School: Pennsbury
Cross Country, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Svetlana Khorkina
Favorite team: Any USA Summer or Winter Olympic Team
Favorite memory competing in sports: When I cleared 11’-0” in the pole vault. My dad and I had made a deal at the beginning of the season that he would buy me actual pole vaulting shoes if I cleared 10’-0”. It turned out to be a good day, a two-foot PR and new shoes!
Most embarrassing/funnies thing that has happened while competing in sports: Last year at SOLs, I was competing in the pole vault and messed up my steps, yet I decided to go through with the jump anyway. As I’m going over the bar, I knocked it down and almost fell. I took a step forward to catch myself and cracked the bar. Turns out, they only had one bar, and the distant storm had finally rolled in. It began to thunder and lightning, so they had to postpone the rest of the jumps until the next day!
Music on iPod: Anything from the 60s, 70s, and 80s to today’s hits
Future plans: To become a well accomplished sports psychologist
Words to live by: “Once you’re beat mentally, you might as well not even go to the line.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel to the Australian Outback
One thing people don’t know about me: I was once a magician’s assistant when I was five.
Anastasia Diamond is a versatile student-athlete who has found a way to excel in every area of her life.
A four-year letter winner, the Pennsbury senior has been a study in consistency for her elite high school cross country team, more than holding her own while running fourth or fifth behind some of the state’s top runners. She has used her gymnastics background to excel in pole vault for the Falcons’ track and field team in the spring.
A member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society, Diamond’s schedule includes numerous AP classes, and she boasts a GPA of 4.4. For eight years, she spent a full day of her weekend in Greek immersion.
Beyond that, according to her coach, she’s just a ‘really, really nice kid.’
“She’s a great, great kid,” Pennsbury cross country coach Don Little said. “She’s polite, and she’s well-mannered. She’s courteous to adults, and she is well respected by her teachers.
“As far as the team is concerned, she goes out of her way to make sure the new kids – even more so the new kids who aren’t as good or as naturally talented – fit in.”
Making Diamond’s story so fascinating is the fact that she does not fit the prototype for cross country runners.
As a matter of fact, she’s exceptionally strong – a trait not normally associated with cross country runners, and when it comes time for the team’s annual push-up contest, the outcome is invariably the same.
“It just ends up being basically me versus her,” Little said. “And trust me, it’s not easy to beat her. We go head to head, and she does 75. I’m dying, and I run and stay in shape.”
Diamond’s strength is underscored by the fact that she captured the title in the women’s division in the 2010 Bucks County Women’s Duathlon in early September. The race consisted of a grueling sequence that featured a two-mile run, a 10-mile bicycle ride and then another two-mile run.
Her goal was to win her age group. She ended up winning the overall women’s title in a very tough field.
“My dad encouraged me to enter because it was for a good cause – the Missy Flynn Challenge and restoration of the Washington Crossing Visitor’s Center,” Diamond said. “The experience was extremely rewarding, and I got to meet some very nice people, including Missy Flynn herself.”
One person who was not surprised to see Diamond excel in the duathlon was her cross country coach, who has learned to expect the unexpected from the Falcon senior since the first day show showed up at tryouts her freshman year.
“We didn’t have that big of a team,” Little recalled. “We only had 16 girls, and we take everyone. We don’t cut.
“You judge a book by its cover as far as what you’re thinking – I knew she had been a gymnast and the other sports she’d been involved in, but I wasn’t so sure about cross country. Even though she was incredibly strong, she just didn’t have that runner’s type.”
Diamond, however, possesses a trait that transcends type.
“She’s very competitive,” Little said. “It’s that competitiveness in her that allowed her to transcend the atypical girl that runs.”
Through hard work, Diamond became the team’s fourth runner. When she was a sophomore, Ann Herman entered the picture. Diamond held her spot.
One year later, freshman sensation Sara Sargent - who went on to win both the district and state titles – came on board.
Still, Diamond maintained her spot.
“As we’ve gotten new talent in, she’s gotten better and held her place,” Little said. “It’s a very good role for her because to be that first girl and then be the fourth girl – sometimes it’s difficult for the kids.
“She has so much experience being that fourth or fifth kid, so she knows exactly what needs to be done. She fills that role so very well because in some ways, it’s the only role she has known.”
As a youngster, there was nothing to suggest Diamond would one day run cross country or pole vault. As a matter of fact, all signs pointed to a standout career in gymnastics.
Diamond – who began taking gymnastics lessons at age three – took lessons for 10 years. She studied ballet for seven. She gave up ballet in favor of gymnastics, but when she was 13, Diamond – who was competing at Level 7 by that time – opted to walk away from a sport that had consumed her life.
“It was the long hours in the gym,” she said of her reasons for stepping away. “I had no time for homework and school work. I was in the gym 21 hours a week.
“I did like it. It was fun, and it was a little hard to leave because it felt like my career. I felt like I was leaving a job, but after I quit, the stress was gone.”
Still, there were no signs that she would one day excel at cross country. Until one day she caught the eye of her gym teacher while playing Capture the Flag with her sixth grade teammates.
“The gym teacher said I should go out for the track team the next year, so I did that,” Diamond said. “I actually ran the mile because during the Turkey Trot in gym, I came in first, and they thought I was a pretty good miler.”
Joining the cross country team was the next logical step for Diamond.
“When we had a tri-meet at the high school, they were recruiting people for the cross country team,” she said. “My friends were going to do it, and I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’”
One thing led to another, and when her coach heard she was a gymnast, pole vault entered the picture.
“We knew traditionally people who are gymnasts had some success at pole vault because of the acrobatics involved in getting over the bar,” Little said. “She’s got some foot speed and is very strong.”
Diamond received a card to attend a one day camp to Vertical Assault.
“They specialize in pole vault, so I went, and I really liked it,” Diamond said. “I picked it up easily – a lot of former gymnasts and cheerleaders do that.”
Diamond still travels to Vertical Assault every weekend for two hours of practice.
“There are a lot of techniques to get down, but gymnasts usually pick up on it very easily because we’re used to going upside down,” Diamond said. “Nothing is unusual after that.”
Diamond’s personal best is 11’0” and she has her sights set reaching the 12-foot mark this year and earning a spot in states.
“I definitely want to go to college and still compete in pole vault and perhaps cross country,” she said.
Although she discontinued her individual studies of Greek when she entered high school, Diamond – who has a Greek heritage - still can read and write the language. She visited Greece for the first time in 2008.
The recipient of the Pennsbury High School Award for Health Education, Diamond also is a volunteer tutor and has been actively involved in community service. As for handling such an intense schedule, Diamond said she was forced to learn time management skills at a young age.
“As soon as I got home from gymnastics, I would be tired, but I had to start my homework,” she said. “It just carried though high school. I’m not one of those people pulling all-nighters.”
Diamond has an interest in pursuing a career as a sports psychologist, an interest that was piqued when – as a gymnast - she developed a mental block.
“I had it for about two years or so,” she said. “I couldn’t understand why, and I was reading books about how to get over the fear, but I never could get over it.
“I want to know how it happened and why I couldn’t get over it and hopefully help out some other people that can relate to that.”
For now, Diamond is concentrating on yet another successful cross country season with a Falcon squad that finished second in districts and third in states last season.
