Bedford

This is the seventh in a series of eight articles profiling the 2006 inductees into the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame. By process of elimination, Ken Bedford found his sport — and quickly excelled at it.The 1994 Butler High School graduate is entering the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame before his 30th birthday and is still in the formative years of what he hopes to be a lengthy high school coaching career."I feel lucky," Bedford, 29, said. "Lucky and blessed."Bedford stool 5-foot-1 and weighed about 100 pounds when he entered his freshman year in high school."I was too small to play football and too short to play basketball," he said. "I figured I'd join the swimming team. Once I got to practice and saw people diving off the board — that was the sport for me."Bedford went on to win two WPIAL diving championships and placed second in the PIAA Diving Championships at Butler. He went on to Clarion University, where he won three NCAA Division II national championships on the 3-meter board.His real motivation began at the WPIAL meet his freshman year in high school, when Bedford placed eighth at that meet."I never experienced diving before that season," Bedford said. "Doing that well in one year made me believe this could really turn into something for me if I worked at it."Bedford finished third in the WPIAL meet as a sophomore before winning it the next two years. He set a meet record his senior season, but he never won a state championship. Bedford finished third in the state his junior year despite running a 103-degree temperature during the competition."That was a rough, rough day," he recalled. "I was so sick, but I wanted to win at states so badly. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of great Butler divers like David Pichler and Nunzio Esposto, but it didn't happen."Butler's diving coach when Bedford competed was Mickey Haley, himself a Butler Area Sports Hall of Famer.Bedford opted for Clarion University to continue working with coach David Hrovat. The Clarion coach had worked with him earlier in the Clarion Junior Diving Program."I practiced four hours a day in high school, but that was nothing like college," Bedford said. "The pool was right on campus and almost always available to us. I put in five or six hours per day and really honed my skills."Besides his three national titles, Bedford placed among the top three nationally on five other occasions on the 3-meter and 1-meter boards, during his college career.He may have gone on to greater heights as a competitor had it not been for a career-ending shoulder injury his senior year at Clarion."I hit the water at an awkward angle and the force of it severed a nerve in my right shoulder," Bedford said. "I tolerated the pain the rest of that season, but knew my competitive diving years were over."Bedford lost his ability to compete as a diver. He did not lose his passion for the sport.After graduating from Clarion in 1999, he went on to coach at Hillsdale (Mich.) College in 1999-2000, helping a female diver become the school's first to reach the Michigan state championships in 15 years.When the Hillsdale diving program was discontinued, he wound up returning to Butler as diving coach, a position he still holds today.Bedford has coached two girls — Meghan Lewis and Jessica Schnur — to the state tournament. They are the first two female divers ever to qualify for the state meet from Butler. Schnur has been to the state meet twice and teammate John Rhodaberger qualified this past season.