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Great Athletes

Micki King

by Mary Lou LeCompte

Sport: Diving

Early Life

Maxine Joyce King was born in Pontiac, Michigan, near Detroit, on July 26, 1944. One of Leonard and Olga King’s three children, she was active and athletic. She learned to swim and to play ball games while very young. She was soon playing softball with the neighborhood boys, who often picked her first when choosing teams. At an early age, she was nicknamed Micki—a name that stuck.

Micki King showing off the gold medal she won in the 3-meter springboard competition at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

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(Courtesy of International Swimming Hall of Fame)

The most important person in Micki’s life was her father, who worked nights at the General Motors factory. He convinced her that girls could do anything. He also taught her to dive by throwing her over his shoulder as they played in the lakes. To keep her active in the winter, the family enrolled her in the YMCA, which had two “girl’s nights” and one “family night” weekly. She found indoor swimming boring and was soon playing on the diving board. When she was ten, boys at the YMCA challenged her to play follow-the-leader from the diving board. Like the great 1948 and 1952 Olympic champion Sammy Lee, Micki learned to dive and to love the sport while playing that game.

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The Road to Excellence

When Micki was fifteen, YMCA coach John LaMonte began coaching her and teaching her the names of the dives. He took Micki to her first meet at Toledo, Ohio. That was a frightening experience, but she won the meet. She promised herself that next time she would be more prepared. That was not easy, for during those years there were no high school or college teams for women. When Coach LaMonte left Pontiac, Micki had to drive to Detroit to practice with her new coach, Jim Ottinger. He filled a big need in her life.

After graduating from Pontiac Central High in 1962, Micki enrolled at the University of Michigan. She asked the men’s diving coach, Dick Kimball, to be her coach. He agreed and let her practice with the men’s team, giving her the same workouts and the same tough dives as the men. In 1965, Micki won her first major titles. She won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) National Indoor Championships in both the ten-meter platform and three-meter springboard. For this she was named 1965 AAU diver of the year.

The Emerging Champion

When she graduated from college in 1966, Micki joined the United States Air Force. Because she was aiming for the 1968 Olympics, this was a good choice. The armed forces allowed Olympic hopefuls time off to train and compete, while other employers often forced athletes to choose between sports and a job.

Micki was the first woman with the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of Michigan. This allowed her to keep training with Coach Kimball. She worked full time until a month before the Olympic trials, practicing three to four hours a day after work.

At the Olympics, it seemed that all of her hard work had paid off. She led the three-meter springboard competition after eight dives. On the ninth, misfortune struck when she hit the board, breaking her arm. Despite the pain, she did her last dive, which made the pain even worse. She came home with her arm in a cast and a fourth-place finish instead of a medal. It took her more than a year to recover.

Micki was transferred to the Los Angeles Air Force Base in California, far from home and Coach Kimball. She was about to quit diving for good when the Air Force asked her to compete at the World Military Games (WMG), something no woman had ever done. Although not fully recovered from her injury, she started practicing. The only woman in the WMG, she won a bronze medal. She decided to go for the Olympic gold again. After work each day, she drove forty miles round trip to work out three hours at a pool.

By the time she made the 1972 Olympic team, twenty-eight-year-old Micki was an Air Force captain. She had won eight more AAU championships and three more diver of the year awards. At the Munich Olympics, she finally won the gold medal on the three-meter springboard, and retired happily from competitive diving.

Continuing the Story

In 1973, Micki became diving coach and physical education teacher at the Air Force Academy. There were no women students at the Academy then. She was the first woman coach of a men’s college team anywhere. However, she had practiced with men for years and was confident of success. It came quickly. She became the first woman to coach a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion when Cadet Rick McAllister won the 1974 title.

Micki did television commentary and made international goodwill tours for diving and the Olympics. In 1976, she married a fellow officer, Major James Hogue. They served in several places during the next ten years. They also had two children, Kevin and Michelle.

Micki earned a M.A. in communications and became one of the leaders of United States Diving, Incorporated (U.S. Diving), formed in 1980 to regulate diving in place of the AAU. By 1988, she was one of 108 female colonels in the Air Force, vice president of U.S. Diving, and manager of the Olympic diving team.

After another tour at the Air Force Academy, she and the family moved to her new job as professor and Air Force ROTC Commander at the University of Kentucky. Despite her busy career and family life, in 1990, Micki accepted the challenge of running for president of U.S. Diving. Her opponent had been president for four years. In winning the election, she became the first woman president of the organization and one of the top women among American Olympic leaders. She became the assistant athletic director for the University of Kentucky and, in 2005, was elected vice president of the U.S. Olympians Association.

Summary

Micki King was a daring, athletic youngster who chose diving because she loved a challenge, and who finally became an Olympic champion. Throughout her career as athlete, coach, and official, Micki was often the first and only woman in her field. This not only made her stronger but also helped open new opportunities for women. Even with the hectic schedule of an Air Force officer, she found time to be a wife, mother, and volunteer for the Olympic movement and women’s sports. With all of her achievements, it is no surprise that Micki King Hogue rose to prominent positions in a number of organizations and was named to multiple halls of fame.

Additional Sources

1 

Greenberg, Stan. Whitaker’s Olympic Almanack: An Encyclopaedia of the Olympic Games. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000.

2 

Miller, Ernestine G. Making Her Mark: Firsts and Milestones in Women’s Sports. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2002.

3 

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press, 2008.

4 

Woolum, Janet. Outstanding Women Athletes: Who They Are and How They Influenced Sports in America. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1998.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
LeCompte, Mary Lou. "Micki King." Great Athletes,Salem Press, 2009. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Athletes_2067.
APA 7th
LeCompte, M. L. (2009). Micki King. Great Athletes. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
LeCompte, Mary Lou. "Micki King." Great Athletes. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2009. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.