Caden Guy '24 Recruiting Profile

As a young child, I would struggle when it same to school or sports.  I was diagnosed with something  called sensory processing disorder which took time for my teachers, coaches and parents to understand.  In class, I struggled to sit still, follow directions and focus on my work. In team sports, like soccer and teeball, I had similar difficulties. One unique thing about me was that even as a little kid, I loved movement and activities like riding roller coasters and having my dad throw me in the air and spin me around.  Later on, I was diagnosed with ADHD which has made certain aspects of school and team sports challenging.

Academically, I have overcome quite a bit and become a strong student. At St. John’s, where I go to high school, my unweighted cumulative GPA is 3.8 and weighted GPA is 4.04. As a junior, I am taking AP Biology, Honors English and Honors Math. On September 18th, I will receive an academic  commendation award for outstanding achievement during the 2021 – 2022 school year.  I have also been  accepted into the National Honor Society.

Following my challenging experiences with team sports, I gravitated to individual sports like swimming  and diving. When I was 6 the diving coach at our community pool saw me doing daredevil stunts off the  diving board and asked me if I wanted to try diving. I loved it right away. Over the years, I got better and  better and started placing highly in events like divisionals, in fact, this past summer, I was the divisional  champion, beating out many accomplished divers 2 years older than I and who have been diving longer.  This qualified me for All Stars, where I placed 10th, but was only a few points behind the top performers,  many of whom were graduated high school seniors. 

At age 12, I started doing club diving at George Mason Diving Academy and going to camp at the U.S. Naval Academy and kept getting better. With  diving, I have no reservation about taking risks and love to push myself to figure out how to get my body  to do seemingly impossible things. Unfortunately, my club diving experience did not include any  competitions, so I’m not very well known. Because of this, I recently switched to a new diving club, so I  now hope to get more exposure.

My freshman year was derailed by COVID 19. When I returned to “live” school in 2021, I learned that  there as no longer a diving coach and I was the only member of the dive team. With no coach and no  teammates, I won the Washington, DC state private school championship as a sophomore.  Other  coaches noticed, specifically the Bishop Ireton coach, and asked me how I was so good with no coach  and offered to coach me informally for the rest of that meet.  I was also the male MVP of the school swim and dive team based on the points I earned.  

Another thing that I love about diving is the spirit of the sport. Even though it’s an individual sport and I  am very competitive, I find myself cheering for my opponents. There have been times  when I have surprised myself by offering others advice and encouragement even in the heat of  competition. When my competitors do great dives, it makes me happy for them, and also happy for  me as I believe that they are fueling my fire to get better and push past my current limitations.  

I want to take my diving to the next level. The idea of getting recruited is helping me push myself and  continue to get better. I am also interested in finding ways to make it easier for my parents and me to pay for college. I am the oldest of  5 kids and my parents have paid for all of us to go to private school for our entire academic career.  I am  hoping that by continuing to develop as a diver, I may be able to ease my parent’s burden as they figure out how to support 4 other kids through college.