Polly Hirt's athletic career follows familiar, successful arc

About the time she started realizing she wasn't going to soar any higher, and that she was scraping the ceiling of her gymnastics potential, Polly Hirt began to plummet.

With precision.

She made a big splash with tiny splashes, and that's what great divers do.

No wonder she became a two-time state qualifier. No wonder she earned a Division I scholarship. Hirt was following in the footsteps -- up the diving ladder -- of her big sisters, Emily and Lucy, who were also gymnasts growing up.

Emily dove for Illinois State University. Lucy parlayed a state diving championship in 2004 into a scholarship to the University of Notre Dame.

This week, the Hirt hat trick became complete, as Polly, a Mundelein senior and straight-A student, made a verbal commitment to dive for ISU.

Hirts … so good.

Funny thing is, Polly didn't plan on being the third Hirt daughter of Jamie and Joe to continue her diving career in college.

"I thought high school would be it for me," she said. "But as state came around (last fall), I thought to myself, You know what? Maybe I can keep doing this. I've really never not been an athlete. I like the busy schedule, the discipline and practicing every day, and the time-management skills that normally come with (athletics)."

She's a Hirt, so if she hurts, oh well, she's an athlete. She endures.

"What is so neat to me about Polly is she came into high school and was really focused on club gymnastics," said Melissa Sethna, Hirt's diving coach at Mundelein all four years. "She did diving because her mom and Lucy made her try it."

Little Hirt doesn't deny that story. Truth is, four years ago, the gymnast wasn't flipping about diving off a board.

"I was very much involved in gymnastics at the time," Polly said. "I loved the sport. It was very time-consuming and I didn't want to try another sport."

But mom and sister insisted that she take the plunge, so to speak.

"I did diving my freshman year, and I liked it OK," Polly said. "I had fun on the team and I really like Melissa as a coach. The sport was OK. I continued to dive over summer. But after my freshman year of club gymnastics I decided to quit because I kind of stopped getting better and it was a big-time commitment.

"It was hard on my body and I was working too hard to not be improving. … I think I hit the wall with it."

Hitting the water was more comfortable, especially after Hirt learned to do it so softly.

She probably would have qualified for state her sophomore year, Sethna said, but Nikki Spillone and Courtney Wilhelm were ahead of her, so there was no room for her in the Mustangs' sectional lineup.

Hirt finished 17th in the state her junior year. Last fall, she was the Vernon Hills sectional champ with a lifetime-best 427.95 points, before placing 20th at state.

Mustangs junior Taylor Reckert also qualified for state, making it five straight years Mundelein advanced the maximum two divers out of the sectional.

"With Polly, things have never been easy for her," Sethna said, "and she has always had to work hard to get dives."

"(Diving) grew on me," Polly said. "It's somewhat like gymnastics, where it's very detail-oriented. It's fun learning new things and it can be scary at the same time. I love that there are always new things to be trying and new things to be learning."

Hirt applied to Illinois State last year because of its highly reputable nursing program and her familiarity with the university her oldest sister attended.

But unlike Emily, who graduated a couple of years ago and is teaching at a private school in Mexico until July, and Lucy, who just finished up her junior year at Notre Dame, Polly had different dreams. She was planning to go to college somewhere warm, study hard and enjoy being just a student.

"It's weird to me that I'm going to go to Illinois State and dive, like my sister did," she said.

On Wednesday, Polly learned that she earned a presidential scholarship, which only 40 out of 3,300 incoming freshmen receive.

"I think Illinois State is going to be a great fit for her," Sethna said. "She will fit right in with the divers on the team. She still has so much potential for greatness as, honestly, she is very new to the sport."

Of course, Little Hirt has had two great teachers -- not counting Sethna.

"I've seen both of them make a total commitment to the sport and have fun with it at the same time," Polly said of Emily and Lucy. "I've seen them work really hard, without taking themselves too seriously. I've seen them be very good teammates, be very supportive, have a positive attitude and be really good examples."

Polly says she and her sisters probably got their athleticism from their father, who was a former high school football player. Joe Hirt succumbed to a brain tumor in 2003 at age 46.

"He was very athletic growing up," Polly said.

You know his three girls have made him proud.

"(Polly) worked really hard for me all four years and was such a pleasure to coach," Sethna said. "I feel honored that I was able to coach all three Hirt girls these past 10 years."