Kurt Kirner

Kurt Kirner is Hillsdale's Head Swim Coach and a longtime Nike Swim Camp director. Now entering his 16th season as the Hillsdale College women’s swimming and diving coach, Kurt Kirner has brought the program up to a new level of performance and competitiveness, both in the pool and in the classroom.

One of the most detail-oriented coaches on the Hillsdale College staff, Kirner has refined a training program over his years in the sport that has had a direct effect on the performances of his athletes. His out-of-the-pool training methods and techniques have allowed nearly every member of the team to achieve new lifetime-best times in various events in their most recent seasons.

Under Kirner’s guidance, swimmers from the Charger program have had a regular presence at the NCAA Division II national meet. In 2009, one swimmer from all four classes - Anne Verhoef, Alicia LeDuc, Linda Okonkowski and Meredith Scott - each competed at the highest level of Division II swimming. It was Hillsdale’s most significant presence at the NCAA championships since it moved to Division II in 1998, and signified the upward direction of the program. In 2011, Okonkowski secured the program's first Division II All-American honor in nine years under Kirner's guidance and Rachel Kurtz (2013, 2014) and Anika Ellingson (2019) have also earned All-American honors for the Chargers in the last decade.

Since joining the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in the fall of 2017, Hillsdale also has achieved unprecedented team honors under Kirner. In their first two seasons in the new conference, the Chargers earned back-to-back runner-up finishes for the first time in program history. Over the past three seasons, Hillsdale has gone one step further, capturing the G-MAC/MEC title in 2019-20 for the program's first ever conference crown since the program was founded in the late 70s, and repeating as champions in both 2020-21 and 2021-22. During Hillsdale's five years in the G-MAC, Kirner has been named conference Coach of the Year four times, and coached three G-MAC Swimmers of the Year in Ellingson, Leah Tunney and Elise Mason, as well as four G-MAC Freshmen of the Year in Katherine Heeres, Tunney, Cecilia Guadalupi and Mason.

His teams have also annually appeared on the College Swimming Coaches Association of Ameria All-Academic lists for NCAA Division II. The team has earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better in each of the past 15 seasons. The CSCAA has recognized Hillsdale College's swimming program as Scholar All-American in each of Kirner's 15 seasons leading the program.

Kirner arrived at Hillsdale after spending 17 successful seasons at Lawrence University, located in Appleton, Wisconsin. Kirner, along with Hillsdale College men’s basketball coach John Tharp, both joined Hillsdale College from Lawrence, within one year of one another.

While coaching the Vikings, Kirner led both the men’s and women’s swimming teams, paving the way for 175 individual conference champions during his tenure. He was named his conference’s coach of the year in 2006-07 after leading the women’s team to a second-place finish. His women’s teams never finished lower than fourth place in the conference standings in his coaching career at Lawrence. He's a member of the Lawrence University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Kirner competed as a collegiate swimmer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before beginning his coaching career in 1975. In addition to his coaching career at Lawrence, Kirner has coached many club swimming teams, and led the Schroeder Swim Team to two YMCA national championships.

Kirner is an assistant professor at Hillsdale College, and has taught Exercise Science, Kinesiology, and Dynamic Wellness in the past. He and his wife Susan are parents to two sons, Quinn and Clayton.