Mackenzie Caquatto: Looking for great ending of a great career
Thursday, March 6, 2014 | Gymnastics
By Rachel Whetstone – UF Communications
She's an All-American and a national champion. She scored a perfect 10 last year on the uneven bars, and her name will be immortalized on the wall of the Gators' gymnastics facility forever. Mackenzie, “Macko,” Caquatto is also a U.S. World Championship silver-medalist and a member of the Southeastern Conference Academic Honor Roll. She's an elementary and special education major, and she spends her days working in a fourth-grade classroom.
Hundreds of 8-to 12-year-olds scream when they hear the name of the senior from Naperville, Ill., announced in the Stephen C. O'Connell Center. They watch in awe as she flies through the air on the uneven bars and cheer when she sticks her landings after her near-perfect balance beam routines.
However, not everyone is a fan.
One day, a little boy in her class informed her that he had come to the gymnastics meet that past weekend, but he made it clear that it was only because his sister wanted to go.
“So I asked him, 'Did you have fun?'” Caquatto said, laughing. “He said, 'No!,'”
She's not too worried about it. She thinks he'll come around. It helps that she has supporters in her class too.
“Right before the Link-to-Pink meet, a little girl came running up to me with her planner,” Caquatto said. “She said, 'Look I'm coming to your meet on Friday!' She was so excited.”
It's hard for Caquatto to think about her collegiate career coming to an end.
“This season has flown by incredibly fast,” she said. “Every year, it gets faster and faster.”
Her last meet at home, Senior Night is going to be hard. She's sure there will be tears, but she said it has been a fantastic season so far with an amazingly talented group of gymnasts that she feels blessed to be teammates with.
“Even though it is Senior Night, our season isn't over yet, and there's more goals to accomplish after that,” she said. “There are goals that we are going to reach, and that will really cap off the end of my year.”
Caquatto said her mother's entire family from New York will be in the stands on Senior Night. She hopes that the evening is fun for them, and she's grateful that they're coming.
“That's really special,” she said. “A lot of them haven't gotten the chance to see me compete in college before.”
It also means the world to her that her sister, Bridgette, is on the team.
“I'll be able to share that special night with her,” she said.
Caquatto hopes to perform in the all-around for her last home meet so she can do her floor exercise with the Gator Chomp one last time with the O'Dome crowd. When deciding where to put the chomp in her routine, she wanted it to be very dramatic and noticeable.
“For my senior year, I wanted to put it somewhere where everyone knew,” she said. “I remember competing in the second meet at home, and everyone in the stands got it, and I think you could hear a pin drop.
“I'm standing in the corner just thinking, 'Wow, that was awesome!” Caquatto said. “Then I'm like, 'Oh shoot, I gotta tumble! Focus now. Stop thinking about how great that Gator Chomp was!'”
Afterwards, Head Coach Rhonda Faehn hugged her and told her that it was the best Gator Chomp ever, Caquatto said.
Her favorite memory of the last four years was the 2013 NCAA Championship.
“I've competed a lot in my life, and I have to say that was probably the highlight of my gymnastics career,” she said. “Just experiencing it with the team and with the emotions we went through, it was just a really special moment to have.”
Caquatto said that winning the Southeastern Conference Championship in 2012 and 2013 is also an experience that will always stick with her because of the strength of gymnastics talent in the conference.
“There's a lot of hype around SECs so I love that as well,” she said.
She can also never forget competing at home in Gainesville.
“The fans, the crowd, just being a part of Gator Nation has just been incredible,” Caquatto said. “There's nothing like it.”
Outside of the gym, her most cherished memories will be of the friendships she's made.
“This team is just very special, and they do little, goofy things on the road that I'll always remember,” she said.
She loves going to football games and baseball games and will miss her student tickets. She will also miss her favorite spots for sweets in Gainesville,
“I'm a dessert girl,” she said.
Although she will no longer be competing after this season, Caquatto will not be leaving Gainesville for another two years. She graduates this summer with her bachelor's degree and will receive her master's in December of 2015. She also plans to stay here until Bridgette graduates.
“I will definitely be cheering on the team whether it's from the stands or on the floor,” she said.
She said she hopes to be involved with the team in some regard, possibly as a student coach, if her schedule permits. Evident by the way she consistently cheers on and encourages her teammates, leadership is a quality Caquatto possesses and takes seriously.
“Growing up, I liked having that role in the gym. I was always the oldest one of my group,” she said. “Here as and as a senior, I feel like it's important to be encouraging and to tell the girls, 'We believe in this, you can do this.'”
Caquatto has been doing gymnastics since she was 2, and she is sad for her college career to come to an end. However, she's had another dream growing up as well. She's always wanted to be a teacher.
“I found something else that I love that's challenging, and that's exciting for me,” she said. “It'll be a nice transition for me because I know where I'm going and what I want to do.”
