Heritage IN 1922, A NEW GYMNASIUM (now O.J. Johnson Student Union) was completed. It housed a basketball court, indoor track, and, in the basement, a pool with locker rooms, showers, and changing areas. (The “men’s” and women’s” entrances are still marked). The pool was home to swimming and diving teams and competitions, as well as Aquatic League Water Ballet and canoeing and water safety classes. “Ancient history: Proving we could manage a swamped canoe before heading out on the river with Professor (Vic) Gustafson ’42,” noted Jan Johnson LeClair ’80 on the Gustavus Alumni Facebook page. After the pool in Lund was complete (later named for Coach Gustafson), the Johnson Student Union pool was drained. For a few years it was offices. Then, in 1998, it reopened as The Dive, a name that nodded—like the salvaged tiles of the pool walls—to space’s history.
Plunging into the pool circa 1936.
The Dive was “a combination canteen, bar, and coffee house,” and a place “to dance and socialize on a Friday night,” says a yearbook story on its renovation. Clinton Dietrich ’98
A 90s-themed Dive Dance in 2012.
noted on Facebook, “There would be so many people dancing, the tile walls would be wet!” In 2020, The Dive plunged into a new
GUSTAVUS QUARTERLY | FALL 2021
role as home to the Center for Inclusive
24
EQUITY ALERT
Excellence (formerly the Diversity
Without a women’s swimming team
Center). It’s still an all-access hangout,
in 1951, Inga Carlson ’53 competed as
with study rooms, offices, and a multi-
a diver on the Gustavus men’s team,
use space. The iconic dance floor, disco
prompting a MIAC-wide ban on women
ball, and neon sign remain, as do the
competing on men’s athletic teams.
tiled walls from the old pool, politely
Women swimmers and divers would
reminding everyone, “Please no diving
not compete with other colleges until
from the gallery.”
at least the late 1960s.
