Lautenschlager Adds Balance, Perspective to Her Repertoire : Diving: Former Granada Hills High athlete credits sorority ties for helping to put her on the road to the Olympic Trials.

Janae Lautenschlager no longer resembles the Granada Hills High sophomore who was obsessed with diving in 1985. Her performances, like her social life, have improved.

Today, Lautenschlager throws somersaults and sorority parties with equal aplomb. Although the two appear to contrast, they make a perfect marriage.

By diversifying her lifestyle, Lautenschlager has become a better diver.

Last week, she won the one-meter and the three-meter springboard events at the U. S. Diving Zone D Championships in Santa Clara.

That performance placed her among the projected leaders in the U. S. Outdoor Senior National Championships, which begin Wednesday and run through Aug. 19 at Southern Methodist University. Her coach, Dennis Taylor, believes she will be among the top eight finishers, all of whom will advance to the 1992 Olympic Trials.

At this time last year, such achievements didn’t seem possible. Judged against the standards of many competitive divers, Lautenschlager’s priorities appeared to be out of whack. Rather than compete in the U. S. Senior National Outdoor Championships, she attended rush week and joined a sorority at Arizona State.

“It was my one chance to do it,” she said. “I wanted to get involved.”

A coach with less perspective and patience might have protested, but Taylor, of G. O. Diving in Van Nuys, didn’t object.

“She’s always led her own life,” he said. “She’s never been pushed into anything.”

Taylor went through a similar experience with Lautenschlager when she was a sophomore in high school.

“Basically, everything then was diving, diving, diving,” said Lautenschlager, who lives in Northridge. “I wasn’t involved in school. I was burning out. I told myself I have to quit or take a break.

“I took a six- to seventh-month break, became a cheerleader, and then went back and everything was fine.”

Taylor was willing to take the risk that Lautenschlager might not return.

“We’ve had world age-group champions and national age-group champions,” he said of L .A. Diving, the predecessor to G. O. Diving, “and they burnt out and quit. They never made it to the college level.

“My goal for Janae was that I wanted her to be a great college diver. She could win along the way, but I wanted her to be good in college when it would count.

“Parents have a hard time with that, but I know that some day it’ll happen.”

Until her surprising performance in Santa Clara--and an equally unexpected seventh-place finish on the one-meter last spring in the NCAA Division I national championships--Lautenschlager wasn’t long for the sporting life.

“I planned to quit after my (college) eligibility ran out,” said the ASU junior-to-be, who carries a 3.6 grade-point average in nursing.

“Now, I’m going to have to sit down and re-evaluate it. I might keep going after that.”

Lautenschlager’s recent successes not only changed her goals and made her rigorous summer training schedule more palatable, but they also gave her confidence a boost.

“People have told me I can compete with those really good girls and I never believed it,” she said. “Now I feel I could have done even better.”

In previous meets, Lautenschlager’s “problem” dives--the back 2 1/2 somersault and reverse 2 1/2 on the three-meter board--proved troublesome. But she said they were “no problem” at the Zone D competition. That’s because Taylor, with the help of U. S. Olympic Coach Dick Kimball, introduced her to spotting belts this summer.

While strapped into the belt, which hangs from a gymnasium ceiling, Lautenschlager can jump off a diving board or trampoline and execute portions of her dives without having to finish in a head-first diving position. With the help of Taylor, who is trained in the technique, she lands feet first on a mat instead.

“With the belts she’s learning to see when to come out of the spin,” Taylor said. “She’s not guessing when it’s time to come out.

“Before, those dives (back 2 1/2 and reverse 2 1/2) were always a guess. We never knew if they were going to happen. They were the most meaningful dives and at the big meets they never happened.”

Until she mastered the “problem” dives, Lautenschlager’s forte was the one-meter board. A stellar leaper, Lautenschlager can complete 1 1/2 to two somersaults above the board.

“On the one-meter she does dives most girls can’t do, yet she finishes (the dive) like she has all day,” said Taylor.

Lautenschlager’s toughest dive on the one-meter is a double twisting 1 1/2. Her signature dive, it carries a degree of difficulty of 2.6.

“Not a lot of people do it” Lautenschlager said. “My legs are strong so I jump pretty well and I twist pretty well, so it comes easy to me.”

Her most challenging dives on the three-meter all carry a 2.8 degree of difficulty, and include a back 1 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists, a back 2 1/2 somersault and a gainer 2 1/2 somersault.

After nationals she will learn a back 1 1/2 with 3 1/2 twists, which carries a degree of difficulty of 3.1.

“To learn it takes one day,” said Lautenschlager. “To perfect it takes months.”

Lautenschlager is actually looking forward to those months of practice and the thousands of times she will make the dive, swim to the side, pull her weary body out of the pool and repeat the whole process.

“I’m a late bloomer,” said Lautenschlager, 19. “I have friends in diving who came over from gymnastics and--boom--they did so well so fast.

“But now some of them have quit and some of them are not doing well. A lot of them don’t enjoy it. They got pushed really fast. I wasn’t pushed and now I’m coming on.”

From Lautenschlager’s perspective, life couldn’t be better.

“Everything is perfect,” she said. “I have my diving friends and my sorority friends and the balance has helped my diving. I’m not always thinking about it and talking about it.

“Some people are so serious about diving. They are good divers but they don’t have another life.”

Lautenschlager took a chance to ensure that she does, and so far, it’s paid off.