This Canes champion diver’s character can best be explained with his story about donuts

To understand how David Dinsmore became an NCAA champion diver for the University of Miami and a 2020 Olympic hopeful, picture this scene: a run-down Krispy Kreme donut shop, one of the few dessert options in a small town just outside Columbus, Ohio.

A loud chant emerges: “Dins-More! Dins-More! Dins-More!”

“Dins-More! Dins-More! Dins-More!”

Amidst a pack of high schoolers, one boy is holding a box with a dozen donuts.

Now, there’s one donut left.

It’s clear from the painful expression on Dinsmore’s face and the donut powder around his lips what has happened to the other eleven donuts.

He takes a deep breath, and then does the most un-imaginable, the most disgusting ... or depending on who you ask, the most legendary thing this small Ohio town has ever seen. He eats it.

The Dinsmore Dozen is far from David Dinsmore’s most impressive accomplishment. That said, no moment could sum up his competitive nature, the ability to push himself, more than that night as a high school junior. It is the same reason he could very well wind up on the 2020 U.S. Olympic team.

“I don’t know why I said it, but for whatever reason I told my friends I could eat a dozen donuts,” Dinsmore reminisces. “Now every time I come home people are begging to see the ‘Dinsmore Dozen’. I’ve done it four times in four years.”

Why did Dinsmore tell his high school friends he could eat a dozen donuts, despite having never even tried it before? Well, that speaks to his love for competition — more specifically, competition against himself.

A redshirt junior at the University of Miami, Dinsmore won the NCAA National Championship for platform as a freshman. And he has continued to rack up medals throughout his time at Miami, including three consecutive gold medals at the ACC Championships.

In 2017, Dinsmore was named the USA Diving Athlete of the Year. Considering how consistently better he is than his competition, Dinsmore focuses on competing against himself, not just divers from other schools, in order to keep his personal numbers from going in the wrong direction.

University of Miami diving coach Randy Ableman has played a large role in helping push Dinsmore. Ableman describes just how special an athlete Dinsmore truly is.

“He has a special gift, and he cannot waste that gift,” Ableman said. “His time in the sport is going to go so fast that he can’t waste any opportunity to try and get better. I have a responsibility to make sure David reaches his potential, which is the top of the sport.”

It’s safe to say Dinsmore is at the top of his sport, though the diver fully believes he hasn’t reached his true potential. He is always striving to get better, always working at the pool, despite a back injury that limits the number of hours he can practice.

“Because he has this bad back ... the people out there in the world who he needs to compete against to actually win an Olympic medal — the one guy in China, the guy in Great Britain — they’re training harder than him,” says Ableman, his coach of four years. “David’s got to be mentally sharper than them.”

The injury hasn’t hampered his goal of diving in the Olympics. That’s been Dinsmore’s dream for as long as he can remember, and he has never been closer to turning that into a reality.

“I remember being 10 [years old] in fifth grade, sitting in class and just drawing the Olympic rings over and over and over,” Dinsmore said.

To this point, Dinsmore’s most impressive accomplishment has been winning that NCAA platform championship as a redshirt freshman. This came less than a year after Dinsmore was knocked out of qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics — in the same pool.

“I had gotten beaten out for Olympic trials at this pool in Indianapolis,” Dinsmore said. “Coming back a year later to that same pool, against the same competitors, and watching my name come up on the scoreboard is something I’ll never forget.”

His next step? Qualify for the 2020 Olympics.

That road has already begun, as Dinsmore competed in the USA FINA Diving Grand Prix in early April, placing fifth in the men’s 10-meter platform. His next event comes in Indianapolis on May 16, at the USA Diving Senior National Championships Qualifier.

If Dinsmore continues to impress at the national level, there’s a good chance he will be selected to represent the United States in 2020.

Dinsmore is on track to graduate next May, just before he would head off to Tokyo, assuming he makes it. That would be quite an exclamation point on one of the most successful careers in American college diving history. Oh, and Dinsmore can still eat a dozen donuts in one sitting, which is pretty impressive too.

This story was originally published May 8, 2019 at 8:00 AM.