By Nate Steis, Staff Writer

Nathan Wagner has had a successful three years as a member of the Penn State Behrend men’s swimming and diving team. Wagner has competed in seven different events over his career, and he has found great success in every one of them. When he is not busy in the pool, he continues to work hard to become a successful Mechanical Engineer. It is easy to see that Nathan Wagner is an extremely dedicated, hard working, and talented member of the Behrend athletics community. However, Wagner’s journey to success has not always come easy.

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Nathan Wagner is from Ypsilanti, Michigan, and had dreams to swim at the college level in his home state. However, he was discovered on a recruiting website by Behrend Swim Coach Jen Wallace. She immediately knew the sprint swimmer from Lincoln High could be an asset to her program, but Wagner would take time to explore all of his options. In his senior season in high school, he made the four hour drive to tour Behrend. It was his first ever recruiting visit, and he was blown away by what Behrend had to offer. “Visiting Behrend set the standard of what a recruiting visit should be like. Every school I visited after Behrend did not have as much of a welcoming and open feel like Behrend did,” he commented. While Wagner hoped to stay in state, he could not pass up the opportunity to be a college swimmer while also obtaining a prestigious engineering degree from Penn State.

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Wagner has had a tremendous career thus far at Behrend, and he still has quite a bit left to help wrap up his collegiate swimming career. In his two plus years swimming for the Lions, he has competed in seven different events including the 100 and 200 meter butterflies, 200 and 400 individual medleys, and the 200 and 400 meter freestyle relays. He has also swam at the AMCC Champinship in each of his first two seasons, won Behrend’s Most Improved Swimmer Award as a freshman, and has won two varsity letters. In addition, he was on the AMCC Championship 200 meter freestyle relay team. Wagner has had quite the start to his collegiate swimming career, and he surely will pad his college swimming resume as he continues his career over the next year and a half. He has not done it alone, though, as he has had many great role models in his lifetime.

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He mentioned one of these role models is Behrend Swim Coach Jen Wallace. “Coach Jen helps raise the bar for me. She pushes me to goals that I never thought I could reach. She is awesome at motivating me.” Another key role model in his life is Behrend Swimming Sprint Coach Joe Tristan. “He used to be really difficult on me, but I finally realized it was because he knew how to push me to my highest potential,” he said of Tristan. A role model that encourages Wagner to do his best in the classroom is Mr. Dean Lewis, an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Behrend. Wagner stated of Lewis “Mr. Lewis is really flexible and always finds a way to help me with everything I need. He’s helped me schedule, he’s made time for me to come visit him, and he is someone I know I can turn to with any issue that I may have.” Lastly, Wagner likes to credit his dad as someone he admires and strives to be more like. “He always is calm and collected. He gives me great moral support, and he never wanted me to rule out coming to school here. He is the most unselfish person I know.” While Wagner continues to have four key role models in his life, he has a lot of outstanding teammates and memories from swimming that will last a lifetime.

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Wagner has had roughly forty different teammates over his three years at Behrend, and he is thankful for each one of them helping him transition into college. Many of Wagner’s teammates have been and are engineers. They have helped him to manage his time, show him what classes to take and assisted him with homework when needed. One of his fondest memories as a Behrend swimmer was going to Arizona his freshman season to train at an olympic regulation sized pool. “It was really nice to go to a new place and just focus on swimming solely for a week straight,” Wagner said. His favorite memory of all as a swimmer was actually something that came out of the pool. He was able to meet his idol, Peter Vanderkaay, as Vanderkaay came to a fundraiser event at Wagner’s high school. Vanderkaay is a former Olympian, and he also swam at the University of Michigan. Wagner was blown away at his humbleness. “He was an ordinary guy. He treated me as an equal and he helped talk me through some things that would help me be a better swimmer. I also like that he has a degree in biology because this shows that he took his studies as serious as he took swimming while at Michigan.” Wagner has had some outstanding memories as a swimmer, but he also has had a great start to his professional career as well.

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Wagner has already had two internships in the field of Mechanical Engineering, and he is hopeful to receive a third internship opportunity this summer in the automotive industry. He has worked for Snider Contracting as well as Yazaki North and Central America. Wagner plans on returning home to Michigan upon graduation, and he plans on finding an engineering job in the automotive industry.

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To say that Nathan Wagner has had success in his three years at Behrend is an understatement. Wagner would like to thank his family and his friends for encouraging him to follow both of his passions and to attend Penn State Behrend. He would also like to thank all of his coaches and all of his teammates throughout the many years that have pushed him to become the best swimmer possible. Wagner still has a year and a half of swimming left, and he surely will continue to improve as a swimmer over this time. In addition, he will be graduating with a degree in engineering from Penn State. Wagner surely will continue to success as he continues his career here at Penn State Behrend and beyond.