It was just another day at the office for ASU diving coach Mark Bradshaw.
There he was, sitting in a pair of black gym shorts, soaking up the Arizona sun on the pool deck at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center.
He only had two people to coach this day.
A kid from Westerville, Ohio who just finished his freshman season on the team and a 26-year-old who last represented ASU in 2006.
For the two divers, practice is repetitious to say the least.
Dry off with space-aged super towel. Get to the edge of springboard. Bounce off of the springboard. Do ridiculous mid-air acrobatics. Straighten out before hitting water. Rinse. Repeat.
If anyone knows about this cycle, it's Bradshaw. He's forgotten more dives than his two pupils have executed in their lives.
What would be hard for Bradshaw to forget, though, are the names of his two understudies on this day.
After all, that 19-year-old kid from Ohio is his son and the 26-year-old is a two-time Olympian.
While Cameron Bradshaw worked on the one-meter board, Joona Puhakka practiced his three-meter dives in preparation for the upcoming Beijing summer games.
"He's big time," Cameron said about Puhakka.
Big time indeed.
At the age of 18, and two years before he set foot on the ASU campus, Puhakka represented his native Finland in the 2000 Sydney Olympic games. Four years later, with coach Bradshaw at his side, Puhakka went to the 2004 Athens games.
"I screwed up the last two times," Puhakka said. "I hope I've learned from my mistakes."
This time around, you can count on a more relaxed and methodical Puhakka.
By the time he stepped up to compete in 2000, Puhakka had nothing to give. He had spent the days before his events in Sydney with nothing to do. He got bored out of his mind, got too wound up and finished 30th.
In 2004, he psyched himself out. He tried too hard, ate himself up and placed 14th, two spots out of the final round.
With an estimated 300,000 lifetime dives under his belt, he's now a grizzled veteran with experience that a lot of the other young pups don't have.
"It's a huge advantage against most of the field," Puhakka said of his Olympic experience.
He's also got a coach in his corner that knows what its like to compete on sport's biggest stage.
Bradshaw represented the United States in the 1988 Seoul games, finishing fifth in the three-meter event, just one bookmark in Bradshaw's storied career.
He held a place on the U.S. national diving team for 16 years and was named U.S. Male Diver of the Year in 1990. Bradshaw was named to the Ohio State University Hall of Fame in 1993 for his stellar college career that included four straight All-American seasons and a national championship in the 3-meter event in 1983.
"I'd seen a lot of his diving from when he was younger," Puhakka said. "The technique he dove with, I knew worked for me."
In the fall of 2001, Bradshaw was struggling. He was having trouble finding quality recruits for the Sun Devil dive program. He had never seen Puhakka dive, but heard from friends that he was "the real deal."
It was enough for Bradshaw, who extended Puhakka a scholarship offer at the school. Puhakka had cold feet at first, but finally came around and sent an e-mail to Bradshaw expressing his desire to come to Tempe.
So started a dialogue that resulted in one of ASU's most prolific athletic careers.
"A lot of people recruited me," Puhakka said. "But everybody makes their school sound so good. So I asked him why shouldn't I go [to ASU]? And he was honest with me and told me flat out what they were. It was nice to see his honesty and his straightforwardness."
Without hesitation, Puhakka still remembers the first time he met Bradshaw. It was around 6 p.m. on Aug. 18, 2002 at the Sky Harbor Airport.
From 2002 to 2006, Puhakka won four NCAA titles and was named NCAA Diver of the Year in 2004.
"No doubt [he's the best I've ever coached]," Bradshaw said.
The pair may have a date with destiny, as their six-year coach-athlete anniversary marks the first day of Puhakka's competition in the Beijing Games.
"This will be our last meet together," Bradshaw said. "No matter what it will be good. It'll be great because it will be the culmination of his career. We're just hoping for it to be that real sweet ending."
Reach the reporter at: alex.espinoza@asu.edu.
