Jeff Mulé, Class of 1979
As a child, Jeff Mulé ’79 turned his bed into a trampoline. In an effort to channel his boundless energy, his parents nudged him toward something active.
Initially giving swimming a go, he found his way to diving when he was about 10 years old.
“It wasn’t as exhausting [as swimming], but it presented other challenges like facing your fear,” Mulé said. “Landing flat from the diving board from any height is absolutely no fun, but conquering that fear and learning new things was really what attracted me to diving.”
Mulé arrived at Peddie as a sophomore, and in his three years as a Falcon, won three state championships (1-meter), two Eastern Interscholastic Diving Championships and was selected three times as a Prep School All-American. As a member of the Nationals 18 and under team, he placed fourth in the 3-meter and notched sixth place in the 1-meter.
To sharpen his skills, Mulé’s father bought him a book on springboard diving techniques, and he learned all of the most complicated dives someone can do off the 1-meter board competitively.
During the summers when he was training with an Olympic diving coach in Florida, Mulé did what he called his most ambitious dive, a back one and a half with three and a half twists from the 10-meter platform.
“At that time in the early 1980s, it was the most difficult and complicated dive you could do at that level,” he explained. “I did it pretty well. I just felt so accomplished doing it. I was really doing dives that were Olympic level with a bunch of Olympians at that training camp.”
As a junior, Mulé broke Bobby Peizer’s 1974 school and pool record of 274.5 points by compiling a 299.50. This was a six-dive record. He was a US Diving 15-16-year-old State Diving Champ at 1 and 3-meter diving. That same year, he placed fourth in the National Junior Olympics Diving competition (3-meter) and sixth in the 1-meter. He also appeared on NBC Sports’ coverage of the Junior Olympics.
“It was the same process for me whether it was 1, 3 or 10-meter,” he said. “I always told myself that I just have to do an average one. I just have to do a good one. I don’t have to do the best dive of my life. And it relaxed me.”
His senior year brought even more success: He finished in the top six at USA Diving (1 and 3-meter) at US Nationals in Texas.
Mulé then went on to attend Harvard College, where he won an Eastern Championship on the 3-meter and registered several second-place finishes. He was an NCAA Division qualifier and competitor. He won four consecutive Eastern Seaboard Championships as a member of the Harvard College Swimming Team.
“For me, I just felt like I had done the work, and because I had done the work, it made it easier to relax when the pressure is on,” he said about his approach.