Dan Grindel

This is the fourth in a series of articles profiling the 2015 inductees into the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame.ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Dan Grindel never considered himself a diver.A member of the Butler High School diving team did.“I was diving off the board at one of the summer pools in Butler — Alameda or Memorial Park — and one of the Butler divers in the pool saw me. It was purely by accident,” Grindel said. “He told me I should try out for the high school diving team.”Grindel did so his sophomore year and went on to numerous accolades in the sport — enough to earn him induction into the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame. He will join the Hall during the organization's annual banquet April 25 at the Butler Days Inn.“It's something I've thought about from time to time in recent years,” Grindel, 51, a 1981 Butler graduate, said. “Friends of mine have gone in, some of the divers I know are in there ... To get a chance to join them is exciting.”He's certainly earned it.Grindel was 1-meter diving champion of the MAC conference in 1980 and received the Butler Cubs MVP Award that year.Winner of the Napora Award in 1981, Grindel won the MAC championship and set the conference 1-meter diving record in the process. He also set a meet record while winning the WPIAL crown.Grindel won the PIAA championship to polish off a perfect season at 15-0. He set or broke eight school/pool records during his final two years in high school.“It all happened pretty fast for me,” Grindel said. “Mickey Haley was my coach in high school and he had a lot to do with my progress.”Practice didn't hurt, either.Grindel joined the AAU team at Pitt and began practicing twice a day. He practiced in the morning with Butler, then traveled to Pitt every afternoon after school to get his work in with the AAU squad.“I was the first Butler diver to do two-a-days,” Grindel said. That definitely made a difference for me.”He went on to attain a scholarship to dive for West Virginia University. In just two years with the Mountaineers, Grindel won the 1 and 3-meter diving titles in the Atlantic 10, became 1-meter diving champion of the Eastern Eight and received the Atlantic 10 Conference's Outstanding Diver Award.“The scholarship was the main reason I went to WVU,” Grindel said. “I left there after two years and returned to Pittsburgh to attend the Penn Technical Institute.”He figured his diving career was over at that point.He was wrong.Grindel moved to Chicago and heard from a former WVU diver who was performing professionally for the U.S. High Diving team in north Chicago.“He asked me if I wanted to join and I was intrigued by it,” Grindel said. “It became a weekend thing for me after I did my day job during the week.“We'd do high dives, stunt diving, Olympic-style dives. They even set us on fire for certain dives.”Grindel admitted that he burned his nose on one of those dives, one week before his wedding day.“That didn't go over too well for the wedding photos,” he said.He suffered a broken hand and required stitches as a result of accidentally hitting the board while diving for WVU.“It can be a dangerous sport,” Grindel said. “One of my seasons (at WVU), I dove with a cast on my hand.”He performed professionally for five years before giving it up. Grindel eventually relocated to St. Louis and works in scientific analytic instrumentation today.“Diving did a lot for me,” he said. ”I was able to travel from coast to coast, Harvard to California, to compete and I met a lot of interesting people.“I enjoyed every minute of it.”Tickets for the Hall of Fame dinner are $30 in advance, $35 at the door. Tickets are available at Bill's Beer Barn and Snack-N-Pack in Butler, Moses Jewelers at the Clearview Mall, Parkers Appliance in Chicora and Saxonburg Drug.