'American Ninja' star Kacy Catanzaro of N.J.: 'I didn't realize how many other people would care'

Kacy Catanzaro grew up watching "American Ninja Warrior" with her dad on the TV in their Belleville, N.J. home.

"I would watch it and say, 'I think I can do this,' and my dad would say, 'definitely, you can,'" Catanzaro, 24, says.

On Monday night, Catanzaro proved she could by becoming the first woman in "American Ninja Warrior" history to qualify for the show's finals in Las Vegas. There she will face a four-stage course modeled after Mt. Midoriyama in Japan.

The video of Catanzaro's performance went viral with more than four million views and the hashtag "#mightykacy" was trending on Twitter. Catanzaro says the reaction to her performance was completely unexpected but "really amazing."

"I knew it was a huge accomplishment and a huge deal for me," Catanzaro says, "but I didn't realize how many other people in the world would care."

Her performance has been particularly inspirational to woman and young girls. Although women have competed in the finals of "American Ninja Warrior" before as wildcard selections, Catanzaro is the first woman to earn her spot.



At 5-feet-tall and weighing only 100 pounds, Catanzaro says her size is both an advantage and a disadvantage. While her height prevents her from reaching many of the obstacles, she has less body weight to lug around than her male competitors, she says.

Catanzaro felt nervous before the start of her performance but says that once she received the signal to start, she felt a "huge wave of relief" and just focused on the course. She attributes her cool demeanor to her many years competing in gymnastics, which she says prepared her both mentally and physically for the show.

Although Catanzaro has been taking gymnastics classes since she was five, her mother says she never had significantly more talent than her peers. Instead, what sets Catanzaro apart is her "dogged determination," Kathryn Catanzaro says.

"When she sets her mind to something she does it," she says. "She doesn't know the words 'give up' or 'can't.'"

That determination was evident as early as pre-school when Catanzaro made it all the way across the monkey bars at a local playground.

"I was sitting there watching with some other parents," Kathryn Catanzaro recalls, "and one of the parents turned to me and said, 'Does she go to gymnastics? She should.'"

Kathryn Catanzaro enrolled her daughter in gymnastics shortly after. She trained at Gymnastics World Inc. in Nutley until she was 11 or 12 and then moved onto Rettigs Gymnastics in Cedar Knolls.

Catanzaro received a scholarship to attend Towson University in Maryland where she was the NCAA Southeast Regional Gymnast of the Year and the ECAC Gymnast of the Year. She was also a member of Towson's 2009 and 2010 ECAC championship teams.

After college, Catanzaro wasn't quite ready to give up competing athletically and decided to try out for "American Ninja Warrior."

"I knew I needed a new challenge," Catanzaro says, "and I was just so drawn to this show."

Catanzaro currently works at Alpha Warrior, an obstacle course training gym in San Antonio, Texas where she tests out the facility's obstacle courses and trains other athletes. The position has also allowed her to train for "American Ninja Warrior" with her boyfriend Brent Steffenson, a past contestant on the show who also works at Alpha Warrior.

Catanzaro's parents, Kathryn and Andy weren't at the taping in Dallas, but they knew their daughter had completed the course before the show aired. Still, that didn't make watching the episode any less nerve-wracking, Kathryn Catanzaro says.

The couple hosted a viewing party for family and friends at the Park Tavern in East Rutherford on Monday night and Kathryn Catanzaro says her palms were sweating the whole time.

"We had no idea how difficult the feats were," she says. "People were just screaming and jumping up and down."

While watching the performance may have made her parents nervous, Catanzaro says she was confident she'd be able to complete the course and that she hopes her accomplishment will inspire other women.

"One of the main reasons I wanted to do this is because I knew I could do it and I knew other woman would think it couldn't be done," she says.