BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Matt Hutchins traveled nearly 8,500 miles from his home in New Zealand to develop his skills as a swimmer at Wisconsin. So what's another 500 miles to realize an Olympic dream?
"Ever since a young age," Hutchins said, "I've always thought the idea of representing New Zealand would be very cool … to be a part of that select (Olympic) group would be …"
His strong Kiwi accent began to tail off. The cell connection was not very good as he was waiting Sunday at the Dane County Regional Airport to catch a flight out of Madison for Toronto.
But you could complete his thought. Competing for his country in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio would be a source of great national pride … even though he must qualify in Canada.
"It's not the ideal situation," he admitted. "But you do what you've got to do."
A scheduling conflict between the Olympic qualifying event in Auckland and the NCAA Division I swimming and diving championships in Atlanta necessitated a second qualifier.
"There's a whole bunch of us New Zealanders based in America," Hutchins noted. "We raised it to their attention that we couldn't really make it back to New Zealand because we were in the NCAAs.
"They said they would run through a few plans and options and get back to us."
Swimming New Zealand struck a deal with Swimming Canada which will hold its Olympics Trials in Toronto beginning Tuesday and running through April 10 at the Pan Am Sports Complex.
This was the Plan B for the Kiwi swimmers competing for colleges in the United States.
Thirteen will take part, including Florida All-American backstroker Corey Main, Stanford freestyler Sam Perry and the Big Ten Men's Swimmer of the Year, the 21-year-old Hutchins.
Main, a senior, is from Auckland; Perry, a sophomore, is from Hamilton; and Hutchins, a junior, is from Christchurch, which is in the Canterbury region, on the east coast of the South Island.
Hutchins is hoping the 400 freestyle will be his ticket to Rio.
"If I can swim within a second or half-second of my best time, I'll make the team," said Hutchins, who also feels like he would have an "outside chance" to qualify in the 200 and/or 1500 freestyle.
"I feel pretty good. I'm feeling fast. I'm going in with the utmost confidence in my ability."
Wisconsin coach Whitney Hite believes that Hutchins has every reason to be confident.
"He doesn't have to do anything super-human," said Hite, who will be in Toronto with Hutchins. "Just do what you do. It's kind of our mantra at these championship meets.
"You don't have to be a world-beater. You don't have to do anything that you can't do. That should give him confidence as well. Just do what you do."
• • • •
As a youngster, Hutchins was doing what everyone else was doing.
At age 5, he began playing rugby, the national sport in New Zealand.
"I went through a phase where I swam and played rugby," said Hutchins, who competed as a rugger until he was 14 or 15. "No one really pushed me into swimming.
"Originally, I did swimming as a summer thing to stay in shape for rugby which was played over the winter. I don't want to say I was naturally good, but I did well in swimming without really any effort or without putting a large amount of time or energy into it.
"I eventually dropped off the rugby and I skyrocketed (as a swimmer)."
Hutchins reached a point in his development as a swimmer where he had some options.
"A bunch of people had started to come over to America to go to college and swim," he said. "I thought I would give it a shot, so I put my name out there and got in contact with a bunch of schools.
"I talked to a couple of them but nothing was really working out and then one day, I got an email from Dan Schemmel, who wanted to know, 'Are you interested in coming to Wisconsin?'"
Hutchins had no frame of reference of where that was. Wisconsin?
Schemmel, an assistant on Hite's coaching staff, provided a geography lesson.
"Dan found him online," Hite said, "and we took a flier on him — sight unseen."
The first time Hite saw Hutchins swim was during the team's training camp in Hawaii.
Hite took one look at the freshman and thought, "Man, we've got something here."
Hutchins was deceptively fast.
"You'd look at him and think, 'This guy is not even trying,'" Hite said, "And then you'd look at your watch and realize, 'Wow, he's really moving.'
"Did we get lucky with him? You take chances and you do your homework. We did find him and we did persuade him to come here. But we did have a little bit of luck."
The way Hutchins looks at it, he was the lucky one because of the coaching and guidance.
"Whitney has had such an incredible influence," Hutchins said, "along with all of the other coaches that I've worked with since I've been here.
"They've all really been helpful in getting me from where I was when I came to Wisconsin to where I am now. There has been the uptick in training that I had and then also the advice.
"There's so much that he (Hite) does for me outside of the pool in terms of helping me focus on training and keeping me on track and all that kind of stuff.
"I'll be in touch with Whitney all week (in Toronto) and he'll be a good calming influence. I imagine it will be a lot of, 'Don't worry about the time, just go out there and focus on your race.'
"It's always nice to have a pep talk before every race with Whitney."
Hite knows his role and won't overplay it.
"My role, as it always is at any major meet, is to be — not necessarily a cheerleader — but somewhat of one," Hite said. "The hay is in the barn. He has done the work.
"You just make sure he's mentally sharp and in a good place and you give him as much confidence as you can. I think the NCAAs were very good for him in the confidence department."
At the national meet (March 24-26), Hutchins set two school records while taking third in the 1650-yard freestyle and sixth in the 500. At the Big Ten meet (Feb. 24-27), he was the runner-up in both events.
"We didn't fully taper him for the conference (races) and because he's so competitive, he was upset that he didn't win," Hite said. "That can shake your confidence a little bit."
But it didn't faze Hutchins. Very little outside of the weather in the Midwest has.
"It's a lot colder in Madison than it is back in Christchurch, I can tell you that" he volunteered. "I never thought I'd live in negative 20-degree weather in my life.
"Culturally, it hasn't been too much of a change. Getting used to the food brands was pretty rough (at first) — walking through a supermarket and knowing what to look for.
"I spent so much time shopping because I had to pick up stuff to read what it was."
Hutchins, though, has made all of the necessary adjustments in the pool, and outside of it.
"Matt works very hard," said Hite. "I had to re-evaluate how to train him because everything I was giving him, he was eating up and spitting it out this year. It was no problem for him.
"And, for me, it was a new challenge. It was nice to be challenged that way as a coach — to find new ways to make things harder on people."
The Hutchins/Hite collaboration paid off when Hutchins was recognized as the 2016 Big Ten Men's Swimmer of the Year; the first male to be so honored in UW history.
"Hopefully, it's a sign that the program is getting better and better," Hite said. "Although I will say we've had some very good male swimmers come through these pool lanes, so to speak."
Drew teDuits, a national champion in the 200 backstroke, came to mind.
So did Michael Weiss and Dan Lester, among others.
"I think nationally," Hutchins said, "Wisconsin is slowly getting more and more on the map, which is good. It's nice to have people notice you.
"It's also nice looking forward into the future that maybe more people will consider coming to Wisconsin (for swimming)."
"But it wasn't really anything I thought about to be honest," Hutchins said of the conference recognition. "Everyone on the team found out before I did.
"I was getting a bunch of people sending me texts, 'Congrats. Nice job.' I assumed they were still talking about the swimming from the week before (in the NCAAs).
"Then I was sent a link to the award. It's kind of cool to get recognition, especially in such a competitive conference like the Big Ten. I think I've had a fairly consistent year."
That's how Hite described his season, too.
"He's just consistent," Hite reiterated. "You can tell when he gets upset but he goes about it very quietly. When he has success, he's not a guy who yells and rants and raves.
"This is all well-deserved. He works his butt off. He's a good student. He's the type of kid that you want as the face of your program because he works so hard and does the right things.
"He's kind of self-made because he has worked for everything he has gotten."
But the work has just begun. Hutchins doesn't want to "come up short now."
"I'm always pretty bad about putting pressure on myself," he said. "I just have to go in there (the Canadian trials) and be relaxed and do what I can."
As far as the Olympic dream, he conceded, "It's awfully close, I'd hate to psyche myself out."
Given his background, and life experiences, he's not likely to be shaken.
In late February of 2011, Hutchins' hometown of Christchurch was rocked by an earthquake that claimed 185 lives and injured thousands.
"I remember where I was and I remember how I reacted," Hutchins said. "I was eating lunch at school, I must have been 16 or 17, and they told us we had to go home.
"We weren't sure what was happening. I lived a long way out of the city so it wasn't so much of an issue. I knew a lot of people who had it a lot worse than I did.
"It was crazy. I had never been a part of anything like that."
Years later, there were still aftershocks.
"You'd kind of get used to them," Hutchins said. "We had thousands upon thousands and, by the end of it, you could hear them coming. If nothing was too badly damaged, you'd carry on."
The 50-meter competition swimming pool in Christchurch never reopened.
"It was just demolished," said Hutchins. "It definitely impacted the development of Christchurch swimmers. That was a great facility where a whole bunch of people from the region got together.
"There could have been a lot of Olympians come out of that group."
Along with his 12 transplanted countrymen, Hutchins wants to take that step towards Rio.
"There are a couple of people that I haven't met before," he said of the American-based New Zealanders that will be competing in Toronto.
"But a majority of them I will know. We're all kind of the same age, so we grew up racing each other or being around each other."
There's one Kiwi with Badger ties that he's still dying to meet.
"I would like to meet Kirk Penney," Hutchins said of the former UW basketball player; a two-time New Zealand Olympian from Auckland. "I've definitely heard of Kirk Penney."
By the end of the week, Penney may be hearing a lot more about Hutchins.
