Sheila Mae Perez
Born of the Water
Diver Sheila Mae Perez did the city and the country proud when she won three gold medals in the recent Southeast Asian Games. Now, her eyes are fixed on another prize: the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
By Angely Chi
davaotoday.com
Published: January 28, 2006
DAVAO CITY -- When Sheila Mae Perez dived the one-meter springboard individual event at the 23rd Southeast Asian Games on Dec. 1, 2005, the gold was farthest from her mind. Her thoughts were on her dive. Sheila Mae, who trained for 10 years, knew that a miscalculated plunge, a wrong turn in midair, could destroy a dive.
The gold medal, therefore, was a distraction. For Sheila Mae, it was only her, the springboard, and the clear, cool water beneath her.
When she came out of the water, she only had a vague idea of how her dive turned out. Except for her coach’s approving look and the loud applause, she was clueless about the result. It was only when the last score was proclaimed that Sheila Mae finally grasped the momentousness of the day.
That dive earned for Sheila Mae her third gold medal in the Games, and the Philippines’s first gold medal that particular day. The applause from the mainly Filipino audience watching the event at the Trace Aquatics Center in Los Baños, Laguna, was overwhelming. It was a good start for a winning day for Team Philippines. For Sheila Mae, it was her best.
 Sheila Mae Perez’s triple gold win in the 23rd Southeast Asian Games was a first. In various television feature stories and newspaper headline photos, she proudly showed off her three golds, smiling charmingly at the camera with the medals close to her face. Some segments and shots showed her kissing them like they were babies. Those medals were by far the most important testament of her skill and talent as a driver. They were also a memorable reward for the years of tough training under world-class diving trainer Zhang Dehu.
Davao Today recently paid Sheila Mae a visit during her short stay in Davao City, and what we saw was a young (20 years old), simple and fun-loving Davaoeña who swore that she was still the same person.
The second daughter of a cargo ship checker, Zenon Perez, and a housewife, Virginia Perez, Sheila Mae grew up in a squatters’ area in Sasa, Davao City. Their house was near the sea, and so by 5, she had learned how to swim. Her elder sister Maricel, who, according to her, had been the one picked out to train in diving by diving scout and coach Nestor Anselmo, taught her how to swim.
Sheila Mae offered an interesting anecdote that seemed to tie her fate to diving. She believes she was “born of the water.” She recalled her mother’s fascination with the rain when she was still pregnant with Sheila Mae. Her mother would wake up midnights just to bathe in the cold night rain. And when her mother gave birth to Sheila Mae on the evening of Dec. 10, 1985, it was raining.
One can interpret these incidences of Sheila Mae’s conception and birth as her first encounter with water and, eventually, diving. But the diver is only certain of one thing: everything was unexpected. Her diving career was only an offshoot of a brief swimming stint in elementary school, which led to one competition at the Palarong Pambansa in 1996 and a chance encounter with Philippine Sports Commission coach Anselmo.
“I never expected I’d go into diving because in school, I was a swimmer,” she said.
But once she made the choice after her elder sister backed out, Sheila Mae took diving seriously. Even without her parents’ overt encouragement, she underwent training in Manila. For years, she would only go home during Christmas.
“I was really serious with training,” Sheila Mae said with conviction in her voice. This same conviction drove her to win her early bronze and silver medals at various international competitions in her early years of diving.
But the Philippines’s most bemedaled athlete also has one great dream: to win a gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “It’s historic when you get the Olympic gold, especially if it’s for your country,” she said. “I want to have the honor of giving it to the Philippines.”
To achieve that goal, she has conditioned herself that she would have to train harder. She would participate in other international diving events in order to raise her training standards to cope with the fiercer competitions at the Beijing Olympics. The international meets will serve as a training ground for her, especially with her continual match-up with diving giants such as China and Malaysia.
Despite these serious thoughts for the future, Sheila Mae does not fail to live the present, though rather modestly. Regardless of how much her cash incentives from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte had amounted to, Sheila Mae does not waste her money. Some of it she has put away in the bank, reserved for the completion of their new house at the Tibungco Relocation Site. Some of it she has shared with her family and relatives. A few of her purchases
included a mobile phone and a Mickey Mouse stuffed toy she bought on her three-day holiday trip to Disneyland in Hong Kong.
Although Sheila Mae is enjoying the accolade and the extensive attention, she remains humble. And focused. Her main concern now, she emphasized, is her training. (Angely Chi/davaotoday.com)
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