From practice squad to prime time: Andrei Iosivas ’23 earns his stripes in the NFL

After Andrei Iosivas ’23 completed his first season at Princeton, he met with football head coach Bob Surace ’90.

Iosivas had only featured in practice and J.V. games that season. Despite not taking snaps for the Tigers’ first team, Surace delivered promising news to the Honolulu native.

He told the wide receiver he had NFL potential.

“That was really eye-opening to me,” Iosivas told the Daily Princetonian. “And that really showed me how they felt about me, and how the program felt about me.”

The talent Surace noticed was recognized long before Iosivas got to Princeton. Iosivas was a dual-sport athlete who competed in varsity football and track at the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. Born in Japan to Romanian and Filipino parents, Iosivas moved to the Aloha State after his dad received a job offer during his childhood.

With the guidance of his uncle Tom Hintnaus, the school’s pole vault coach and a former Olympian, he made the varsity track team his first year of high school. His ties to New Jersey started early, as his sprints coach and mentor Gary Satterwhite was an all-state sprinter at Rahway High School, just 45 minutes up Route 1 from Princeton.

“Andrei always had natural ability and he learned through many talks and hard work that the only way to be great at anything was to put in the work,” Satterwhite wrote to the ‘Prince.’

At a practice during his sophomore year of high school, Iosivas was scared to race a stronger teammate because he did not want to lose. That day, Satterwhite had a conversation with the teenager that stuck with him forever.

If you think someone is better than you then you have already lost before you get to the starting line,” Satterwhite said. “That conversation stuck with him throughout his career and it showed up during his junior year when he had no fear and he attacked everything thrown at him. To this day we still talk about that conversation.”

Iosivas’s journey was far from easy. Coming out of high school, the 2018 Punahou School grad was a zero-star recruit. His most attractive asset to college coaches was his GPA. Following camps with Princeton, Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, Iosivas received offers from the Tigers and the Big Green.

While Iosivas hoped to stay in the sun at Stanford, he left “The Big Island” to continue his journey in the much colder Northeast with the Princeton Tigers.

“When he mentioned Princeton I told him that was a great school for him and a great environment to be in,” Satterwhite noted.

“I did tell him when you get to Jersey, you have to go to a diner and get a pork roll sandwich, that is the Jersey version of Hawaii’s favorite salty meat…. spam!”

Jack of all trades 

At Princeton, Iosivas continued the lifestyle of a dual-sport varsity athlete at the collegiate level, playing football in the fall and competing in track in the spring.

His impact on the track team was felt immediately. During his first year, he won the Heptathlon at the Ivy League Championships. The following season, he defended his title and was named the “Most Outstanding Field Performer” after the meet.

“There is little that Andrei does that would surprise me, especially after he won the Ivy League Championship in the Heptathlon his [first] year with about one month of training in most events,” Surace added. “The adjustment to the NFL can be hard for most rookies, but Andrei is a very cerebral player, and that helped him adapt to professional football early.”

Iosivas had a breakout year in both sports during his junior year. In the fall, Iosivas led the football team with five touchdown catches alongside 41 receptions and over 700 receiving yards. A record-breaking year in the spring saw Iosivas win the heptathlon at the indoor Heps for the third time and finish fourth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in the heptathlon with 6069 points, which broke the Ivy record. Furthermore, his 6.71 in the 60 set a NCAA indoor meet record.

“Track is what put me on the map lowkey,” Iosivas said. He ran the fastest-ever 60-meter time of any heptathlete ever at the NCAA championships.

In football, Iosivas continued to impress. During his senior season, he led the Ivy League with 66 receptions, 943 receiving yards, and seven touchdown catches, earning himself national recognition and several accolades.

“Andrei’s Princeton teammates and coaches both respected and loved him,” Surace told the ‘Prince.’

One of the teammates who saw Iosivas’s journey firsthand was Dylan Classi ’23. Classi was a fellow wide receiver who started at Princeton in 2018 alongside Iosivas. Taking a gap year in 2020 to maintain his athletic eligibility, he graduated with Iosivas in 2023.

“He’s one of my best friends,” Classi told the ‘Prince.’ “He’s extremely humble. By the time he had left, he had solidified himself as one of the top receivers to ever play at Princeton.”

Like Surace, Classi pointed out Iosivas’s work ethic as a factor behind his success.

“He came in everyday and worked hard to ensure that he’s in the position he is today. Everything he has right now, he’s worked for. He’s been the same person through it all.”

Iosivas started to garner professional attention after the end of his senior season. Forgoing his senior year with the track team, Iosivas competed in the senior bowl and participated in the NFL Draft combine.

“His desire to want to be great was second to none and that’s something that certainly rubbed off on me,” Classi added.

Iosivas went on to be selected in the sixth round of the draft by the Bengals, becoming the first Princeton receiver to ever be drafted in the NFL.

“One of the best memories I shared with him would be the day he got drafted,” Classi recalled. “It was amazing just to see one of my best friends dreams come true in person. It truly was a grea

Four years later, Iosivas caught his second touchdown pass for the Cincinnati Bengals under the setting West Coast sun in front of 71,655 fans at Levi’s Stadium playing against the future NFC