Durant’s Nolan Delong is taking multi-sport athlete to a new level

DURANT, Iowa (KWQC) - There is no question which sport is Nolan Delong’s best sport.

The Durant senior is one of the few players in the history of Iowa high school football to rush for 6,000 yards in his career. A fete that earned him the rare honor of having his number retired by the school before he even graduated, and earned him a chance to walk on to the Iowa Hawkeyes football team next year.

But along with the success on the football field, Delong also spends his summers on the Wildcat baseball team, the spring running track, the winter becoming a thousand point scorer on the basketball team, and this year added a fifth sport to the list, returning to wrestling for the first time since he was little. A move to help him prepare for those Hawkeye football practices.

“I hear all the time, college football, it’s hard, it’s hard work, so being able to go to wrestling practice for two hours, and basically kill myself at that practice, then hop right back into a basketball practice, that is the closest thing I can get to a college practice so like, I might as well get used to being uncomfortable and just miserable. Get comfortable in uncomfortable situations is how I put it.”

Juggling two time consuming sports at the same time is, well, time consuming.

“I wake up usually around 6:30ish, occasionally a little earlier to get into the weight room, but then I get to school, go to school until about 3:30, 3:15. Right as I get done with school I’m down in the wrestling room in the scortching hot. I think it’s like a hudred and some degrees, it’s like, oh, it’s painful. Then when I’m done with that it depends on when is basketball. Sometimes it’s at five, sometimes it’s at seven, so when it is at seven I get a little bit of a break.”

And somehow Delong does manage to find, just a little, free time in his schedule.”It’s kind of hard, but I do manage to hang out with my buddies a decent amount, a little hobby of ours, we like to hop on video games once in a while every night, and that’s always a good time. It’s always nice, you’ve got to be able to work and free time and fun.”

But Delong may not be done adding to his list of sports achievements, as he is thinking of adding a sixth sport to the list in the spring.

“Maybe even six. I was thinking of being the first six sport athlete in Durant history. Maybe some golf in there if I can do it, if I can find some free time, but yeah, being able to compete in all different sports and now going to the next level, I’ll only be competing in one, so I’ll be able to focus on one year round so it will be nice to I’ll be able to put all my hard work, all my marble in that one sport. I think I’ll just improve drastically.”

Delong will be on the mats this weekend competing in wrestling districts at Wilton, before Durant begins their postseason basketball run at West Branch next Monday.

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