All-American diver Anton Down-Jenkins has announced that he will transfer from the University of South Carolina to the University of North Carolina.
Stoked to say that I will be continuing my academic and diving career at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill! I’m so thankful for all the amazing experiences I was able to have while at South Carolina and the lifelong friendships I made, but I can’t put in to words how excited I am for the future and to be part of the Tar Heel family.
Jenkins is a native of New Zealand and dove for 2 years at South Carolina. As a freshman in 2019, he was named to the SEC All-Freshman team and earned All-America honors via a 13th-place finish at the NCAA Championship meet. He earned 1-meter and 3-meter All-America honors as a sophomore when the CSCAA awarded honors to all NCAA qualifying divers after the meet was cancelled.
As a sophomore, he finished 5th on 1-meter and 9th on 3-meter at the SEC Championships. He is a springboard specialist, though he does dive platform at the SEC level, placing 20th at the 2020 championship meet.
His 50 individual points at the 2020 SEC Championships made him the Gamecocks’ 2nd-highest individual scorer, behind only sophomore transfer Lewis Burras (53 points).
Internationally, the New Zealand native is a member of the New Zealand National Diving Team and set New Zealand National Age Group Records in both the 1-meter (for 14-15) and 3-meter (for 14-15 and 16-18). He represented New Zealand at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where he finished 14th on 3-meter and 8th in 3-meter synchro with former Tennessee Volunteer and NCAA Champion Liam Stone.
This is the biggest diving addition yet for Yaidel Gamboa, UNC’s 2nd-year head diving coach who came to North Carolina from Missouri along with the new program head coach Mark Gangloff and associate head coach Jack Brown before the 2019-2020 season.
After the 2017-2018 season UNC lost an All-American diver to transfer – ACC Diver of the Year Greg Duncan transferred first to Arizona, then Purdue. Duncan would have been a senior next season.
Last year, training an inherited group of divers, Gamboa already found early success. The Tar Heel men scored 55 points on 3-meter, 49-points on 1-meter, and 28.5 points on platform. Those 3-meter and 1-meter scores were UNC’s two best-scoring individual events in year one under a new coaching staff. As a team, UNC finished in 7th place – a three-spot improvement over a year earlier.