Our coaches are each highly qualified and experienced in the sport of diving as both athletes and coaches. Rubbing shoulders with accomplished teammates and coaches with experience at national and international championships and even the Olympics is a unique experience that brings out the best in each diver.
John joined the Mission Viejo Nadadores Diving program as the Elite/High Performance Director in January of 2022. He comes to the program with 16 years of Head Coach experience at three different nationally ranked programs.
Most recently, John spent three years working with the top athletes at the Woodlands Diving Academy including 2000 Olympic Gold Medalist, Laura Wilkinson, 2016 Olympian, Kassidy Cook and Junior World Champion, Maria Coburn. Prior to the Woodlands Diving Academy, John spent a year working as the international coach for the divers at Purdue University where he worked with 2012 Olympic gold medalist David Boudia, 2016 Olympic Silver medalist Steele Johnson and 2020 Olympian, Brandon Loschiavo. The 5 years prior to that, John was the Head Diving Coach for the Ohio State Diving Club and coached many of the nations top Junior and Senior athletes. While there, the club was the USA Diving Junior National Team Champions. The first 8 years of John’s coaching career was as the owner and Head Coach of Dominion Dive Club in Northern Virginia. While there, John coached multiple Junior National Champions and international medalists.
In totality, John has coached 47 Junior National Champions and 6 Senior National Champions. He has been selected as a Team USA Coach for 6 Junior World Championships, three times as Head Coach and 4 Junior Pan Am Championships, twice as Head Coach. He has been a Team USA Coach at the FINA World Championships, multiple FINA World Cups, FINA Grand Prix meets and FINA World Series. He has coached numerous Gold, Silver and Bronze medalists at both Junior and Senior International events.
John is extremely excited to be a part of the Nadadores family to help guide the program into the future by revolutionizing the development of Junior diving in our country. He lives in Mission Viejo with his wife of 6 years, Kelli, and their one year old son, Finn. They all look forward to being a part of this community for many years to come.
Lauren Thiel-Lopez, or Coach Lo, joins us from Arizona where she was the owner and head coach of East Valley Dive Club since 2013. Her divers regularly qualified and competed at USA Junior Nationals every year since the team’s opening. In addition to coaching the club team, she also coached at the high school level since 2009, with over a dozen of her divers capturing state titles and many other additional medalists. In 2018, she served as Team Leader for Team USA at the Canada Cup, as well as attending the Coach Accelerator Program at the USOPC.
Lo loves all things sports! She competed in several sports throughout her life and has most recently started training and competing in Olympic Weightlifting. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Jorge and 2 dogs, Gannicus and Saxa.
Liz brings over 18+ years of coaching experience to the Nadadores Lessons Program and Novice Team having taught children, adults and pre-professionals in the disciplines of classical ballet and competitive swimming. Her love for early childhood development comes through in her passion for working with children of all ages and abilities. Liz has had the opportunity to reach over 5,000 students of all socio-economic backgrounds in the greater San Diego area during her time coaching both swim and dance.
She enjoys swimming, dancing, surfing and spending quality time with her husband Andy, daughter Lily, her mother and three sisters. She also loves diving with her fellow teammates on the Mission Viejo Nadadores Masters Diving Team.
Grayson Campbell joins the Mission Viejo Nadadores as both a coach and a professional diver. Grayson grew up diving in Vienna, Virgina with Dominion Dive Club where he won 13 Junior National titles, and 6 Junior Pan American medals. Grayson then attended The University of Texas at Austin where he was a part of 2 NCAA National Championship winning teams, earning 7 First-Team All American honors. In his time at Texas, Grayson was a member of the USA Diving National team competing at the FINA Diving World Cup, FINA Grand Prix’s, and World University Games earning 2 Bronze Medals for Team USA. A finalist in the 2016 and 2021 US Olympic Trials, Grayson will be training with the Nadadores as he looks to secure a spot on the US Olympic Team in Paris 2024.
Teri Chamoures has been part of the Mission Viejo Nadadores family for over 17 years! Her role has been as a parent, coaching assistant for the Lessons program, and office administrator. Currently she serves as office manager, maintaining payroll, booking travel, and dealing with correspondence and billing. She attended Cypress College where she utilized her education to work in her family publishing business for 30 years.
It wasn’t until her own children; Michael & Makena competed in swimming & diving with MVND that she realized she had to be part of such a great organization! She loves seeing children achieve growing relationships with friends, academic success, and strong moral character through this organization. In her spare time she enjoys hanging out with friends & family, skiing, pickleball, and volunteering at the local animal shelter.
David’s diving career started at 5 years old, and continues to this day as he joined the Nadadores in 2019 as both an Assistant Coach and a Competitive High Diver and Cliff Diver. David spent the majority of his JO years with Ed Goodman and Buck Smith at Legacy Diving, and then went on to dive under Adam Soldati at Purdue University. As a Boilermaker, David earned 7 NCAA All American Awards, 2 NCAA Academic All American Awards, a Big Ten Champion Title, 2 US National Champion Titles, and 2 World University Games Bronze Medals. He graduated from Purdue with a B.S. in Health and Human Sciences and his sights set on Medical School; however, after a summer performing in a water stunt show at an amusement park where he took his first dives from 20m, he shifted his plans to pursue the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
David qualified for the World Series in 2012 and was awarded as Rookie of the Year that season with 2 podium finishes. His first event win came in 2013 in Malcesine, Italy. He is consistently at the top of the overall rankings, and most recently brought home a Silver Medal from the 2019 FINA High Diving World Cup in Zhaoqing, China. David is the President and CEO of the athlete run organization, USA Cliff Diving, and is an ambassador for the sport, advocating for an Olympic berth at the 2028 games in Los Angeles.
Coaching is as much a part of David’s diving career as competing. He took his first coaching job at 15 in his hometown of Sylvania, Ohio, and has continued coaching ever since. He’s coached alongside incredible coaches and programs like Purdue University, Legacy Diving, Eastern Michigan University, The University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and USC. David specializes in strength training and conditioning, high performance, overcoming fear and cognitive skills development. He loves sharing his knowledge and experience, and giving back to the community that has provided him so many opportunities.
Doe was the program director, manager and co-head coach of Pitt Aquatic Club Divers from 1979 to 2017. She and Julian Krug were instrumental in laying the training foundation for Olympians Karen LaFace (1992), David Pichler (1996, 2000), and Cassidy Krug (2012), plus an Olympic diving coach Nunzio Esposto (2016). They have produced 48 gold medals at the PIAA State Championships earned by 25 different divers. Doe also coached diving teams at Mt. Lebanon, Montour, Chartiers Valley, Quaker Valley and Oakland Catholic High Schools over the years.
Doe’s passion and service to the sport of diving go beyond coaching. She served on the broadcast crews of 9 Olympics: Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, and Rio. She is an international certified AQUA diving judge and enjoys officiating NCAA, USA Diving and AQUA competitions. She has served as USA Team Leader to the Pan American Games, as well as Team Chaperone to the AQUA Junior World Championships and Junior Pan American Games. She has been chairman of Pennsylvania Association of USA Diving for decades.
Doe grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, earned her B.A. from Lawrence University, and M.S. from Indiana University. She is an avid hiker here in Southern California, and also enjoys yoga, pickleball, traveling, and lapidary arts.
Makena started diving at the young age of 4 right here with the Nadadores. After 18 years of diving, she unfortunately had to hang up the suit to medically retire her career at San Diego State University. She now has the privilege of returning as a coach with MVND since 2018. Throughout her career she has trained on the US Olympic training team, worked with the best of the best coaches, and it truly shaped her into who she is today.
She loves being back on deck with the little ones and seeing their passion, as it’s a daily reminder of how amazing this sport is, plus a great escape from her day job in the digital world.
Ahmed Elsayed brings over 14 years of experience to MVN, having previously served as the head diving coach at Claremont Pomona Dive Club, where he led divers in the 16-18 and 11 & under age groups to the finals of the USA National Championships. His coaching career includes three years as an assistant diving coach at Crown Valley Divers in Laguna Niguel and two years at Rose Bowl Aquatics in Pasadena. He also serves as the head diving coach at Los-Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga.
Currently, Elsayed is the head diving coach for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, where he contributed significantly to the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams’ sweep of the SCIAC Championships in his first year. His coaching was particularly impactful for the Athenas, achieving a 1-2-3 finish on one-meter and three-meter diving events. He led 3 different Athenas CMS divers to qualify for NCAA DIII National Championships.
In addition to coaching, Elsayed competes in diving and recently won a gold medal in the three-meter men’s springboard event, 2 Silver medals in the One-meter and Platform events for the 30-34 age group, and 2 golds medals in the three-meter and platform Synchronized Men’s events at the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Kyushu, Japan, on August 1, 2023. He is also a two-time USA Masters national champion in springboard and platform diving for the same age group. Elsayed used to be a member of the Egyptian national diving team (2000-2015).
Elsayed holds a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering management from Cairo University and a master’s degree in business administration from Westcliff University. He is a certified FINA judge and holds certifications from USA Diving and AAU Diving.
In 2021 the Board of Directors of the Mission Viejo Nadadores Foundation hired Michele Mitchell to be their first Executive Director.
Her new role came after completing 4 years as the Head Diving Coach at the newly renovated Marguerite Aquatic Complex. A former Olympian for the Nadadores, Mitchell arrived back in Mission Viejo as her legacy job having retired from the University of Arizona after 22 years: 17 as Head Diving Coach and 5 years working in Athletic Administration.
During her tenure as the Nadadores head coach, she expanded the diving program from less than 60 divers to 200+, doubled the budget, significantly increased fundraising, and recruited numerous events, including the first FINA Grand Prix event held in the US in 30 years. Her divers won both individual national titles, and the national championship team title, the first one in 18 years.
Her personal diving accomplishments speak for themselves. Mitchell is a two-time Olympic Silver medalist on the 10-meter platform (1984 & 1988), World FINA Cup and Pan Am gold medalist and a 9x national champion among many other accolades.
She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and an M.A. in Sports Administration. She has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of USA Diving along with many other positions in the organization and Chair of the NCAA Swim and Dive Rules committee. She was a member of the University of Arizona Hall of Fame committee as well as the Gender Equity committee. She has served as a speaker for numerous corporations and has an extensive background in television and radio broadcasting – including the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.
As Executive Director, Mitchell has been tasked with expanding the Nadadores aquatics programs, rebranding the team, enhancing fundraising, and positioning both the Nadadores and City of Mission Viejo for success leading up to the LA 2028 Games.
She is married to Tim Sutton, a sports television director, and has two children: Ariana, a Captain in the Army, and Dakota, a nuclear technician in the Navy. In her spare time, she enjoys jet skiing, riding bikes and keeping in touch with friends from around the world.
Mike Hilde was born in Whittier, CA in 1984. He dove for the Mission Viejo Nadadores from 1994-2003 winning a combined 5 individual junior national championship events. After diving for the Nadadores he attended the University of Southern California from 2003-2007 graduating with a bachelor’s degree in public policy, management and planning. During his time at USC he qualified for the NCAA Championships each year, scoring in 9 out of 12 events.
After graduating from USC Hilde went to work in the Construction field as an estimator and project engineer. He worked for 3 years in construction and decided to venture back to his roots and get back into the sport of diving. In 2010 Hilde coached for one season at the University of San Diego (USD) before accepting a job to return to Mission Viejo as an assistant coach in 2011. He coached for the Nadadores from 2011-2014 before being named the Head Diving Coach at the University of Michigan. Hilde spent 9 years at the University of Michigan bringing their diving program back up to a top program, not only in the BIG 10, but also at the NCAA Level as well. While at Michigan he also had the opportunity to coach Michigan MBA student athlete Michael Hixon at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, winning a silver medal for Team USA!
Recently Hilde moved back to San Diego to allow his wife to pursue her dreams in Bio Tech. He is currently enjoying spending a lot of time with the family and figuring out his next adventure.
The Mission Viejo Nadadores foundation is a 501c3 charitable organization. The foundation is financially responsible for the sports of swimming and diving and operate under one EIN number diving has for representatives on the Board of Directors compromise of 16 members. The Board of Directors meet monthly in person on zoom to discuss matters of interest to both sports. The head dive/swim coach are considered leaders of the respective sports an answer to the Executive Director, who then reports to the foundation board. Board members are elected by the membership and have staggered terms of two years. Any member may run for election to open seats each September. All paying members in good standing are eligible to vote in the MVN foundation elections
This committee is a standing subcommittee of the foundation. It is compromise of five members and elected by the diving membership in staggered terms every September. The committee meets one time per month and consists of a chair, secretary, treasurer, parent liaison, and one at large member, each serving for two years, except the term of the chair, which is a term of three years. Their role is to support the coaches and team as established by the Mission Viejo foundation bylaws. Committee positions, ensure team activities, and opportunities are ultimately achieved. All members in good standing are eligible to vote in MVND committee elections.
Our team is an affiliate of USA Diving, Inc., the national governing body of springboard and platform diving in the United States. USA Diving is a successor to the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and is an independent non-profit corporation formed to promote and improve diving in the United States.