A native of Palo Alto, California, Pidto was a 1987 graduate of Cornell University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology.
At Cornell he began his broadcasting career as a sports anchor and reporter for WVBR, a radio station in Ithaca, New York.
Pidto spent the following two years as the Sports director at WBNG-TV, located in Binghamton, New York.
He broke in with ESPN as a field producer for the network's Scholastic Sports America, program for two years.
[1] When ESPN2 was launched in 1993, Pidto was hired to anchor the program SportsSmash, and hosted NHL 2Night when it debuted in 1995.