Brendan McCourt realizes that he kind of dodged a bullet when he won his second straight gold medal at the PIAA Diving Championships this past March, pushing him to also win his second straight Lehigh Valley Health Network East Penn Press Male Athlete of the Year Award.

The Class 2A and 3A state championship competitions rotate as to which classification competes on what day of states.

In 2019, the 3A competition was held on the final two days of the competition, putting them up first this past March. Had the years been reversed, McCourt would have been denied his shot at a second straight gold medal when the final two days of this year’s competition were wiped out due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

“I was so lucky that diving was completed,” said McCourt of his performance at Bucknell University. “I would have been very upset if I didn’t have the chance to go for the second gold medal this year. It must have been really tough for everyone who was competing on those days to have it all canceled.”

The scheduling of states was really the only luck that McCourt needed. After a junior season that was impressive, the question was not only could McCourt repeat, but could he possibly do any better than he did as a junior?

The University of Texas recruit answered that question quickly when he came out of the blocks strong and never looked back. McCourt came into the 2020 District 11 Diving Championship as the favorite, but he didn’t just want a win. He wanted to break his personal best score and the District 11 score. He did both.

As a sophomore, McCourt had shattered the district record and then smashed his own record as a senior.

“I couldn’t have asked for more out of my senior season,” said McCourt. “I set goals for myself coming in and was able to achieve the things that I was looking to do.”

The awards and honors haven’t gone to McCourt’s head and he is heading off to college just focusing on getting better and helping the University of Texas team as much as he did his high school team. As an athlete, McCourt has shown that he can reach the goals he sets for himself so there is no reason to doubt that he will improve.

As with most athletes, McCourts training regimen has been thrown off a little. He would normally be diving four times a week at this point, but he’s only able to get two or three practices in and that’s after driving for an hour-and-a-half.

“I hope to be able to improve my techniques and learn dives and get even better,” he said. “I need to learn more platform dives and two-meter dives and get my technique down because I don’t have as much experience in those events as I do in one-meter.”

The University of Texas moved up its class schedule for the fall semester, which means that when the Longhorns go on Thanksgiving break, they’ll be gone for a longer amount of time. Unfortunately for winter sports, that means they may have to continue working on campus and won’t have an opportunity to head home until the spring.

Being away from his family for that long and adjusting to the college routine has McCourt a little nervous, but more than that, he’s excited to get started.

“It’s not a freaking out kind of nervous,” laughed McCourt, who will major in chemistry. “It’s just the anxiety of not knowing how everything is going to play out and how it will all work. I know that four out of my five classes will be online, but just when diving can start or what’s going to happen to sports is still all up in the air.”

As usual, McCourt is just keeping himself grounded and has found the bright side to his current situation and the insecurities of what will be his freshman year.

“I figure at least I can hopefully have three normal years of college after this one,” he said.