Devin Bunner swims during a training session. (Bri Nitsberg|Student Life)

Waiting behind the blocks before the 100-yard breaststroke at the Denison Invitational on Dec. 1,  junior Devin Bunner looked next to him and saw fellow juniors Nathan Lin and Justin Rockaway.

“I noticed that was the first time I was smiling behind the blocks,” Bunner, who transferred to Washington University this fall, said. “Because those are my teammates. Those are the people who accepted me and I just get to get up and race them.”

Bunner finished 12th, two places behind Lin, swimming a time of 57.01 in prelims. The time, a season best, was less than a second off of his personal best of 56.71, set at the 2022 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Championship.

“I was two and a half seconds faster in the 100 breaststroke than last year and over seven seconds faster or right around seven seconds in the 200 [breastroke] faster than last year,” Bunner said about his performance on Dec. 1. “So things are looking very positive.”

However, Bunner’s growth has not been limited to the confines of the Millstone Pool. Since joining the Washington University men’s swimming team this fall after two years at Division I Rider University in New Jersey, the junior from North Carolina has found a strong community with his new teammates, while making the most out of WashU’s academic opportunities.

Bunner has been swimming for most of his life. Like many younger brothers, he first found himself in the sport at age three, when his older brother started swimming. And, when his brother left the sport, so did Bunner, who was in sixth grade at the time.

However, Bunner couldn’t stay away from the pool for too long. In high school, he returned, swimming for the Carolina Aquatic Team and Cedar Ridge High School, where he led his high school relay team to victory at the North Carolina state championship in his senior year.

Bunner had first set his sights on swimming at the collegiate level during his junior year. Throughout his search process, he had his eyes set on the highest level of college swimming.

“Initially, I just wanted the Division I name tag and I was pretty stubborn about that,” he said. “So I kind of looked to schools where I can not only swim at a Division I program, but also get a solid education.

This search would lead Bunner to Rider University, a perennial swimming powerhouse that had won the MAAC title every year since 2012. In his first-year at Rider, swimming and winning were the priorities. “I was surrounded by winners and people who wanted nothing less than to win. So it did put a lot of stress on my swimming,” he said.

Unlike at WashU and other Division III programs, the emphasis in the phrase “student-athlete” weighted towards “athlete”. “When you show up to a Division I program, people are there to swim. Yes, we were student-athletes and everyone tried very hard in the classroom, but at the Division I level when scholarships are available, it’s a job to people,” Bunner said.

This emphasis on training took a toll on Bunner, who in the summer after his freshman year, realized he had worked himself too far. “I had pushed my body a little bit too far and they told me it was time to take a little break,” he said. 

This temporary setback would turn out to be a pivotal moment in Bunner’s academic and athletic career. Returning to campus for his sophomore year, Bunner wanted to shift the emphasis in “student-athlete” towards the first-half of the phrase.

At the start of the fall semester, he set a goal for himself: achieve a 4.0 GPA.When he received his grades over winter break and realized he had hit his target, he came to a different conclusion than the high school senior version of himself had made, deciding that he was capable of pursuing an academic and athletic career at an academically rigorous Division III school like WashU.

“I’ve had some health issues that kind of humbled me and reminded me that it’s over at some point. I’m going to be done with swimming at some point in my future but academics have a long lasting impact,” Bunner said.

One day, Bunner, who was studying actuarial science and mathematics, was talking with a close friend who was also transferring. His friend suggested he look at schools like WashU, New York University, and the University of Chicago, all of which had previously been off of his radar.

“I thought it was kind of crazy,” Bunner said. “Because I was like, where am I gonna go? Who would want a sophomore or a rising junior who is okay at swimming right now, not doing his best, and turned things around in college but wasn’t a great academic student out of high school.”

Bunner found that person in Bears head coach Brad Shively. 

Bunner distinctly remembers the day he heard back from Shively, while he was lifting with a friend. When he got the email, he dropped everything and responded immediately, starting the first of what would be many conversations over the next few months with Shively and assistant coach Jim Halliburton.

Throughout their conversations, it became evident to Bunner that Shively and Halliburton wanted him as part of the Bears program.“They just really wanted to know me as a person, as a student, as an athlete,” he said. “I had pretty much made my decision well before I actually announced it. But the lengths they went to to get me here, the amount of help they gave me, the amount of resources they found for me to help get my application and make sure I got what I needed as a student here. [It] just made the decision really easy for me.”

Bunner also found support from his parents who he credits with helping him find and pursue swimming at WashU, which he describes as his “dream school.”

Bunner has quickly adapted to representing WashU in the pool. (Bri Nitsberg|Student Life)

Once he arrived at WashU, he found similar support from his new teammates, including graduate student Bert Wang, who also transferred to WashU this year, from Grinnell College in Iowa. Wang and Bunner first met when Bunner reached out to Wang ahead of a welcome event put on by the team.

“We bonded over like, hey, we don’t know anyone here and we’re not freshmen. So he and I kind of clicked that way. Throughout the season, he has just been a really cool guy, really fun guy to hang out with,” Wang said.

Despite being new to both the team and University, Wang remembers the overwhelmingly warm welcome the two were given by their new teammates.“The team just did a really good job of making us feel welcome not like outsiders but like hey, you’re a part of us now, like you’re a part of this Bears family here,” he said.

Bunner also was quickly welcomed in by his teammates, who he describes as “the greatest people I’ve ever met.”

Bunner, who is now studying statistics, has found the University academically challenging, but is looking to embrace it.“It is unbelievably hard here,” Bunner said. “But like I said, I’m just excited because I’ve seen so much progress.”

Bunner’s passion for statistics and academics comes from his desire to help others through his career. Originally majoring in biology, Bunner decided to change his course of study to one where he could use math to help others. He looked to his father, a statistician, for inspiration.

“My dad was a statistician, and I was like, ‘Oh, he helps people a lot.’ I’ll follow in his footsteps and so I picked it up,” he said.

In the pool, Bunner’s training has also changed, from focusing on anaerobic sprint sets at Rider to more aerobic distance and mid-distance sets with the Bears.

Unlike sprint sets which focus on shorter distances at faster intervals, often with longer recovery, aerobic sets often focus on longer distances at more moderate intervals.

“It helps when a student-athlete has an understanding of their needs and the willingness to do the work,” Shively wrote in a statement to Student Life. “He wants to be good and truly is willing to do everything he can to build not only his aerobic capacity and endurance, but his strength, flexibility, explosiveness, and technique.”

Bunner similarly explained that his coaches’ willingness to let him experiment with his training has allowed him to improve as a swimmer. Even though Bunner is not a distance swimmer, Shively and Halliburton will let him attempt distance sets to test his fitness and make him a better swimmer in the process.

“I mean, it’s really the fact that they’ll find out what works for you. No matter how many conversations it takes, no matter how many rough swims, it takes watching just they’ve really emphasize individual swimmers and their strengths,” Bunner said.

This new training has translated to more success in the pool. At the Denison Invitational, the Bears major mid-season meet, Bunner performed well, coming close to lifetime personal bests in multiple events.

Bunner’s efforts in training have led to success and improved times during meets (Bri Nitsberg|Student Life)

“I also think it gave him confidence that his successes this fall will lead to even stronger swims during the second half of our season. I really like where he is right now!” Shively wrote.

But despite his serious work ethic and dedication in the pool, Bunner, who Wang and others also call “D Dog,” has been able to find a working balance between academics, athletics, and other interests, including professional football, basketball, and hockey.

Wang describes Bunner’s attitude as supportive, adding that “he just brings positive good vibes all around,” Wang said. “He makes you laugh.” One of Wang’s favorite memories from him and Bunner’s stint on the team was after the Illinois Wesleyan Invitational.

After the tournament, the team made the 30-minute drive to a local restaurant to not just enjoy a team dinner, but also to see who can eat the most pizza. Wang was this year’s champion, tallying 31 slices, but admitted that “D Dog battled hard.”

Bunner’s ability to take himself seriously in the pool and classroom while being “goofy” outside of the pool, as Wang would describe, has led to his greatest breakthrough. He has rediscovered his passion for the sport of swimming.

At the Denison Invitation, where he was able to race alongside his new WashU teammates, Bunner made that realization.

“So that was when I was like man, I really love this sport again.”