Former Olympic diver Lesley Bush was drawn to the water from a young age.
"I lived in a little town in New Jersey. Everybody went to one lake or another to learn how to swim. Or, a fishing pole wasn't so bad," Lesley said.
But Lesley had her eyes on deeper waters. Before long, she traded in that fishing pole for a diving board, and at just 12-years-old, she was training for National diving competitions with Hall of Fame coach, Dick Smith.
"At one time, I was 12, and my coach put up scaffolding in the pool. We learned on boards that were not too secure," Lesley said, laughing.
That training paid off when she entered the 1964 Olympics.
Lesley won the 10-meter platform diving at just 16 years old. There's nobody who had a more surprising win," Lesley said.
She went on to win the Pan American Games off the tower and compete for the Olympics a second time in 1968.
While Lesley achieved the kind of success that most can only dream of, her last moment wasn't made of medals.
"I just said, woah! Being in a place where people from all over the world aren't killing one another, and they don't have anything in common," Lesley said. "There was an aura, without a doubt, of 'we understand one another."
While Lesley doesn't dive much anymore, nearly 60 years later, her history in the water helps her measure success.
Not in accolades or headlines, but in character and unity.
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