Does Scuba Diving Need A Hero July 15, 2013 by lukesheppard

Most sports have a few iconic heroes. Football has the likes of Beckham, Rooney etc. These people, love them or hate them have a direct affinity to their sport or profession. They are household names, few people would hear the name “David Beckham” then ask “what does he do?” He may be a poor example as some of our readers may have answered stars in underpants adverts, but you get the theory. In scuba diving who do we have? Nope can’t think of any super stars. We have a few famous people that you may be aware of Monty Halls, Kate Humble. Sadly, famous but not in the super hero or household name category. Maybe I have missed some but my point is they don’t spring to mind.

I suppose we could argue that since scuba is non competitive it’s a hobby rather than sport. Does that put us on a par with fishing? For complete transparency the only famous person I know in fishing is the actor from Soldier Soldier (the little one from up North) who is on some obscure satellite channel. I am not a fisherman. I am not a footballer but I can name quite a few of those. So to make our sport or hobby attractive to the masses do we need some super fit star? Tanya Streeter but she’s a free diver rather than a scuba diver. I suspect most divers would not have heard of her. She does fit the bill, she’s pretty, she’s talented (she probably looks great in underwear so is she our match for Beckham?)

How do we create a scuba diving super star? A reality series? Worked for the funny chap working at a hotel. Do we need a super star? Are in fact dive sites our super stars? Mention the Great Barrier Reef and most people would associate it with diving. It receives masses of press coverage, usually sad news that more coral is dying but occasionally good news. Years ago maybe a decade maybe two holiday programmes would go to some tropical location and in excited tones mention you could scuba dive there (with the inflection of if you are brave enough).. Nowadays not a word, maybe because scuba facilities are so prolific there is no need. So with it so hard to get scuba mentioned in the public domain unless there is an accident surely a dive super star is the way ahead? Volunteers? Please post your comments here on the blog, whilst Facebook etc are great the comments and thoughts are lost over time so post your thoughts here so we can refer back to them in future.