Natalie Killion was finished.
Done with the workouts. Done with the meets. Done with the practices.
After nearly a decade of giving her soul to swimming, the Lockport native was burnt out. Despite having the best time in the MAAC in two events through the first three meets of her college career at Niagara, Killion didn’t feel like she was in the proper mental space to compete.
And so three days after winning MAAC women’s swimmer of the week, Killion swam her final meet and stayed out of the pool for six months.
After a while, Killion realized there was a hole in her life that used to be filled by swimming. So she started coaching a club team and that gradually led her to dip her toes back into the water.
Killion initially entered the transfer portal. Then she talked to Niagara coach Eric Bugby and decided she didn’t want to leave the school.
The comeback was on.
Over 16 months after leaving the sport, Killion had a handful of records and even more championships. At the MAAC championships, Killion won five events, set three conference records, three conference meet records and five school records.
As Niagara won its third conference championship in four years, Killion was named the meet’s most outstanding swimmer.
“I wasn’t sure nine months ago if I would be in this spot,” Killion said. “So being able to know that I’ve made it this far is a good feeling. But then again, I put in a lot of work and Eric has helped so much. He’s written the practices, done the training, been supportive and it’s hard not to accomplish things when you are so dedicated as a team.”
Division I-bound Natalie Killion already taking down records in first season with Lockport
Bugby could have been angry when Killion called it quits. Killion was part of a freshman class he thought might be one of the best in MAAC history — five of them won conference championships this year — and her departure forced him to rework his plan for the year.
But Bugby also understood what Killion was experiencing. Most fitness experts view swimming as the best sport to build strength because it utilizes every muscle. And because of that, it’s one of the most mentally taxing.
In most team sports, the challenge is keeping athletes fresh and healthy for games because the season hinges on wins and losses. In swimming, results are secondary.
The early portion of a swimming season features intense and grueling practices, gradually tapering off as the season unfolds. And finally, if done correctly, it should produce a swimmer’s best results in the final meet.
Mental exhaustion creeps in when an athlete is demanded to provide their best every day in practice and the real results don’t show until the end. And then it starts all over again because the offseason is when the foundation is built to be molded during the season.
Three years into his career at the University of Pittsburgh, Bugby walked away for a while. He too was burnt out.
“A lot of times you’ll see people leave programs all across the country and you don’t end up with the same incoming freshman class,” said Bugby, who has won three MAAC Coach of the Year awards. “Whether it is burnout, injury, you’re not improving, academics take focus — there’s a lot that plays into it. So you do see that in training sports like this more than team sports.”
When Killion’s comeback started, she was initially sold that she wanted to do it again. And she didn’t really know how to return to college swimming.
She started doing master swimming to get back in shape. And she had a conversation with Bugby, but it was personal, not about swimming.
It only took Killion the first weekend of practice to realize she was ready to make a complete comeback. She started swimming with Bugby over the summer and resumed swimming with a club team again, working so hard that Bugby concedes Killion maybe practiced too much.
In her first race back with Niagara in October, Killion was actually faster in two events than she was the year before. Taking some time off rejuvenated her physically and mentally.
“I’m in better shape swimming-wise than I was last year,” Killion said. “So that could be a factor. But when we’re in the middle of the season, it’s not that we don’t care, but we don’t put as much emphasis on what those times are as we do at the end of the season. Just because your body is broken down that you can’t give a fair comparison.”
Killion knew she was capable of hitting fast times. But because of the taper, she didn’t know how good she would be at the MAAC championships.
Before the MAAC championships, Killion had broken 1:50 in the 200-yard freestyle once in a meet since high school, when she swam 1:48.58 for Lockport. Killion set a new conference record (1:48.2), which was four seconds faster than her time against Canisius in a dual meet less than a month earlier.
In the 200 backstroke, Killion had sporadically broken 2 minutes, but her conference-record time of 1:55.9 was nearly two seconds better (and 11 seconds better than the previous school record) than any time she posted in her life.
Killion broke Niagara’s 500 freestyle record in her first race as a freshman and then did it again in her first crack back on the team this season. She got the time as low as 4:52.86 at the Magnus Cup Invitational in November, but nothing near her time of 4:48.18 in the MACC final, which won the race by nearly five seconds.
Bugby knew Killion was on track for a special meet when she swam the 50-yard backstroke in 25.47 seconds as part of Niagara’s 200 medley relay. It was the first time Killion swam faster than 26 seconds in the race and more than half a second faster than her previous best.
“She’s not a sprinter. You kind of know at that point the rest of the meet is going to turn out well,” Bugby said. “But even beforehand, she was posting really good dual meet times, good practice times. She’s very consistent. So as long as the work was there — which it was — she was going to swim fast. That fast? That was the fun part.”
Niagara still has one more meet remaining for the season, as it prepares for the National Invitational Championship in Ocala, Florida. The meet is for swimmers who reach a ‘B’ qualifying standard or win a conference championship but don’t qualify for the NCAA championships.
Killion’s 200 backstroke time would have placed second at the meet by 0.04 seconds last season. And now with her passion for the sport rekindled, Killion is ready to do it all over again.
“We accomplished a lot, but that’s what drives us to begin with,” Killion said. “You can’t expect every year that you’re going to win. … So my passion, it may be a little higher, but it’s not anything different. It’s still at the same level because we have these same goals to accomplish next year.”