1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Kyle Hunt, Nebraska Wesleyan Swimming Coach: February, 11:25am

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Kyle Hunt, Nebraska Wesleyan Swimming CoachAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Back to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. Welcome back. D.P. Bach, and we are joined in studio. He's had quite the year, but he had quite the weekend. And it has to be said, congratulations to coach Kyle Hunt. and the people swimming and diving, coach, well done. What's up, man?

That was nuts. It was nuts. Well done, man. This is, we try to tell people that it should be the responsibility of the people who have microphones to tell the stories that indicate to the people the good things that are happening. If it just becomes the negative things, because we can show up when something weird happens. But watching you through the process. in the dark, in the shadows, lead young people to do the best for themselves and each other, is pretty impressive.

Winning this conference title and doing it the way you did it, tell the folks about your weekend. This is pretty spectacular. It's been on our goal sheet that we create at the beginning of the year. You know, we sat down as a team and said, let's discuss our game plan for the season. And, you know, it was let's get good grades and let's be there for each other and, you know, support and whatnot. And finally, Mattia goes, how about we win conference? And it was like, yep.

So we had been getting close the last couple years, especially on the women's side. Now the men won it in 2024. And that same year, I think the women lost by like 600 points. And then 2025, we lost by about 180. And this year we kind of felt like, let's make a run. Now, in our conference, and in most conferences, diving counts on the swimming score, championship, you know, meat, things like that. We don't have a diving program. Facilities and money, right?

Our shallow end slope is too long. So, and we start to meet every year down 80 points, diving. So we got to win every single swimming event, right? Now, last year of the 16 events, two of which are diving, we won on the women's side, won 12, and still lost by 180 points. And this year, the coaches and the team realized we have some really good depth, have some underclassmen that joined the program, and we swam lights out. The women had pretty much the meat in hand since the beginning of it, which was Wednesday night.

And the men had a little bit more of an uphill battle. In fact, it came down to the last relay Saturday night. We were down by three points. First place is 32 points. Second place is 26. So we had to win the relay. Now, let's set the kind of story in the mood. The event before the final relay is the 200 butterfly.

And one of our guys was having the meat of his life. It was unbelievable. It was going crazy fast. And right before the start of his race, a little bit of a movement, got disqualified. Now, we all rallied around him. He was cool about it. He's like, sorry, man.

I was like, it's all good. Gotcha. You know, we're ready to go. But after that 200 butterfly is the finals for women's three meter diving. So it's about a 45-minute wait before our final event. And everybody knows we got to go. win that sucker at Luther's home pool in front of their home crowd all their meat workers and all right guys pulled it off and won by three tenths of a second celebrate so both men

and women got got the dub and celebrated the whole way home well it's a great video it's a great video of the team celebrating describe to folks the the the relay team and then the rest of the team and then the coaches? Well, they were hugging me so hard and patting me on the back that I have a couple bruises from the celebration. And he just kind of, it washes over you, watching your athletes just, you know, see all their hard work pay off. It's 116 days, competitions and practices.

We started September 18th. It's long. And every coach thinks their team deserves. it, right? But the way that they kind of treat each other and care for the ups and downs, because not everybody had a great meet. And some had really good first two days and not good second days and it flipped back and forth. And I had a little post where it's just like, you know, the pain of it, the details, the joy, the thanks. It all just culminates. And it actually kind of didn't hit me until we were riding home on our bus. It was about one in the morning. I was like,

I got to get some sleep. But you just watch all these amazing adults just celebrate their success. It was pretty special. In fact, it's so special that I made a deal with the team that if they both win, I'm going to get a little inspirational tattoo March 26 to commemorate. I'm going to get a P. Wolfhead. And then we have a motto on our team. It's mission first team always. that's going to go somewhere on my arm and it's cool because one of my former swimmers she has her own studio up in omaha so she's going to tap me up well earn well earn my first one i'm freaking out yeah i bet you are coach call it razzle wesley and universities uh swim coach and they uh just off the conference a championship when you've been talking about

this team and and the mission that that the work's been done. And I think we miss that sometimes, that when people say trust the process, the process is the work. That's the way. And to be able to deliver that message consistent, constantly with the same passion at the middle of the season

as you do at the beginning of the season, as you do the end of the season, for you, who's the coach that fed that into you? Oh, yeah, great. question. So Greg Fleming was my high school coach. And the interesting part about a high school experience was I was a football swimmer baseball player. And swimming was by far my least, you know, accomplished sport. And in high school, it's great because all the freshmen are swimming on varsity with the seniors. And coach Fleming was really patient with everybody, how to treat everybody the

same. In fact, I remember a guy on the team named Chris Churchill, incredible breastroker, very talented went to Kenyon University and won a couple of national titles, like six to five. And I was this little four foot 10, you know, chubby freshman. And he really did treat us all kind of the same regardless of ability. And then when I started coaching high school, early 2000s, Ed Muller, who was the head coach at Northeast, brought incredible energy to that sport. It's a very difficult sport. I mean, we're talking three-tenths of a second of celebrating a win or not. People can't, you can't say your full name in three-thens of a second.

So when you drop time or add time, depending on how, you know, plus ad or a little bit, you're celebrating that. And he kind of really showed that, you know, it's, you can still enjoy the process because the results don't give back very much in that sport. Pat Rowan, good friend of mine at the University of Nebraska, he's the assistant. He's my age, and he would just kick everybody's butt in high school. And he's just kind of inspiring. And I didn't really get to know him until he coached with me in about 1998. So you get all this info. This is my 32nd year on a pool day. So I started coaching when I was a junior in high school.

And you just get all of that data and all of that, you know. And it's really how I kind of look at my team, as everybody brings something to it and the pot is messy and, you know, there's ingredients that sometimes don't work. And that's why you just trust it. And so hopefully they learn as they go, because coaches do learn as well. When you go to an event that's four days and you're trying to bring home some hardware, they know that if they made made it through the valleys and the peaks in season, they can do it at to me so that's kind of the mission um and we always just say at the end of our kind of team meetings

like let's be there for each other showed up and so we had like i said in the beginning you know luke adieked could have been catastrophic but he was cool about it and team rallied and we we got the dub there's always uh friction oh yeah and your ability to handle friction uh we talk about it on the station all the time that your ability to handle friction dictate results more than anything else. But winning define. I'll ask you, when your, when your swimmers talk about winning, the topic comes up, what defines winning to you? Well, there's not many people that like winning and swimming fast more than me. But we have kind of a, you know, kind of a two-sided, you know, approach. It's we want to be highly motivated and high achieving.

but it's got to be that way in the classroom. It's got to be that way in the pool, obviously. And then they have to be that way as people. So that's winning because if, you know, your freshman superstar, whoever it is, is getting a bunch of gold medals, you got a senior that's going on to graduate school down in Kentucky or, you know, up in Creighton, their professional life is starting now. They're done. Their goggles are hung up.

And that time in between is quick. So we just celebrate as many of those victories as you can, whether it's real life, whether it's swimming, whether it's, you know, making it through a major shoulder surgery, too, which we had two athletes get labrum done. One was in March, one was in June, and they still competed this year. It's wild.

Yeah, it, listen, through all of it. You and I, full disclosure, you and I have been projecting because I think we miss the message that good coaches only exist up the street. And I say it all the time, the good people make good coaches, good coaches make good people. That's when you know the thing works. And I aspire to drive Nebraska Wesleyan athletics to the highest level of, you know, of exposure it's ever had. We're going to work to make that happen. For several things this day, I'm reping.

I'm wrapping today, baby. I got you. I got you. Thank you for inviting me into your space. And trust me, trusting me with your young people, especially at the timing of it, because the wrong thing added to the soup could ruin the soup.

And I didn't want to be the guy that comes in to says the wrong thing. But I'll say to three, things to you now that I said that day, and I mean them authentically. Thank you. For what you do for them, what you do for Lincoln, what you do for the university, but for the lives that you impact and the way you impact and thank you. Love you for how you do it. It matters to you. Yeah. This thing matters in coaching. Listen, man, I can identify a good coach. If it matters, if it matters, Love shows up. That's just the way you do it.

And then after this weekend, but in spite of this weekend. Well, done. Well done, Coach Kyle. It was well done, brother. Amazing weekend. Yeah, that afternoon you came to our, and talked to our team, multiple moments after that, my athletes brought up your, your phrases. And it's, you know, intertwined in our fabric.

So love first, love last in the middle. in between love more man hey man congratulations champ thank you very much the champ is here we'll go to break uh when we come back by the way you're gonna i'm gonna get him to commit on air uh we're gonna do more of it yeah absolutely i'm down yeah the stories need to be told uh we'll come back we'll close it out set it up for the big item character storms his way into the building here at 12 noon on the ticket watch live on facebook youtube or twitch you're listening to one-on-one with dp

on 937 the ticket and the ticketfm.com.