Brittany Viola enters today’s final round of qualifying for 10-meter platform diving at the U.S. Olympic diving trials in Federal Way, Wash. in first place, and as the favorite to make her first Olympic team.
Meanwhile, her father, former Mets pitcher Frank Viola, will be thousands of miles away, serving in his role as pitching coach for the Mets’ Low-A affiliate, the Savannah Sand Gnats.
“It’s horrible … absolutely horrible,” Viola told The Post a few days ago by phone. “The one thing I did when I retired [in 1996], I decided for that 10-to-12 year period I was playing catch-up as a dad, because you miss so much.
“Inside it hurts so bad [to miss it], but I know it’s the right thing to do.”
Viola, who has already been given permission by the Mets to attend the Olympics to watch Brittany if she qualifies, said his daughter’s Olympic dreams began back in 1996. She and her mother went to watch the Atlanta Olympics, and saw the U.S. women’s gymnastics team claim its famous gold medal.
“From that moment on, that’s what she wanted,” Viola said.
It looked for awhile like she would achieve that dream as a gymnast. She began the sport at a young age, and reached the international level. But by the time she was 13, she decided that she’d had enough.
“I think the toughest thing for her was to share it with her mom and dad, because she thought that we’d feel like she’d let us down or something, which wasn’t the case at all,” Viola said. “She fessed up and said, ‘I’m not having fun, and I want to try something different.’”
That something different came along a few months later, when someone spotted Brittany jumping off a diving board at her school. Soon after, she began diving, which eventually led to a decorated career at the University of Miami, where she won a pair of national championships in the 10-meter.
But she fell short of her Olympic dreams in each of her first two shots at making the team. In 2004, she finished second at the trials — normally good enough to make the team — but missed out when a rule change that year awarded two spots to the synchronized diving team and only one to the winning platform diver. In 2008, she finished fourth.
“There’s been a lot of lessons, a lot of them have been very challenging,” Brittany Viola told reporters at the trials. “My body feels very good. I’m so thankful. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in.”
But now she’s one good day of dives away from claiming a trip to London and a chance to represent her country.
“She’s wanted this ever since she was a little girl,” Viola said. “She’s had it right within her grasp a couple of times, and it didn’t come to fruition. This year she’s so relaxed and ready to do this.
“She just put it out there, just laid it all on the line, and hopefully that will be enough [today].”
tbontemps@nypost.com
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