The Drury athletic program has been competing at the NCAA-II level since the 1994-95 season, a total of 17 years. In those 17 years the Panther swimming/diving team has never finished lower than third place in the nation. They have been national runnerup five times and have claimed nine NCAA-II national championships, including each of the last seven. While Panther head coach Brian Reynolds annually assembles a swimming team that could possibly claim the national title on its own, the secret weapon in all this success over the years has been the Drury diving team, led by three-time NCAA-II National Diving-Coach-of-the-Year, Richard Hackett. Now in his 20th year at the helm of the Panther diving program, none of his divers have been better than Nathan Brisley.
Nate Brisley, a native of Excelsior, Minnesota, transferred to Drury after one year at St. Cloud (Minn.) State University. Prior to his four-year college career, Nate was the state of Minnesota’s diving champion and he led his high school team to a pair of state championships. It is worth noting that in college diving a diver can earn All-America honors eight times, two titles a year...in the one and three meter diving events. Nate earned eight NCAA-II All-America honors...eight. As mentioned, no Drury diver has ever been any better. Eight is the maximum and Nate reached that pinnacle of success.
His freshman year at St. Cloud State Nate finished fourth (one-meter diving) and sixth (three-meter diving). His sophomore season, his first at Drury, he was third in the one-meter event and second in the three-meter event while Drury finished third in the nation. His junior year he helped Drury win the team championship by taking second in the nation in one-meter diving and third in three-meter diving. His final year at Drury he was the nation’s top three-meter diver, claiming his first national title in helping his Drury team to a second place finsh in the nation. He was leading in the one-meter event, too, but a failed dive took him from the top spot to fifth. This drives home the point that, in diving, the slightest error can be devastating. But this also highlights Nate’s consistent ability to perform at the highest level on the “big stage”...the NCAA-II national championships...dive after dive.
In his three years at Drury Nate earned All-America honors six times and an individual national title. He was named Drury’s Most Valuable Diver in each of his three years as a Panther (2002, 2003, 2004). An outstanding student in addition to his success in the pool, Nate graduated from Drury as a business administration major on May 16, 2004. Upon his graduation from Drury Nate immediately pursued opportunities to give back to the sport which gave him so much throughout his life.
Just shortly after his graduation from Drury, Nate assumed the reins of the diving program at the university where his college career began, St. Cloud State. He was the Huskies’ head diving coach through the 2007-08 campaign and at the conclusion of that year he was named the NCAA-II Men’s National Diving Coach of the Year. Nate was a three-time recipient of the North Central Conference Diving Coach of the Year award. In all, Nate coached 33 All-America divers, including two NCAA-II national champions, and 40 all-conference divers over his four year coaching career at St. Cloud State.
In 2008-09 Nate accepted the position of head men’s and women’s diving coach at Ithaca College, located in Ithaca, New York, and his program has improved every year. In his first year at Ithaca, a NCAA-III member institution, Nate developed five all-state divers. In 2009-10, Bomber divers earned eight-more all-state honors (five on the women’s side and three on the men’s) and last year Nate produced 16 more all state divers (10 women and six men).
In 1996 Mike Lewis (Class of 1982) was the first diver to be inducted into the Drury Sports Hall of Fame. Joe Kennedy (Class of 1986) was inducted in 2004 and Dean Lehmkuhler (Class of 2000) was a member of the Class of 2007. Today only the fourth diver in the storied history of the men’s swimming/diving program, a program which dates back to 1968-69, is so honored as Nathan Brisley is enshrined as a member of the Class of 2011 on this date: November 19, 2011.
