Norman North's Nate McMillen – Academic Athlete presented by Republic Bank & Trust

Written by John Tranchina

While balancing swimming, serving as student body vice president at Norman North, and several other school activities, senior Nate McMillen has a lot going on, but he has still managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA.

“It’s definitely taught me how to multi-task and prioritize and keep things organized,” McMillen said. “I’ve gotten better at it as the years have gone by.”

The key to his academic excellence rests with McMillen prioritizing schoolwork first, with everything else coming after.

“With school, I’m always trying to give full effort in all my classes and put school in front of athletics,” he said, “because if I can get all my schoolwork done, then that’s less things to distract me while I’m practicing and training. So I try to take it one step at a time and get everything done.”

McMillen, who also is involved with Norman North’s philanthropy efforts and with student leadership, has not yet decided on where he wants to attend college next year, although he believes he wants to major in engineering. He also plays guitar, drums and bass.

As for the new swim season, McMillen is ready to chase the Class 6A state championship again, both individually and as a team. Last year, he placed third in the 100-yard butterfly and second in the 100-yard backstroke, while also contributing to Norman North’s winning 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay teams. Overall, the Timberwolves ended up finishing second, losing by just two points to Jenks.

“I’m optimistic,” he said. “I think our whole team is working really hard, we’ve got a lot of really good, young swimmers. Everyone’s working hard. If we show up when we need to, I’m pretty optimistic that we can get it done at the end of the season. I’m really proud of this team and everything we’ve done so far.”