Q & A with David Nolan, Swammer and Businessman

By Katie Wingert, Swimming World College Intern.

When swimming ends, life goes on—even for the greatest of competitors. For David Nolan, the current American record holder and only man ever under 1:40 for the short-course 200 IM, the transition from the swimming world to the business world has been a matter of transferring the focus and work ethic that he cultivated as an elite swimmer to his career in the business side of technology.

Nolan finished the final credits of his degree at Stanford this year after wrapping up his NCAA career in 2015 and training intensely in Arizona under Bob Bowman for Rio in 2016. At Olympic Trials, Nolan ultimately finished in a bittersweet third in his trademark event, the 200 IM. Although he narrowly missed a bid for Rio, the race marked a solid long-course IM under two minutes. What’s more, the numbers on the scoring board failed to tell the whole story. The names did. Ahead of the name David Nolan were that of two Olympians– Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.

After a semi-final race in 100 butterfly, mere minutes after the IM, Nolan’s swimming career came to a close. That career has been richly decorated with accolades. During his campaign at Hershey High School, he swept title after title at Pennsylvania State Championships and led his team to three state trophies. His high school achievements, including his national record swims, made him arguably the most coveted high school recruit in the country in 2011.

As a member of the Cardinal, Nolan was named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and Swimmer of the Meet in 2012. He garnered a total of three NCAA titles and a whopping sixteen All-American honors during his time at Stanford. The most noteworthy of those titles came in 2015, when he scorched his competition with a 1:39.38 in the 200 IM. His NCAA and national mark remains untouched, over two years later.

On the heels of his Trials run and his final Stanford degree, Nolan is finding his way into new waters: the business world. After over a year as a strategic business partner for Commit Analytics and several months as an investment fellow for Highland Capital Group, he is currently working in San Francisco as a business developer for Uber Advanced Technologies Group.

The young businessman took time out of his work schedule to answer a few questions on what it’s like to take the plunge into the business world after a successful swimming career.

Photo Courtesy: David Farr

SW: How did you start swimming, and what drove you to competing at the national and international level?

David Nolan: I started swimming when I was seven years old when my parents decided to throw me and my older sister in a pool for swim lessons. They thought it could only help to learn how to swim. I really enjoyed racing even though I wasn’t good at that age, and I was very competitive, so I wanted to do everything possible to start winning, and that competitiveness eventually propelled me to the national/international level.

In more detail, I wanted to see how I could better myself in any way I could think of: I listened to coaches, looked up interviews/videos of better swimmers online, and applied everything I learned to my training/racing.

SW: What was the biggest lesson you learned from your training for Trials?

Nolan: My biggest takeaway from the training is that most things are in one’s own control. I was able to set a goal and I was responsible for every decision I made while reaching for that goal. Obviously there are unforeseeable setbacks here and there, but dealing with those is also a valuable skill that I realized I have control of.

SW: What was the greatest advice you received when you were training for Trials last year?

Nolan: Jack Roach, the greatest mentor in the sport, reminded me to not take swimming too seriously. While that advice can be interpreted many ways, I took it as a way to keep things in perspective, meaning don’t get ahead of yourself with how important any one thing you’re doing is. Life is full of amazing experiences and people, and if you can continue to remember and appreciate that, you’re doing great.

SW: How did you decide what you wanted to do after college, and how did you see both your academic field of study and your swimming career affecting those decisions?

Nolan: The process of deciding what I wanted to do post-swimming started when I started my professional swimming career in Arizona. It involved reading books, conducting thought experiments, and determining what my strengths were and how they overlapped with my interests.

I knew I wanted to be doing something innovative, and my engineering background compliments that interest, but my soft skills outweigh my computational skills, so I needed to consider that as well. My swimming career gives me confidence that I can figure out a way to approach any problem efficiently, wherever I end up.

SW: What has your life looked like after Trials, and what kind of a role does swimming now play in your daily life?

Nolan: The week after Trials, I started working for a late stage biomedical device startup, and I wanted to see if I could apply the same mindset I had in swimming to work. After that internship ended, I did the same in school, and once again in a different industry (venture capital) while finishing my degree.

Looking at work/school through the same mindset I had in swimming made it all pretty easy, since swimming is hands down what I know best. My swimming career was a deliberate process of setting goals, laying out what I need to do to reach those goals, and using my competitiveness and grit to achieve them. These skills easily transfer into all other domains.

The days look pretty similar to when I was swimming: wake up, workout, work hard during the day on whatever it is I’m doing, and relax in the evening. I’m swimming about one to two times per week right now, only when my buddies want to. Swimming is rarely my choice workout.

SW: What has been the hardest part of your transition into life after Trials?

Nolan: The hardest part is forcing myself to work out for more than 45 minutes. What I miss the most about swimming is the high level competing, but I’ve realized that high level competition is outside of the pool as well.

SW: Where do you channel your adrenaline, now that you are not racing on a regular basis?

Nolan: I like biking now, and I get a rush when I rip down a big hill at a high speed. Learning about advancements in technology and thinking about their applications gives me a rush as well. It’s not very traditional but it works for me.

SW: If you could give the young David Nolan any advice about swimming, career, or life, what would it be?

Nolan: I would tell my younger self to not beat yourself up as much. Things will work out, and, in the grand scheme of things, as long as you’re really enjoying what you’re doing and can logically defend that passion, you’re crushing it.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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