Sun Comes Through
Shocking end can’t overshadow brilliant careers of Dix, Cubbler
A step away from the summit, a cliff.
That was the fate endured by Bloomsburg redshirt senior and former Perkiomen Valley swimming great Kyle Dix, fellow senior and Spring-Ford grad Becca Cubbler and so many fellow college student-athletes last week when the NCAA cancelled its winter sports championships and discontinued the spring season due to the evolving COVID-19 public health crisis.
Even championships already in competition, like the NCAA Division II Swimming Championships in Geneva, Ohio, were not spared.
Bloomsburg has become a top landing spot for local standout swimmers and the Huskies’ contingent at NCAAs proved that. Dix, a seven-time All-American and past NCAA silver and bronze medalist, was joined by fellow former Pioneer Athletic Conference standouts, sophomore Patrick Agnew (Pottsgrove) and junior Noah Cancro (Spring-Ford) as an alternate, on the Huskies’ NCAA-qualifying 200 freestyle relay team, as well as Cubbler, a three-time All-American who qualified in three events.
For Dix and Cubbler, their respective fourth and final NCAA Championships was to be the culmination and conclusion of their lifelong swimming careers.
The Bloomsburg qualifiers arrived in Ohio on Monday in preparation of the four-day main event, without an inclination of what was to come, even through Wednesday’s Day 1 where Cubbler placed 10th in the 1,000-meter freestyle, her highest career NCAA finish.
But things started to turn late Wednesday night when it was announced that spectators would not be allowed into the meet. The news came just as Dix’s parents, Brad and Janet Dix, of Skippack, arrived to watch their son’s final event, a reminder that the heartbreak of the college sports cancellations wasn’t reserved to only the athletes.
“That was such a bummer because my parents have literally never missed a single swim meet of mine my entire life,” Dix said. “And then my very last they have to miss because of this.
“My dad has always said, ‘I’ll never miss one of your meets,’ and then has it taken away from him. I felt worse for them than I did for myself. They drive out there to see you and they just want to see you swim.”
By the time the Huskies’ swimmers entered the parking lot ahead of Thursday night’s finals where the 200 free relay was scheduled to swim after finishing 15th in morning prelims, Dix immediately knew.
“We showed up to the pool for Thursday night finals and all the teams were standing outside the door to go in and there were just kids crying everywhere,” said Dix, the 2014-15 Mercury AllArea Swimmer of the Year. “It was … we pulled up and we immediately knew: this is done.”
Imagine arriving to your Super Bowl in your retirement season and it being cancelled right in front of you. That was Dix.
“The guys who have more time to swim, they were in shock,” Dix said. “I know me and Becca, it was our last swims ever, our last meets ever, and it felt like a big weight sat on your shoulders. ‘Holy crap, is that really how it’s going to end?’
“You poured your heart and soul into this sport since you started swimming at 7, and for people that swam even longer than that, it was just defeating. But you just have to stay positive. There’s nothing you can do about it and the positivity helps you get through it.”
Cubbler planned to arrive for the finals later Thursday night at the SPIRE Institute natatorium, instead catching a nap back at the hotel to rest up for her Friday and Saturday events. She woke to countless calls and messages.
“Initially, I was like, ‘This isn’t real. No, they can’t do that,’” Cubbler said. “My parents (Matt and Lauren) knocked on the door, they showed me the email my coaches forwarded from the NCAA and I looked at it and I immediately started crying.”
After the initial heartbreak, Cubbler and Dix were able to find solace - in some ways they were the lucky ones. They at least got to compete once in their respective fourth and final NCAA Championships.
“I feel lucky,” Cubbler said. “The Division I swimmers didn’t get to swim at all. There were people at the Division II Championships, like a girl (Yana Miletska) from Edinboro, it was her very first NCAA Championships and she was there for breaststroke and she didn’t get to swim her race. So I feel lucky now that I at least got to swim my 1,000 well.”
Yet one meet does not make a career, especially for a pair of swimmers with such lengthy resumes as Cubbler and Dix. One meet also overlooks the 15-20 hours a week in the pool (aside from dry training) they committed to throughout their college careers.
Cubbler’s 10th in the 1,000-meter freestyle at NCAAs made her a four-time All-American and served as an encore to the best meet of her career at the PSAC Championships in February where she won the first individual PSAC championship of her career in the 200 freestyle (1:51.14), smashed her personal and school record in the 1,000 meters (10:02.35) and also PRed in the 1,650 meters.
A four-time NCAA qualifier and four-year CSCAA Scholar All-American, Cubbler holds three individual (200, 500, 1,000) and three relay (200 free, 400 free, 800 free) records at Bloomsburg and will go down as one of the program’s best ever.
“My PSAC meet was the best I’ve ever had so I’m happy that I was able to end on a positive note, even if I didn’t get to finish the NCAA Championships and complete the goals I had,” she said.
Her greatest achievements in her final two years came as she focused more on distance, a skill aided by another local, 2009 Perkiomen Valley graduate Bridget Hilferty, who is a Huskies assistant coach since capping her own All-American career at Bloom in 2013.
“(My breakthrough was) learning how to do distance. Having Coach Bridget as a specialty coach in distance, I really worked every single day in practice at my distance swimming,” Cubbler said. “I had one race where everything just clicked. From then on I knew my pace, everything I have to do, I know if I miss up a flip-turn I know exactly why, so it’s all been a learning process.
“My four years have been more than I ever dreamed of. I never thought I would be going to NCAAs for four years.”
Dix has his own remarkable resume with two individual Bloomsburg records (200 free, 100 butterfly) and four school and PSAC conference records, which were established in Dix’s sophomore season that featured silver and bronze finishes at NCAAs in the 200 free relay and 200 medley relay, respectively.
Dix’s swimming career was placed on hold as a junior, his medical redshirt year, when he underwent double shoulder surgery. It could have been a career-ender for some, but that was never a consideration in Dix’s mind.
“No, not even a little bit. Anyone who knows me, I’m way too competitive, overly competitive. So I knew no matter what I was going to try to compete again,” Dix said. “I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to get back (to my past level) because it can be catastrophic to your career with shoulders, but I think I knew in the back of my mind, even as they were telling me I might not ever be back, I knew I was going to be back.
“It’s just about being mentally tough. If you want something to happen, you can make it happen. It just depends on how much you want it.”
It wasn’t without its challenges though, like a rehabilitation process that taught Dix what it was like to be a fish.
“It was no movement at all for a month after each surgery, which I had two months apart. Once I was able to get back in the pool, my coach would saran wrap my arms together and I would just kick. I would just kick because I wasn’t allowed to even risk moving my arms at all,” he said. “So I would just saran wrap my arms and just kick, and then that happened for a couple months and then eventually moved on to small strokes.
“It normally takes eight months, but I was able to get back in 6-6½ months from when I was able to start swimming again.”
But most of all, Dix was determined to not let his injuries define him in any way.
“I just wanted to put the injury behind me as something that happened but I’m not going to let that hold me back. I’m going to let my hard work show out and prevail through that. I gave it my all, I overcame that, now that’s behind me and now I’m an athlete again,” Dix said of his mindset.
“I really think that helped me grow in the end, and realize that not everything is permanent. It gave me more confidence heading into the rest of my career knowing that if I can get through that, I can get through anything.”
Dix returned in 2018-19 and won the PSAC championship in the 100 breast, 400 free relay and the 100 butterfly, where he set a PSAC meet record, qualifying for NCAAs in three events. This winter, Dix repeated as 100 breaststroke champion, placed second in the 100 free, won three relay titles at PSACs, including the NCAA-qualifying run for the 200 free relay team that ensured Dix’s career would rightfully end at the NCAA Championships.
Wins or trips to NCAAs won’t be how Dix defines his career, though.
“I don’t think a single year defines how your career is represented. Things happen and you don’t always have your best swim, but if you look back on your progress and the people you were able to help influence on the way, I think that’s what defines your career, the relationships and everything you’ve done to give back to the sport.
“I wouldn’t say my highlight was anything directly in the pool. It’s the way that my teammates have told me that I’ve helped them improve and lead them as a captain. I think my highlight was being a captain for three years and giving everything I had to help us make each other better.”
Dix will graduate in May while Cubbler, an elementary education major, will be student teaching in the fall after finishing her course work this spring.
Both have visions of staying near the pool in a coaching capacity, ensuring a surprise event cancellation isn’t the final note of their time in the swimming world.
“Sometimes I think I like coaching more than I like swimming itself,” Dix said. “I was the head coach of the Skippack swim team over the summer and that was so rewarding. I would love to be involved in the swimming world in some form.
“It’s so rewarding to give back to those when you were once in their position. I know exactly what they’re going through,I know practices hurt, I know what hurts, what doesn’t, I can just relate. It makes it easy, something I’ve been around for 16 years and it was what I was good at.”