Clayton Moss was outstanding on all three boards during his career.

It is apropos that perhaps the most outstanding male competitor Moss Farms Diving has produced is named after the program’s legendary coach.

Robert “Moose” Moss started what has become one of the nation’s preeminent youth diving programs at the pool on his rural Colquitt County farm home in the 1960s and coached numerous national and international champions during his unique career.

His grandson, Robert Clayton, but known as Clayton, took the energy and discipline that his grandfather and coach demanded and combined it with own immense talent and became a world class diver.

And next month, Clayton Moss will join his grandfather, two other former coaches and several former teammates in the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame.

The induction banquet will be held October 6 in the Colquitt County High cafeteria. Moss and the other inductees or their representatives will be presented on the sidelines at Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium before the start of the next night’s football game between Colquitt County and Tift County.

Clayton Moss will tell you that the accomplishment he is most proud of is qualifying for the Olympic Trials in 2004.

But he also was an 11-time NCAA All-American, the NCAA National Diver of the Year in 2003, a four-time SEC champion and three times was selected as the SEC Diver of the Year. Four times he was a runner-up in the NCAA Championships.

Also among his list of diving accomplishments are:

• U.S. Junior Team member, 1993-1999.

• U.S. Senior Team member, 2001-2004.

• Georgia High School Association state champion, 1998-1999.

• Finalist on 1-meter and 3-meter in the FINA Junior World Championships in Guangshou, China, 1995.

• YMCA National Diving Champion, 1996.

• Gold and bronze medals in 1-meter and 3-meter, FINA Junior World Grand Prix Diving Championships in Waldkraiburg, Germany 1997.

• Three gold medals on 1-meter, 3-meter and 10-meter in FINA Can-Am-Mex Diving Championships, 1998.

•Finalist on 1-meter and 3-meter, FINA World Diving Grand Prix in Moscow, Russia, 2002.

• University of Kentucky Catsby Award recipient for the Top Male Athletic Performance, 2003.

• Four-time University of Kentucky Most Valuable Player Award Swimming & Diving, 1999 – 2003.

• Silver medalist on 3-meter at Speedo American Cup, 2004.

• Four-time Janis Hope Dowd Nike Cup Champion, 1999 and 2000.

• Olympic Diving Trials qualifier on 3-meter and 10-meter individual and on 3-meter synchro, 2004.

• Finalist on 3-meter individual and 3-meter synchro, Olympic Diving Trials, 2004.

It was clear early on that Moss would be an exceptional athlete, playing a number of sports as a youngster. He especially liked baseball.

Diving, of course, was in his blood and eight months after his grandfather sent him to the springboards for the first time at age 7, he qualified for the Junior National Championships in The Woodlands, Texas.

Despite an ear infection and an overnight stay in the hospital, he qualified for finals on both boards.

When he was 13, he decided he wanted to make the National Team and qualify to dive in the World Junior Diving Championships in China and began practicing twice a day.

“It just felt natural to go to the pool,” Moss says. “Before I knew it, it was like daycare.”

And, of course, he had great advantage of training as a youngster under his grandfather, whose contributions to diving have been recognized and honored in many ways and who was inducted recently as one of the first five members of the Georgia Aquatic Hall of Fame.

Known a strict taskmaster, Moose Moss drove his young divers relentlessly.

“He was a heavy-handed guy,” Clayton Moss says of Moose, who died in 1993, when his grandson was 13. “Outside the pool, he was the best grandfather you could have.

“It was a special relationship.”

Not all young divers responded to Moose’s coaching. Those who did reaped exceptional rewards.

“He was just stubborn,” Clayton says. “He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“My wife tells me it is part of the Moss mentality to be stubborn.”

After his grandfather’s death, Clayton continued to flourish under the guidance of coaches Jay Lerew and Wenbo Chen at Moultrie’s world-class diving facility named after Moose Moss. Both Lerew and Wenbo have been inducted into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame.

The Moss Farms program also drew many outstanding young divers to train in Moultrie, and the Moose Moss Aquatic Center was selected to play host to a number of top national competitions.

“I saw so many successful athletes in Moultrie,” he said.

As his outstanding junior career wound down and he graduated from Colquitt County High in 1999, a college commitment awaited.

Moss could at last see the long hours in the pool and in the weight room, the untold times climbing the tower — sometimes with a teammate on his back to improve his endurance — and all miles he had run about to pay off.

As he weighed a large number of college offers, he considered taking time off to train in China.

Finally, he decided to dive for Mike Lyden at the University of Kentucky.

And there had been a relationship between Moss Farms Diving and Lyden for several years.

In fact, Lyden was the first choice of Moose Moss to take over the program in the early 1990s.

The job ultimately went to Lerew. But when Clayton Moss was considering where to dive in 1999, Wenbo told him he thought Lyden would be the coach to take him to the next level.

With Moose’s and Wenbo’s high opinions of Lyden, it made Clayton’s choice easier.

And Clayton did indeed flourish under Lyden’s guidance.

“Mike was a good friend as well as my coach,” Clayton said of Lyden, who died in 2008. “He did a lot for me outside the pool as well. He had a lot of tools in his tool bag.”

And Clayton especially relishes the opportunity he and Lyden had at the 2004 Olympic Trials.

“Mike had never had an athlete at the Olympic Trials,” Clayton said. “And we got really close. We did our best.”

Moss received his bachelor’s degree in ag economics at Kentucky and has worked on his master’s degree. After graduating from Kentucky, he operated an Ice House America distributorship for a number of years.

He and the former Renee Yarrington of Tampa, Fla., married in 2010, and the couple is now living in South Georgia. Moss has gone into farming, which, like diving, is part of the Moss family tradition.

Moss now stokes his competitive fires by competing in numerous Sprint-, Olympic- and Iron-distance triathlons each year. He has competed in the Ironman Louisville, Ky., in 2008 and in the Ironman Florida in Panama City Beach, Fla., the last two years.

He is currently training for his year’s Ironman Florida, which will be held in November.