The University of Florida announced the addition of three Power Five transfers to its diving program on Friday.
Chloe Bishop, Peyton Donald and Conor Gesing will join the diving squad in Gainesville. Along with fellow newcomer Ana Camyla Monroy, the trio will be tasked with replacing redshirt senior Maha Amer, the Gators’ lone scoring diver at the 2023 NCAA Championships.
Bishop arrives at Florida after a one-year stint at Texas during the 2021-22 season. She wasn’t listed on the Longhorns’ roster last season, but she did place third on the platform at the 2021 USA Diving Junior National Championships prior to Texas.
Donald comes to the Gators from Stanford, where he recently qualified for the 2023 NCAA Championships in March and placed 40th on the 1-meter to cap off his freshman campaign. His brother, Skip Donald, is a senior diver at Florida who twice earned SEC Men’s Diver of the Week honors last season.
Gesing won a Pennsylvania high school state title on the 1-meter last February, a few months after signing a National Letter of Intent with Texas, but the recent USA Diving High Performance Squad selection didn’t compete for the Longhorns last season. Gesing was a three-time finalist at the 2021 USA Diving Zone A Championships as well as a 3-meter finalist at the 2021 USA Diving Junior National Championships.
The Gators’ diving team is led by coach Bryan Gillooly, who just completed his seventh season in Gainesville. In February, Florida swept both the men’s and women’s SEC titles for the first time since 1993.
UF diving is on the up in a big way, and it’s only a matter of time before they start getting major recruits and more transfers. When you develop half your team into NCAA qualifiers in the hardest diving zone in the country, you’re doing something right.
How can Gesing be considered a transfer if he was never on the Texas roster in the first place?
Once you sign your NLI you’re a transfer.