Diver, Coach Earn ACC Honors

Posted on May 3, 2024

For the second time this season, a UNC athletic team has captured Atlantic Coast Conference player and coach of the year honors.

Last month, UNC senior diver Aranza Vazquez was named the 2024 ACC Women’s Diver of the Year, and Coach Yaidel Gamboa was named 2024 ACC Women’s Diving Coach of the Year. This marks the second consecutive year the two received the diver and coach of the year honors. They join men’s basketball coach Hubert Davis ’92 and senior shooting guard R.J. Davis in capturing the top conference honors this year.

Vazquez is only the second Tar Heel to earn the ACC Women’s Diver of the Year honor, the other being Elissa Dawson ’18 in 2016. Vazquez won the one-meter and three-meter competitions at the ACC and NCAA championships and is the first diver to secure consecutive national titles in the one-meter since 2014. She has earned four national titles while attending Carolina, the most in program history. Her performance also earned her the 2024 College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America Diver of the Year award and positioned her as a finalist for the Honda Sport Award for Swimming and Diving.

Gamboa, in his fifth season with Carolina, also repeated as Diving Coach of the Year in the CSCAA. Along with coaching Vazquez, he coached Anton Down-Jenkins ’23 to two ACC Male Diver of the Year awards. Both Vazquez and Down-Jenkins competed in the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.