felt her benefits and influence in their lives,” Litsch said. “It’s a great legacy to pass on. It just felt like an acknowledgment of that legacy.”

That legacy came from humble beginnings and was long overdue.

“She was just a little dive coach from Gig Harbor, Washington. She was not even the head coach of the team,” Litsch said. “When she was alive, she may not have always felt that recognition. You go through life, you do what you do. She was just happy to help people.”

During her career, Liz helped coach five divers to the ‘93, ‘97, ’98, ’99, ’00 Washington State Diving Championship titles and one state team title with Gig Harbor in 1997.

“It was a great honor and I felt very proud of my mom and just a little sad that she couldn’t be there to accept it herself,” Litsch said. “But I was so proud and so happy for the recognition and for all the people that loved her to share in that.”

The ceremony saw old faces that had been impacted by Liz’s coaching but also new faces that didn’t know her personally yet still were impacted by her.

“Even one of the other athletes that I’ve never met that was there for one of the Hall of Fame athlete awards said she remembered her going around at the state meet,” Litsch said. “She never officially met her but she just remembered how nice she was.”

Diana had reached out to those members of the team that were still around and had asked them to speak.

“I also called a few that were still in town that were divers of hers and they came down,” Litsch said. “Hayley Nichols was one of her earliest divers and I asked her to talk a little bit about my mom. She actually stood up and talked about her.”

Even as Nichols said powerful words, they weren’t heard right away as technical difficulties made it difficult to hear, but Diana took it in stride.

“She actually wrote it out for me. Unfortunately, the sound system was a little off so I couldn’t hear anything which is probably best because I probably would have started crying,” Litsch said with a laugh.

Litsch was still able to read the remarks that Nichols gave and reflected on the impact her mom had as her coach growing up that went beyond diving.

“She basically said that she was a young girl that just walked in the door — bad family life, fear of heights, tenacious and that my mom looked at it like ‘Here’s a challenge, let’s go.’ That pool and that place became what she called her first home,” Litsch said. “A place that was safe and a place where my mom helped her foster her growth as an individual and gave her room to be her and not ashamed of things and not fearful of things. Pretty impressive because she is quite an impressive woman now.”

So what began this journey of inspiring those around her for Liz? She got trained by the old diving coach who helped get her started on what would be a lifelong passion.

However, it was actually Diana who got it all started when she was only around six years old and the outgoing coach noticed her taking an interest in diving.

“I was going off the diving board and kind of messing around. I guess the dive coach saw me and was like ‘Hey, I would love to coach your daughter but I’m leaving.’ So he taught my mom some basics and kind of helped her with that in order to pass them on to me,” Litsch said.

While Diana didn’t stick with diving, she did stick right with her mom and in many ways followed in her footsteps.

“I was by her side all through high school. It very much became a passion of hers. I think at a young age I saw that and I wanted to be with my mom,” Litsch said. “I would just sit next to her as she coached and talk and watch her coach.”

Shadowing her mom helped lead Diana down a path of coaching herself, who is a swim and water polo coach at Gig Harbor High.“A lot of that is because of her,” Litsch said. “Just the fact that I am all over pools is a direct result that that was also a home for me. She made it my second home. Though I feel like I have a lot to live up to, I always look to her and how she coached, her principles that she loved and try and match that and do what I can.”

One of the ways her mom conveyed those principles was through quotes.

“She loved quotes. She loved inspirational quotes,” Litsch said. “I literally have stacks of them. Thousands.”Liz would go above and beyond with the quotes, often putting them up for all to see..

“She used to paint them up on giant butcher paper and post them at the pool on the walls. Like 30 foot long quotes,” Litsch said. “Karen Kaiser Clark I believe was one of her favorites and it was ‘Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.’ She would say that one all the time.”

Those lessons that Liz lived her life by helped push kids to face their fears.

“She talked a lot about perseverance and courage over fear,” Litsch said. “If you’re putting a bunch of teenage kids or even younger on a diving board, it’s scary. It’s like a little microcosm of how to deal with fear. Do you let it control you? Or do you master it and deal with it and push through?”That helped to uplift Diana not just in sports but also in life. “Just even in life too. There are lots of things that I am terrified of but I’ve always tried, whether I’m scared or not, you just go through it,” Litsch said. “You do it. You don’t let it stop you even if it’s difficult.”

One of the other rituals that her mom liked to do was put together giant scrapbooks for members of the team to look back on.

“At the end of every season, she would take every piece of paper that mentioned either the diver or the swim team,” Litsch said. “She made books. I have tons and tons of books. She would make books for each athlete. Each one had all of their personal information packed with inspirational quotes and thoughts and things to help them look back at their athletic careers. She’d give it to them.”

As times changed, some of these things became more complicated but she always had a commitment to caring for the kids she mentored.

“Today it gets really hard because you always have to have that boundary and everybody is concerned about making sure that you keep things separate. But my mom came from a different time and she knew that in order to inspire and coach and develop young adults you had to care,” Litsch said. “You can’t not care about these people. You can’t just coach and stay separate. If you’re working with kids you have to care about them in some way.”

Diana was inspired to continue on coaching and become passionate about something that was more than a profession.

“In some ways it was a job and a passion for me as well,” Litsch said. “In other ways it was also another way to get close to my mom and be with her.”

Liz was someone that Diana praised as being a supportive and encouraging coach, not unlike gardening, which her mother did as well.

“She never tried to tell me how to coach or how to be a coach. My mom was also a gardner so in that respect a lot of times I guess I kind of felt like a flower,” Litsch said. “She never tried to force me to bloom but she did everything she could to give me every opportunity to.”

One of the standout memories that Diana had with her mom was when they would both watch the final races together.

“One of both of our favorite things is at the state meet on the finals day. It’s a beautiful facility and it’s huge,” Litsch said. “My mom would always stay and watch the swimming. The 400 freestyle relay is the very last race and so it’s the most intense.”

What makes it so intense? That final race can often be what determines which team will take it all. “Sometimes, if there are enough people in the crowd, it gets so loud. It’s almost like it’s so much white noise it goes quiet,” Litsch said. “You feel it. I remember that my mom and I would always be there at that 400. We both loved that moment so much. So much excitement. So much passion and dedication and time into that one moment. Everybody cheering and all their energy focused on one thing. We would usually just stand there together and watch the race. I just remember that as a really special moment because I got to share it with her.”

As she reflects on these moments they shared, she spoke to how lucky she was to have Liz as her mom

“My dad died when I was eighteen, so as soon as I came back from college in many ways we became not just mother-daughter, but best friends,” Litsch said. “It’s always cool to share that with someone you are so close with and have that shared passion. She was just a remarkable woman. I was blessed to have her as my mother.”

This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 6:00 AM.