David Boudia prepares for world diving championships in a new role

Last June 13, David Boudia drove home from the Olympic diving trials in Toothless, the name given to his Toyota Tundra by his oldest daughter, Koda, and replayed in his mind how he missed the team for Tokyo by three tenths of a percentage point.

When he arrived, his second daughter, Mila, ran up to the truck. She had two questions for dad.

“She asked me if I’ve ever caught fireflies, and if I wanted to catch fireflies with her,” Boudia said. “I just started to tear up.”

That interaction is what Boudia thought of first when asked to share any words he remembered after he placed third at trials, where the top two made the team. After 18 dives, Boudia had 1,314.95 points. He was 4.45 points shy of second place, the margin separating them being 0.3 percent.

“Yeah, that sucked a lot,” Boudia, a four-time medalist, said of missing an Olympics for the first time since he was 15 years old in 2004, “but it is sweet to have that kind of welcome home.

“Just putting everything in perspective.”

On that day, there was reason to wonder if Boudia had dived competitively for the last time. He was 32 years old. Will be 35 come the 2024 Paris Games, two years older than the oldest U.S. Olympic diver in history, according to Olympedia.org.

Boudia hasn’t competed since then and doesn’t know if he will again.

“Right now, I’m just enjoying what I’m doing,” he said.

Since July 1, less than three weeks after that trials heartbreak, he has been an assistant diving coach at his alma mater, Purdue, under his longtime coach, Adam Soldati. Boudia plans to go to the world championships in June in that role.

It was nine years ago that Michael Phelps attended his first world championships as a non-competitor and, partially sparked by what he felt on