Regina Diving Club
Coaches
Laura Desautels - Head Coach of Regina Diving Club and High Performance Coach South – Dive Sask
Laura is a Comp Dev coach who has been the Head Coach of the Regina Diving Club and one of two Provincial Head Coaches since 2010. In addition to her NCCP certifiication, she has also become a Chartered Professional Coach through the Coaches Association of Canada. Laura began as a National level gymnast and moved into the Regina Diving Club in her early teens. She dove at National and Senior national levels and trained with part of the Canadian National Team in Calgary before accepting a diving scholarship to the University of Nebraska in 2001. She finished her undergraduate degree and diving career at Virginia Tech in 2006. After graduating, Laura accepted a Graduate Assistant coaching position at West Virginia University, where she coached the West Virginia diving team and attended graduate school.
Laura has a Bachelor of Science Degree with a major in Sociology, minor in Psychology, then furthered to attain a double Master of Science in Sport Management and Athletic Coaching Education. As part of her 3-year Graduate Assistant position she was responsible for all duties as the West Virginia University Head Diving Coach, recruitment management for the diving team and ensuring compliance with the NCAA. In addition to coaching and attending graduate school, Laura also did a two-year internship with the West Virginia Strength & Conditioning program working with the football team and is certified as a personal trainer.
During her time as the Head coach of the Regina Diving Club, Laura has helped develop the club into one of the top clubs in Canada. She has coached Regina divers to medals at the Junior National level, Senior National level, Canada Summer Games level and International level. She has helped divers reach Canadian Junior International teams and coached two divers to Junior International medals. In addition to helping divers reach their maximum potential in diving, Laura believes strongly in preparing divers for their future. She has sent many athletes away on full scholarships to NCAA Division 1 diving teams. Watching her past divers move on to become confident individuals in successful careers continues to be her most proud moments as a coach.
Laura is married with two sons, they keep her busy between coaching and being a hockey, soccer, wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu mom.
Jana Klein - Development & Specialist
Jana has been involved in the sport of diving as either an athlete or a coach for nearly 25 years, and began her role as Assistant Head Coach in 2010. Jana is Nationally Certified and currently Competitive Development Trained who is a passionate and energetic coach always looking for new inventive ways to inspire her athletes and make training fun.
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Jana is a former High Performance diver with multiple National and International medals, combined with continual professional development Jana has the experience and knowledge to help athletes thrive. Over the growth of our Club, Plongeon Diving Canada has selected multiple athletes that Jana has coached to their High Performance Athlete Development Program, many of these athletes going on to win National and even International medals.
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Not only is Jana helping to develop our National Athletes, she also heads our Junior Development Program which is a Province wide Development and Testing Program that helps to assess and identify talent of divers between the ages of 5-10 years old.
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Jana has a Bachelor's Degree with a Major in Geography. Jana's love for travel has taken her to over over 15 countries on 4 continents, including spending a year in South Korea teaching English.
Makayla Piper - Head Novice Coach
Makayla started with the Regina Diving Club in 2006 as a diver and grew to love the sport over the years. She naturally moved into coaching in her late teens and continued to grow with in the club as a coach. Makayla competed in the 2018 Pan Pacific Masters Games in Australia where she was a medalist in the 1m, 3m and Platform events.
Makayla is a certified NCCP Instruction Beginner Coach and is awaiting certification as a Competition Introduction Coach. She started her coaching career as a Learn to Dive coach in 2012 and then moved into coaching competitive groups in 2015. She has coached many divers to the Novice National Championships and helped divers attain their Junior National dive lists. Makayla currently coaches the Pre-Competitive, Fish Fly and Novice groups and is responsible for the management of the Learn to Dive program.
Claudia Chavez:
Claudia joined the Regina Diving Club as an assistant coach in 2022, from Jalisco Mexico. Claudia has experience from grassroots to national team-level coaching. Some of her professional achievements include training of multi medalist divers of the National Olympiad (equivalent to National Championships at the highest level), as well as the development of athletes that are passed to the Mexican national team in youth and junior categories. Claudia has coached divers at four Junior PanAm Championships and had several divers achieve international medals at these events. Claudia was an assistant to renowned coaches such as Francisco Rueda and Iván Bautista while coaching in Mexico.
Claudia has a Bachelor’s degree in Gastronomy, she is a certified Spotting belt coach, she has her level 1 of neurolinguistic programming, she attended the World Conference of Diving Coaches FINA (Mexico City 2012) where she received her CONADE certified sports training, and she is SICED 2 ° certified (2008) and SICED 1 ° certified (2007).
Claudia comes from a strong diving family, her brother Kevin Chavez won the Bronze medal at the 2013 World Championships on 1m and attended the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Claudia also has a daughter who keeps her busy with competitive BMX bike racing and diving.