MOULTRIE — It is difficult to tell who is more pleased that Ed Goodman has joined the Moss Farms Diving staff as an assistant coach, head coach Ron Piemonte or Goodman himself.

Piemonte could not be happier that Moss Farms was able to attract a coach with the kind of resume Goodman brings.

And the former University of Toledo and Islamorada Diving Club coach also brings three daughters, two of whom are accomplished divers themselves and another who is already making contributions to the Moultrie Sharks Swim Team.

And for Goodman’s part, he is pleased to be working with another coach and to be away from the congestion and high cost of living in Fort Lauderdale, where he last worked.

Goodman had been an assistant diving coach in Fort Lauderdale for just a few months when he heard that a job had opened at Moss Farms after Todd Murphy left to go to Athens to coach.

“This is the best,” Goodman said. “This is ideal for me. I couldn’t ask for more than this. I always wanted to coach with somebody else. And my kids love it here. It was perfect timing.”

Goodman will work for Piemonte, but will share most of the responsibilities of working with divers of all skill levels.

“I don’t mind the developmental stuff,” he said. “I like it.”

Piemonte spoke as if the two will make a strong team.

“We’ll coach together,” Piemonte said. “I don’t like to split things up. Todd and I coached together.

“Ed and I will be coaching all the kids all the time. We emphasize different things. Between the two of us, you get a good all around package.”

Born in Lansing, Mich., Goodman moved as a youngster with his family to Toledo, Ohio, where he became an outstanding gymnast, tumbler and diver.

He was a member of the United States National Tumbling Team and a National Age Group champion in 1974 and 1975. At 14, he competed in the World Championships in Moscow.

And while he enjoyed tumbling, he knew it was not an Olympic sport and at 16 he gave it up to concentrate on diving.

At 17, he won a national championship on the 3-meter board. After graduating from St. Francis DeSales in Toledo, he earned a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati, where he was a qualifier for the NCAA championships in 1978 and 1979.

Goodman is credited for adding the inward 2 1/2 somersault to the 1-meter dive list and is co-responsible for adding the forward 2 1/2 somersault.

After leaving the University of Cincinnati, he served in the U.S. Air Force for four years. He returned to Toledo, where he was in private business and began coaching diving at Notre Dame Academy and Northview High School and at the Sylvania Diving Club. The Sylvania team produced a number of regional, zone and national qualifiers.

In 2000, he became the diving coach at University of Toledo. The next year, he took the job of building the Islamorada (Fla.) Diving program from scratch.

The community of some 6,000 people built a swimming and diving facility and Goodman was charged with starting the club.

Using U.S. Diving’s Future Champions program, he got 66 youngsters to look into diving for the first time. Some 20 signed up for the program, joining his daughter Kelsey, already an accomplished age group diver.

Kelsey quickly qualified for East Nationals, giving the program credibility. Between 2001 and 2005, Islamorada Diving had divers qualify for Summer Nationals five times, with four divers reaching the finals.

Last year, he moved briefly to Fort Lauderdale as an assistant to Tim O’Brien.

But Goodman had brought his Islamorada teams to Moultrie before to compete and was familiar with Piemonte and the Moss Farms program. He jumped at the chance to move to a small town and an accomplished program.

Goodman and his wife, a nurse, keep their daughters in the water.

Erin is a sophomore at Colquitt County High and a member of the dive team.

Middle daughter Kelsey, an eight-grader, is one of the nation’s top divers in her age group.

Kelsey finished 10th on the 3-meter springboard last year at Nationals and only a failed dive kept her from a top-3 finish. She finished seventh at Nationals on the 1-meter board.

As a member of the Colquitt County middle school diving team, she finished first in the 30-girl field at the War Eagle Middle School Invitational held at Marist School in Atlanta on Saturday, setting a pool record with a 260.80

Haley, a sixth-grader, is a swimmer already making her mark with the Sharks.