Millikin University has added yet another addition to their athletic coaching staff. Just last year, the men’s and women’s Big Blue swim team took on a brand new head coach, but now they welcome a new assistant coach, Nick Wyllie.

Wyllie grew up in Southfield, Michigan, which, for those who don’t know much about the state of Michigan, is about 20 minutes north of Detroit. While Michigan had been his home for most of his life, Wyllie did venture away from Michigan. He attended East Carolina University for a year but wound up graduating from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a minor in Health Promotion.

Wyllie is a certified CrossFit L-1 Trainer and an Action Certified Personal Trainer. He served as a trainer and coach at CrossFit Stronghold in San Diego, California prior to coming to Millikin, where he privately coached a client to become the #24 ranked powerlifter in the country for his age and weight class.

Wyllie also worked as a volunteer assistant swim coach at San Diego State University and served as a head coach at San Diego High School. He led his team to a second-place finish second at the 2017 Mountain West Conference Championships. This team of his had accomplished one school record and a total of 27 top ten performances in their school’s history.

At San Diego High School, Wyllie led his girl’s team to back-to-back league titles and a top ten finish at the CIF Championships in a decade.

“Over the two seasons, the team set 19 team records and scored more points at their championship meet in 2017 than they had in the last 10 years combined,” Millikin University Athletics said.

Swimming has been a part of Wyllie’s life for a long period of time. He started swimming at about 3 years old.

“I was born in water,” Wyllie said.

He started off as a sprinter, but as he got older, he became a distance freestyler. Wyllie completed collegiately for one season at East Carolina University recording the seventh fastest mile time in school history at the time. At Birmingham Seaholm High School, Wyllie was a multiple time winner of All-State and All-American honors and was the captain of the 2011 MHSAA State Champions.

Coming to Millikin exceeded Wyllie’s expectations, and after experiencing the Millikin environment, he knows he is in the right place. He feels that as a coach, he will be able to bring his background of different areas to the table. He will take what he knows and bring his perspective to this university.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got,” is a quote attributed to Anthony Robbins that Wyllie lives by. What this quote means is that if you continue to do exactly what you are already doing, you shouldn’t be surprised when there is no change in your results. In order to get higher in ranks you have to continuously work. You cannot just go at a steady pace and expect good things to come your way. You have to work harder than you did the day before.

As Wyllie looks to start his first season with the Big Blue women’s and men’s swim teams, he has high hopes. He hopes to help the team climb to the top of the conference in the next few years. Coming in, Wyllie said that he felt and saw how the swimming program was on the come up and he wanted to be apart of their success; to help contribute to it.

“I want to unite as a hungry team and succeed as much as possible,” Wyllie said.