FAIRFAX, Va. – George Mason senior diver Gerald Hodges, Jr. has been a key member of the men's swimming and diving team, excelling both in the pool and in the classroom. 

A marketing major, Hodges has been recognized with an Atlantic 10 Commissioner's Honor Roll selection twice.  In the pool, he has won five individual diving medals in three trips to the A-10 Championships.

In February, Hodges helped the Patriots win the Atlantic 10 Championship, the first in program history.  He won the silver medal in the one-meter dive and claimed the bronze in the three-meter event.

Hodges was the 2019 A-10 Champion in the men's one-meter dive and won silver that year in the three-meter event.  At the 2018 A-10 Championships, he made the podium with a third-place finish in the three-meter.

A native of Springfield, Va. Hodges was a four-year member of the swimming and diving team and played baseball for three years at Robert E. Lee High School.  He attended the University of West Virginia before transferring to Mason.

Hodges recently sat down with GoMason.com to share his student-athlete experiences and how Mason has prepared him for the future.

Why did you choose to continue your education and athletic career at George Mason?

"I felt like Mason offered a very well-rounded community with academics and athletics.  It's a family atmosphere support with sports and the school and that goes with the whole experience of being a college athlete.  It was just really tight-knit community at Mason, which is what I liked and I saw that on my recruiting trip."

Can you describe the feeling you had when the team won the A-10 Men's Swimming and Diving Championship?

"After three years of finishing second to George Washington, we stayed motivated and optimistic that anything can happen, that's our mindset the past four years.  We brought in a lot of athletes who contributed and got us closer to accomplishing that championship.  This year we just had that lucky group of guys that all worked hard and performed just how we needed to in order to win.  It was a progression of getting closer and closer and at this point we were finally able to achieve our goal."

What are some of the memories that you will take with you from George Mason?

"The Atlantic 10 Championships and being part of that team and winning our first-ever conference championship, that will be very memorable.  Also, our sport banquets are really cool every year, just because we get to see how our team did that year and other teams, we all support each other.  I always enjoyed those.  My last diving meet ever was two weeks ago at NCAA zones at West Virginia.  I had my first college meet there and my last college meet there, so it was full circle.  I feel like I had the best performance of my college career, so I will never forget that meet because all that work over four years all showed up and paid off at that meet."

How did you and your teammates try to make practice fun?

"Everyday, if we noticed that someone was a bit off or tired, we always had a team quote for that day on the diving side.  We would always write something on our wrist, like A-10's, just to remind us what we were training for.  That always kept us motivated and focused throughout practice.  I know for the swimmers, they would always write a quote on the white board, and that kid of pushed everyone."

What age did you start competing and what do you do to calm yourself before competitions?

"I started my freshman year of high school.  Diving is a very mental sport, so through the years it's a live and you learn kind of thing.  When you compete, you learn how to control the nerves and relax, but it takes a long time to develop.  Throughout my nine years of diving I slowly developed the skills and I've learned to be able to focus and calm myself.  Listening to music when I compete, in between dives I put my head phones in to distract me from what's going on."

What are you going to miss the most?

"The balance of trying to stay on top of school and having those early mornings when you are just awake, tired and having to train and grinding.  In the moment, you're dealing with it and you keep going.  You have those moments when you break down, but looking back at it I'm definitely going to miss being on that routine and having two different goals, graduating college and doing my best in my classes, but also trying to perform as well as I can in the pool and win meets.  I think that having those goals to accomplish and consistently working for them every day, regardless of how tiring it was, I will be missing that a lot."

How did your work in the classroom and in the pool prepare you for the future?

"I think that being a student-athlete, the self-discipline and work ethic will carry over to how I perform when I graduate.  On top of that, I feel like a big lesson I've learned is that you can accomplish anything if you really work hard for it.  I was able to witness that first hard through the four years of training for our competitions.  I have a long-term goal of having my own marketing agency, but I feel like I might do a few years of corporate marketing to get first-hand experience and work with people who are already successful with their own business."