Some years are for rebuilding, overcoming and accomplishing.
It’s what a team has to do every time a coach leaves and a new one takes their place. Colorado State dive found itself in a predicament when the prior head coach left, seemingly with no one in sight to fill the position. Just two weeks before preseason was set to begin, Seth O’Dea was named as the head diving coach, finalizing the 2025-26 season coaching staff.
“Everyone comes here and wants to be here,” O’Dea said. “I’m just excited to continue to be a part of that kind of program.”
O’Dea will take on his first full-time collegiate coaching role this season with the task of rebuilding a program. But success isn’t something O’Dea is unfamiliar with.
“I’ll do my best to make sure everyone stays healthy and can make it through the season and just work towards being competitive from all six athletes we have.” –Seth O’Dea, CSU head dive coach
He had an incredible season with the nationally ranked Montgomery Dive Club, a team that finished second overall at Junior Nationals in 2023. Along with working with elite divers, O’Dea also took on the role of assistant coach for the Alexandria Dive Club.
While O’Dea hasn’t been a college coach before, that doesn’t mean he’s unfamiliar with the water.
In 2019, O’Dea attended UNC Wilmington and began his career as an All-CAA performer, finishing second on the 3-meter springboard and being the highest scoring freshman diver at the CAA Championship.
But it didn’t stop there. O’Dea also dove for South Dakota, the men’s swim and dive team that won the Summit League title in 2021 for USD, ending the longtime drought for every team in the league had after Denver dominated for seven consecutive years.
As a former college athlete, O’Dea brings another perspective to the table — one that may be what CSU diving needs to rebuild.
Before O’Dea took over the program, Chris Bergere led the team from 2019 until 2024. During his first year, Bergere led CSU diver Skyler Williams to write her name in the CSU dive record book, along with qualifying for the NCAA Zones on all three boards, and coached Rachel Holland, who also qualified for Zones. He also led Lindsay Gizzi to a school record.
This season, there are three returners: senior Maggie Di Scipio, who has been a leader for the team and the most experienced diver, and two returning sophomores, Riley Lee and Makenna Post. O’Dea is now tasked with coaching three first-years, all looking to add energy to the team.
“Obviously, (I’m) working with athletes that I didn’t necessarily recruit,” O’Dea said. “But I’m ecstatic to work with them and just continuing to build the foundation that’s here and working toward attracting higher-level athletes into the program.”
The struggle this season is catching back up to other teams’ roster numbers and trying to reach the top qualifying positions in each event again. In the last two seasons, the dive program hasn’t left a big mark on the conference, straggling behind on points and causing CSU to fall behind in rankings.
“You’re looking for more consistency than anything,” O’Dea said. “If you can’t do those harder dives consistently, it’s usually the more consistent athletes who are going to earn the most points. (I’m trying to) see who’s in that position to consistently be the most competitive.”
The dive team is looking to prove itself this year, and that carries weight for a coach who was hired to help the group perform at their highest level.
“(We’re) taking a structured approach and making sure that the numbers are (the) intention,” O’Dea added as a part of the long-term plan.
Water sports are foundational, and diving can be a whole lot more complicated. A springboard or platform combined with jumping and twirling the body at incredible speeds can be daunting, especially when learning a new skill.
To combat that, O’Dea is taking a step away from the water and bringing his divers back to the land to start the year off with more foundational pool work, which will help tighten up their basics and make sure the mechanics are good before adding in the technique of certain dives.
“At the start of the season, I like to focus a little bit more on dry-land (training),” O’Dea said. “(We’ll be) splitting up the time between dry land and water, (along) with (working on) a strategy about how we progress throughout the season.”
Not only does O’Dea plan to face these challenges head-on, but he already has a strategy in place that he thinks will set these divers apart and prepare them for the season.
“I’ll do my best to make sure everyone stays healthy and can make it through the season and just work towards being competitive from all six athletes we have,” O’Dea said.
Nothing about a season is easy, especially when you have a new coach and divers ready to prove they are ready to show their competitiveness. Each practice, every dive, every completed meet will start to build a future for CSU diving, with O’Dea tasked to lead the Rams to those goals.
Reach Abigail Wood at sports@collegian.com or on X at @Abigaiil_Wood.
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