MOULTRIE — Saying she is “thrilled and honored,” Colquitt County’s Camille Akridge Bowden will be among the judges seated at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials being held in Knoxville, Tenn.

“To be there is just awesome,” the former Moss Farms, Team Orlando and Florida State University diver. “It’s taken me 10 years to get there.

“And I am so looking forward to it.”

The Trials will run June 16-23 with the top divers in the country seeking berths on the team that will represent the U.S. at the Paris Olympics that will begin July 26..

Among the Team Trials competitors will be Carson Tyler, who, like Bowden, got his start in the Moss Farms Diving program.

Tyler, who dives collegiately for the University of Indiana, is among the favorites to earn a trip to Paris.

And he was a young member of the Moss Farms program when Bowden coached at her club diving alma mater from 2013-2015.

Bowden’s journey to becoming a high-level diving judge started when she was 5 years old and joined the Moss Farms program.

It was then that she came and was introduced to its legendary coach Moose Moss, who made a lasting impression on her life, both as a diver and as a person, she said.

“He is a big part of my success,” she said of Moss who taught her “discipline and drive.”

“Sometimes I’ve felt surrounded by him, even when he was not there. When I was coaching, I would say things that Moose said to me.”

Also an outstanding soccer player at Colquitt County High, she won a Georgia high school diving championship as a senior in 2002 after finishing second and third the previous two years.

She also was a fine junior diver and followed Moss Farms coach — and future U.S. Olympic Team coach — Jay Lerew to Orlando, where she continued to excel.

At Florida State University, where she competed at the ACC and NCAA levels, she suffered shoulder and ankle injuries that ended her competitive career.

But she did not give up on diving.

“It’s my passion,” she said before leaving for Knoxville and the Trials. “It’s what I am.”

After earning her Doctorate of Chiropractic, she moved back to Moultrie in 2013, opened ChiroCare Integrations and joined the Moss Farms Diving staff.

In 2015, she received the Robert “Moose” Moss Award, named after her mentor, at the YMCA National Diving Championships.

The award is presented annually “to the coach, athlete or administrator who embodies the values of YMCA and encourages the development of the sport of diving.”

After marrying Zach Bowden and having her first child, she gave up coaching and turned to judging.

Since becoming certified, she has judged junior and senior events and ACC, SEC and NCAA meets.

She judged her first international event in Puerto Rico not long after finishing her international judging course.

She has judged a Grand Prix event in Brisbane, Australia, and did the Junior Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile. She also judged in the Futures Cup in May 2022 in Plymouth, England.

In the fall of 2021 she was selected as judge for the Junior World Diving Championships in Kiev, Ukraine, but the U.S. decided not to become involved with the event because of the threat of war.

For diving’s casual observer, judging might seem difficult.

Many have the impression that a diver’s entry into the water is the determining factor in his score, especially since one with little to no splash leads to cheers from the crowd and high scores.

But judges examine five parts of each dive: the starting position; approach; takeoff; flight; and entry.

Scores are awarded in half-point increments from 0 points for a failed dive to 10 points for an excellent dive.

Scores from 8.5-9.5 are considered very good; 7.0-8.0, good; 5.0-6.5, satisfactory; 2.5-4.5 deficient; and 0.5-2.0, unsatisfactory.

A panel of seven judges assign scores between 0 and 10 points for each dive.

The top two scores and the bottom two scores are discarded and the remaining three scores are added together and multiplied by the dive’s assigned degree of difficulty to determine the score of the dive.

Scoring of synchronized events is somewhat different.

Bowden said her years of judging national and international events have given her the skills and confidence to become part of the crew assigned to the Olympic Team Trials.

Judges themselves are judged at each event they are assigned to, she said.

“It can be intimidating,” she said. “But the more you judge, the better you get.”

Bowden will be a part of a team of 12 judges — three of whom are international judges — who will be at the Team Trials.

She will travel alone to Knoxville, although she sometimes is accompanied on her judging trips by family members.

“Being a mom makes it a little tougher to leave home,” she said.

She enjoyed serving as the referee of the Zone B Championships held recently at the Moose Moss Aquatics Center that allowed her to remain close to home.

She and husband Zach Bowden, a Florida native and, like his wife, a Florida State graduate, have three children and live in Norman Park.

Her family understands her commitment to the sport she has excelled in for so much of her life.

“Diving just teaches you so much,” she said. “I just want to give back to this sport and help carry on the tradition that Moose started.”