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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Observer

Alumni Hall continues Dive Night tradtion

The diving boards at the Rockne Memorial are only open Wednesdays from 9 p.m. until 11 p.m., but the men of Alumni Hall aim to take advantage of that time every week.

Sophomore Jack Waltrich prepares to jump off a Rockne Memorial diving board while pretending to study as part of the dorm’s event.
Sophomore Jack Waltrich prepares to jump off a Rockne Memorial diving board while pretending to study as part of the dorm’s event.


“The official name of it is ‘Dive Night in America,’ but we usually just call it Dive Night,” junior Matthew Krach, Alumni Hall president, said. “We get a bunch of guys, and then a lot of their friends, and we just go do stupid stuff off of the diving boards at the Rock.”

The tradition started when Krach’s older brother, Patrick, discovered the small window of availability for use of the diving boards at the Rock.

“My brother discovered this like, four years ago, and back then, they called it the ‘Splish-Splash Crew,’ and he and a bunch of his friends on the track team would get together and go over over to the Rockne pool and just jump off the diving boards,” Krach said. “They would practice their dives and do flips and stuff, so it was a lot of fun.”

Soon, Patrick Krach had a small group of people from Alumni going every week, so he started to make announcements at Sunday dorm Mass about the event.

“There’s no better way to spend a Wednesday evening than with my fellows dawgs, and lady dawgs, jamming out to classic rock and flinging ourselves off the high dive of the Rockne pool,” Patrick Krach said in an email.

Matthew Krach said his brother was responsible for making Dive Night an Alumni Hall tradition.

“So [my brother’s] roommate was actually the guy who [was elected hall president],” Krach said. “[My brother] ended up — just for fun — making some announcements at Mass after his roommate made announcements [about the hall] and it caught on. I think it was because people really thought it was funny, and that’s what made it catch.”

In the beginning, Krach said only a few people would show up, but his brother kept on making the announcements at Mass anyway.

“He would mention it if that week there was a really small crew, but people didn’t want him to stop making these really funny announcements, so people would just show up to make sure he kept on making the announcements,” he said.

Krach said he kept up the tradition because his brother started letting him make some of the announcements his freshman year.

“So all sophomore year I made an announcement every Mass,” he said. “I think that helped contribute to me becoming president of Alumni. Because I definitely got to know everyone in the dorm with being outgoing and stuff, but I think that certainly helped just to show people that I was committed to doing something fun in the dorm every week.”

Krach said the first Dive Night this year brought in over 40 Alumni men and their friends.

“More people trickled in as the night went on, and it was just nuts,” Krach said. “The guys were throwing footballs and chucking volleyballs at each other and just doing the stupidest stuff.”

Krach helps to maintain the Dive Night Instagram, which features photos and videos from the weekly event.

“There’s some really good videos on there,” he said. “We try and do some trick-shot type things, so those are always fun. We also sometimes will do stupid contests, so like who can swim the longest underwater while holding their breath. But it’s all a lot of fun. ”

A major change in the 2016 school year has been the addition of themes to each Dive Night, Krach said.

“We have a different theme every week, but the most popular ones have been ‘Jorts’ and ‘America,’” he said. “We also have done corresponding themes, like one week was ‘Danger’ and another was ‘Safety’ because during the Danger week, the high dive almost broke, a few of the bolts popped out, so we had to do Safety the next week.”

Krach said the best part about Dive Night was the camaraderie and brotherhood it creates amongst the men of Alumni.

“I think people appreciate that it seems super immature and stuff, but I think people just think it’s so funny,” he said. “I mean, you’ve got 40 guys walking over to the Rock in jorts, and it’s just great.”