04/05/2026

Florida Gulf Coast University junior diver Alexandra Andueza is currently rewriting the FGCU Athletics history books. In early March, Andueza became the first diver in program history to compete in an NCAA Zone platform dive final, placing 18th in the platform competition with a score of 417.05 in Athens, Georgia.

While her name now sits at the top of the record books, the path to that historic scoreboard began thousands of miles away in Venezuela, fueled by a level of family sacrifice that goes far beyond the pool deck.

Andueza’s family fled their home country to escape a landscape of political uncertainty, gang violence, and hyper-inflation. In doing so, her parents left behind established lives; her mother was a college professor and her father an engineer. When they arrived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, they traded those prestigious careers for manual labor, working in hotels to fund Alexandra’s training.

“It means a lot because of the sacrifices we’ve done. I was proud of myself to represent FGCU and to be the first diver to be in finals,” Andueza said. “I’m so proud of me and my parents, they have always been there for me. It’s a lot of emotions at the same time.”

That emotional weight was carried through a grueling logistical grind. With no diving coaches in the Murfreesboro area, Alexandra and her mother made an 80-mile round-trip drive—roughly 40 minutes each way—to Tennessee State University every day so she could train under Coach Tim Jones. The “commuter hustle” produced immediate results: as a freshman at Blackman High School, Andueza won the 2019 Tennessee State Championship (396.40). She repeated in 2020 (419.75) and placed third in 2021 (368.45). But despite the gold medals, Tennessee lacked the platforms necessary for elite-level training, and the path to a college scholarship was not easily laid out.

“We moved to Florida because I wanted to find a scholarship and there were more opportunities and more schools in Florida,” Andueza explains. The search was a manual one, requiring her to be her own advocate. After a stop at Buchholz High School and two dominant years at Indian River State College—where she set an NJCAA National Record (302.03) and won two national titles—she took the initiative to reach out to FGCU herself.

“I reached out to FGCU and they told me they have platforms so I was kind of like oh that’s good,” she recalls. However, she quickly learned that the “commuter hustle” wasn’t over. Because FGCU lacks an on-campus 10-meter setup, she has had to adapt her competitive strategy to the resources available. “I practice a little more on 5 meters because 10 meters is a lot of training to get good dives you have to train like at least two times a week,” she says. “They told me they didn’t practice a lot of platforms but they do like training trips here… we don’t have that here yet. We have to travel a lot, so this year we practiced that [10-meter] five times in the year.”

Despite only having five true platform sessions this year, Andueza’s impact on the Atlantic Sun Conference was immediate. She racked up four ASUN Diver of the Week honors throughout the season, establishing herself as a force long before the postseason began. That momentum culminated at the ASUN Diving Championships in Orlando, where Andueza captured the individual title in Platform Diving with a score of 220.95—a victory that punched her ticket to the NCAA Zone B Championships.

Standing on the board at the NCAA Zone B Championships, Andueza relied on a “no-fear” attitude, “To be honest, when I was younger I was always told I’m like very brave,” she admits. “Sometimes I’m not brave to be honest. It’s not like ‘I’m just going to jump from this 10 meter platform’. I just really love what I’m doing and I love this sport.”

To manage that fear, she utilizes a strict mental routine: “I focus on technique and I visualize my dive first, then I just go. I try to not think too much because I can get in my own head. I just focus on that one thing.”

That focus allowed her to stay composed while making program history. “I never thought I was making history when I qualified for the finals,” she says. “I was just trying to be consistent because I don’t have a big list of hard dives yet. They were easy dives, but I didn’t want to miss any. I was just having fun that day.”

Beyond the scores, the most significant transformation in Andueza’s story is found in her own voice. The girl who once struggled with an accent and shyness in Tennessee has evolved into a Health Science major with her sights set on a dental hygiene career. When asked if she considers herself Venezuelan, a Tennessean, a Gainesvillian, or an FGCU leader, her answer is an embrace of every mile traveled.

“I consider myself like all of the above,” Andueza says. “I was born in Venezuela so I started diving there, and the coaches and the people there helped me to be better. Then, because of the situation in my country, we had to travel here and find like opportunities and I found them… I’m just grateful for what I am right now.”

When asked what her 2019 self would think of the woman standing here today, the answer was immediate. “I think my confidence,” Andueza says. “I was a very, very shy girl. I struggled with my accent and my English when I was younger. I never thought I would ever be as confident as I am now when I’m talking. I’m so proud about that because in high school I was so shy. My personality—I improved it a lot.”

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