Brandon Birchak is what some may call injury-prone.
November 9, 2005
About a month ago, the sophomore SIU diver suffered a concussion from banging his head on the bottom of a pool. Three days later, he was hit by a car while riding his skateboard. This all happened at the tail end of a recovery period after he fractured the L2, L3 and L5 vertebrae in his spinal cord.
Injuries aside, Birchak has worked his way back onto the diving board after redshirting his sophomore year and hopes to make an impact other than that of bones snapping.
SIU swimming and diving coach Rick Walker said Birchak persevered when most would have stuck it to the bad luck and raised the white flag to surrender.
Advertisement
“He’s diving now, so obviously he’s dealt with it successfully,” Walker said. “There’s a lot of people who can’t take it and end up getting lost. He kept his focus. It wasn’t easy.”
During the first week of the 2004-05 season, Birchak re-aggravated an old injury in his back. His diving coach, Chunhua Zhao, said it might have been caused from too much arch in his back. The injury he sustained held him out for the rest of his sophomore season and forced him to wear a bulky brace that covered the majority of his midsection.
“I went crazy, I lost my mind,” Birchak said. “I couldn’t sit down properly. I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t eating like I should – I was just a mess. It was horrible. It really messed with my head.”
The time away from the 1-Meter and 3-Meter dives, the events he competes in, was a testing period. He said it was awful seeing his teammates practice when he couldn’t. Even though it ate at him, Birchak said it made him a stronger diver emotionally and mentally.
As for his back, it may never be fully recovered. The only process left for Birchak, aside from the daily therapy already on his slate, is to have the vertebrae in his back fused back together. That would leave his mobility at an all-time low, and all but end his career.
That is a process he is not likely to do. Even though he still has pain, he can train through it.
“He doesn’t practice that much,” Zhao said. “His body is not 100 percent. Physically, he is not 100 percent.”
Advertisement*
Birchak won’t discount himself, though. He puts in extra time on the board whenever he can. He studies tapes of himself and world-class divers with Zhao. A national diving team and the Olympics aren’t out of the question, either.
“That’s definitely my highest goal – to make the Olympic team,” Birchak said. “I can do it.”
Birchak didn’t start his comeback in a stereotypical cautious manner. Instead, he spent his recovery period in the summer as a show diver in New York and Ohio. At amusement parks, he plummeted from an 80-foot high platform into a nine-foot deep landing puddle.
Walker said such an act takes tremendous talent and a temporary absence of mind.
“It’s not just a matter of having a couple screws loose – they’re gone,” Walker said of the show diving. “There’s no screws. They’re way up there, diving into a small tank.”
The sideshow spectacle isn’t something Birchak wants to kick. He can juggle knives. He can walk the tightrope, swing on a trapeze and ride a unicycle, too.
If Olympic diving falls through, he has a promising future ahead of him. Birchak said he would love to join the diving portion of the Cirque Du Solei O-show or be a street performer.
“Oh man, I can’t wait until I join the circus,” Birchak said. “Holy cow! I juggle for hours a day because I’m trying to be a street performer, too, next summer.”
Reporter Jordan Wilson can be reached [email protected]
Advertisement