It would be hard to imagine a better start to a collegiate diving career than Andrew Cataldo has experience since joining the Fairfield University swimming and diving program in 2023-24.

The fact that the sophomore swept the 1- and 3-meter diving events at the 2024 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) championships which led Cataldo to earn the MAAC Diver of the Meet and MAAC Rookie Diver of the Meet in his inaugural season is rather impressive.

Now in his sophomore season, Cataldo will join the diving elite on Monday when he competes at the 2025 NCAA Diving Zones, hosted by Rutgers University beginning at noon.
"I always hoped that I would reach this level as soon as possible," Cataldo said. "I am blessed enough to compete at such a high level. But a lot of my success is because of my coaches throughout the years. I definitely would not have been in the position to reach this level without their support."

Cataldo has been a competitor diver since the seventh grade and has taken gold at all levels during those years. But from his point of view, the NCAA Zones will be a completely different type of competition.

 "There is going to over 50 divers that I will compete against which will be completely different than anything I have experienced as a diver," Cataldo said. "My main goal for this competition is to gain as much experience as I can at this level. It's very different than college dual meets and conference competitions."

But this level of success did not come without effort or dedication. He has been preparing for success at both the conference and national levels going back to end of his freshman campaign.
"This season, my main goal was to qualify for zones and work on a lot of new dives that I wanted to learn on both boards for this year," Cataldo said. "Now looking back on the season, I think I excelled even further than I thought I could. I definitely feel exponentially more skilled and confident now than I did going into this year. I hit all of my goals for this season so I am very happy."

Goals on the diving board were the only goals that Cataldo experienced growing up. The Albany, N.Y. native split his time as a young athlete between diving in the pool and the scoring goals as a hockey player. While he enjoyed his time zipping across the ice, he realized he needed to make a choice if he wanted to reach the zenith of either sport.

"I played hockey for a really long time," Cataldo recalled. "But in my junior year in high school, I had to make a decision to continue playing hockey or continue with diving because they are both the same season. I chose diving because I was excelling at very rapid rate and I saw a brighter future in this sport."

One advantage that Cataldo has is that he has gained some insight about Zones from Fairfield diving coach Devon O'Nalty who competed at Zones as a student-athlete at Marist University. He placed 10^th in the 1-meter and 16^th in the 3-meter as a senior during the 2008 NCAA Zones.

"I told him that this is his first shot at this level so you can only do what you can," O'Nalty said. "If he makes top 16 that's great but if not he has two more years to qualify and compete at this level. I would not have pictured where Andrew is today after recruiting him in high school. His success is a tribute to his hard work not only to the sport but to himself as well."

Even though he has been working on and adding new dives throughout the season, Cataldo is not going to change things up as he moves up to NCAA zones, instead relying on the dives that brought him to this point.

"Devon and I talked about it but there are only one or two things I could have possibly changed," Cataldo said. "In diving, it's better to do what you do well instead of trying to throw new dives that you haven't mastered. Going into this meet, my goal is to compete to the best of my ability so changing things would not be worth it."

It would be hard to imagine any circumstances that would lead to any changes especially with the success Cataldo has achieved in just two years.