Jumping Into the Family Sport -- and Sticking the Landing

If you've ever sidestepped a parent's shadow, given up a sport against your wishes, fumbled for a niche or been ravaged by a sibling rivalry, then the story of Paint Branch senior diver Logan Shinholser is for you.

For years, Shinholser was an accomplished gymnast. He shunned serious diving because he did not want to be compared with his father, Steve, who won an Eastern region championship at the University of Maryland in the late 1970s and for 20 years held the school's 3-meter record.

With that unusual last name, the young Shinholsers -- a daughter and three boys -- are often asked, "Is Steve Shinholser your father?" particularly in swimming settings, but even at such random places as a hospital waiting room. Dive? No thanks.

"Hundred percent, didn't want to do it," Logan said.

But after a while, there was a collective feeling that he had maxed out in gymnastics. He was good but not getting better. He was injured a lot, and he needed to concentrate more on his schoolwork. His mother, Keller, had overheard conversations at a gymnastics competition in Las Vegas about boys quitting school to be home-schooled so they could train harder. That was not for Logan.

So with all that in mind a few years ago, on yet another gymnastics-related trip to the physical therapy office, Logan's mother broke the news: After this week, you're done with gymnastics.

Logan, seething, got out of the car to walk home. Gymnastics had defined his life. He had started when he was 5. He had trained for about 20 hours a week at Fairland Gymnastics in Laurel. And he hung out with gymnasts in his spare time.

"I just figured it was 10 years wasted," he said.

His sister, Amanda, now diving at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and youngest brother, T.J., have won national trampoline competitions. Middle brother Colby, enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Springbrook, is an excellent student. So Logan felt pressure to excel at something; the question was what.

During the fall of his sophomore year, the idea of competitive diving became a bit more intriguing. Colby was into the sport. For Logan, the thought of his little brother being better than him was all the motivation he needed to embrace the sport he had stiff-armed for so long. The boys already battled in video games, table tennis, one-on-one basketball. Even who could throw the tightest spiral or make a Frisbee curve the sharpest.

"Logan is very obvious with his competitiveness," Keller Shinholser said.

So if that meant getting into diving out of spite, then that meant getting into diving out of spite.