SUPERIOR -- Swimmers and divers stood in silence as Miles Rohrbaugh walked into Superior's natatorium for the first time as an assistant coach.
It was the opening day of practice this fall, and from the moment Rohrbaugh agreed to join the staff as a diving coach, all of the Spartans knew the caliber of teacher they were about to begin learning from.
"That first day was intimidating," said Eris Wilson, one of Superior's senior diving captains. "I got to know him a little bit after that, and I realized he's just kind of a diving nerd. That's his brain -- it's all diving, and he knew exactly what we needed to learn."
Rohrbaugh brings a breadth of experience to Superior's staff. The 2018 Duluth East graduate made multiple trips to the state tournament with the Greyhounds, and he owns virtually every diving record in program history.
His spotless resume at East yielded a Division I opportunity at Wisconsin-Green Bay, where he dove competitively for a handful of years. Rohrbaugh made several trips to the NCAA Zone Diving Championships, where athletes vie for berths to nationals.
After graduation, Rohrbaugh moved to Indiana for a couple of years and worked at RipFest Diving Club, one of the most prestigious camps in the country. He taught alongside John Wingfield, who coached the United States Olympic diving team in 2008 in Beijing.
"I ran the camp all summer for 12 weeks, and they do the elite camp on top of that," Rohrbaugh said. "Diving is such a young person's sport that a lot of the kids I coached in the year-round club in Indiana were Olympic Trials competitors."
Rohrbaugh eventually left Indiana and moved to Minneapolis, where he coached a club program and further refined his craft as an instructor. Most of his athletes have been high school-aged, but he's also worked with college students and Olympic hopefuls.
Returning to the Northland always intrigued Rohrbaugh, and when Punyko reached out asking for help, it felt like the perfect opportunity to go home and start teaching where it all began.
"Bill needed help with the team," Rohrbaugh said. "Being back is really rewarding. It's kind of a return to form. I've spent years coaching college, club and camp diving, but I started as a Duluth East High School diver, and my dad was my coach."
Part of what drew Rohrbaugh to Superior's coaching staff is his history with Punyko. When Rohrbaugh was a child, Punyko was his swim instructor at Duluth's YMCA. It was there where they laid the groundwork for a professional relationship more than a decade later.
Punyko said adding Rohrbaugh to the program has been unbelievably beneficial because he's able to teach the intricacies and nuances of diving, something he simply can't do.
"Having a diving coach is like having gold," Punyko said. "I can coach kids to a certain level, but he knows it and has experienced it at a high level. He can coach all of the nuances, the rotations, and having somebody who can do that is worth more than gold."
When Rohrbaugh arrived in Superior to begin coaching, he realized how many built-in advantages that Spartans enjoy. A separate diving pool, in his view, is a monumental bonus and a luxury that most high school programs don't have.
He also noted pulley installations above the diving pool, which can be used for further instruction, and that there is plenty of room for a second one-meter board, all of which could help turn Superior into a powerhouse program.
"There is so much potential," Rohrbaugh said. "It's basically an untapped city that I would love to see explore the sport. I would love to make Duluth and Superior a diving powerhouse. We have the pools and facilities for it."
Superior's athletes believe Rohrbaugh turning the Twin Ports into a diving hub is feasible. They've seen exponential growth in their technique this year, and lingering struggles, some that had persisted for years, have vanished under his guidance.
"The issues I've had for years have improved a lot because of him," Wilson said. "It's fun, but also hard at times because he's a high-level coach. His practices are different from what we've had, but he really knows what he's talking about, so we accept that."
Part of Rohrbaugh's strategy for growing the sport in the greater Superior and Duluth area is potentially starting his own diving club. If he did, then he would work with athletes earlier in their development so that they're advanced when they reach varsity.
"I think Duluth and Superior could be a powerhouse for diving," Rohrbaugh said. "I would love to bring diving up here after all of the elite coaching I've spent my time doing. Being back here in Superior, it just feels really natural."
Regardless of how much the diving community grows in the coming years, Punyko is happy to have an elite diving coach because he knows it's going to help the program be more successful every season Rohrbaugh is there.
"He can elevate our diving a lot more than anything I could ever do myself," Punyko said. "He has ambition of seeing long-term goals for diving around here, and that's a big bonus for our program."