WNY native Brent Nowicki is preparing for an executive role at the Olympics

Now the CEO/Executive Director of World Aquatics – the governing body for international water sports – Nowicki grew up in Orchard Park. He is all too familiar with the snow removal process. In many ways, he shaped it.

It starts each time somewhat with restraint.

“You stumble down, put on your suit, put on your gloves, put on your hat and walk out into the driveway. You’re waist-deep in snow,” Nowicki says. “You trudge in there, open the garage and pull up the snowblower and start shoveling the driveway.”

The work is long and hard. But at last the end is in sight.

“By the time you’re three-quarters of the way there, you get a sense of relief, like, ‘We’re almost there.’ Yes,'” Nowicki continued. “And then you get to the end of the alley like you did, and you look to the left, and you look to the right, and you realize it’s a footbridge. And the easy thing to do would be to take the snowmobile back, put it back in the garage and get a cup of coffee, get your snow stuff out, and then get ready for your day.

“But I think people in Buffalo, you know, look left and look right and say, ‘You know what, I’m already dressed.’ I got out of bed. I might as well pound that sidewalk for my neighbor. “

These days, Nowicki still looks out for his neighbors. This group spans a much larger sidewalk.

“I think in my role now, I have 210 neighbors, right?” Nowicki said. “They represent 210 countries around the world and you can imagine the different political, cultural, religious and societal beliefs.”

“The Stage It Deserves”

Nowicki, 45, has been in his current role for about three years. As CEO of World Aquatics, formerly FINA, he oversees aquatics and his next major task is the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, which begin on Friday. World Aquatics is the governing body for swimming, diving, high diving, water polo, open water swimming and artistic swimming.

Nowicki’s first Olympics in this job were in 2021 in Tokyo, which was affected by Covid-19. Paris offers a return to the typical grandeur of the Olympic Games.

“For me, this Olympics is about seeing it all together, but on the stage it deserves, in front of the audience it deserves, in the full treatment it deserves.”

Nowicki recognizes storytelling for every sport. Take swimming, for example. Stories include the impact of Katie Ledecky, a cast of new and up-and-coming swimmers, and of course the rivalries between countries, especially the USA and Australia. Nowicki is looking for more of that.

“One of the things we’ve worked on in this organization is to build rivalries between countries or see how rivalries develop and build that kind of competition,” he said.

Rivalries fuel the athletes in a healthy way and keep the Games dramatic as the story unfolds.

Then he ends up doing it over and over in different sports. Each brings its own flavor.

“It’s unbelievable,” Nowicki said. “It’s clearly different. Personalities are different. You know, their approaches to training are different.”

Nowicki swam when he was younger, his first exposure to water sports. A graduate of Canisius High School, Nowicki went on to play lacrosse at Fairfield University. Playing lacrosse piqued his interest in sports law and he attended the University of Buffalo for law school.

From there, Nowicki’s journey took him to all sorts of places. He worked with Buffalo Bills wide receiver Andre Reed. He slept upstairs in a New York apartment while preparing to represent a tennis player. He moved to Europe and worked at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the international governing body for sports disputes. There, Nowicki worked as a lawyer and watched as sports, politics and the law intersected. Prepared him to work with World Aquatics.

Nowicki estimates he’s on the road more than 200 days a year. Whatever the exact number, he travels constantly for work and spends more time away from his base in Switzerland than in it.

But in all those travels, he finds time to return to Buffalo, sometimes six to eight times a year.

“He’s still at home. It’s still very much at home and it’s still very much a part of my safe space. It’s my respite, my comfort place, my comfort zone,” Nowicki said. “And it kind of helps me in ways where, like, it’s nice to bring me back to the center and say, ‘OK, you know, that’s how you got to where you are,’ and that’s where you should always sort of to use your regulator. It kind of helps you, it helps you recalibrate sometimes, you know, when you’re down or out, it brings you back to center.”

Nowicki isn’t exactly looking at it to see how far he’s come. Instead, he notices the things that have been the same all along.

“My heart has always been in the same place, my head has always been in the same place,” he said. “As for me, I’m doing exactly the same thing I did when I started this whole thing, just a different environment, different cities, different environment… different country, different client. But I think my heart is where it always was when I started this journey. So the journey isn’t over, right?”

And when the trip takes him home and when it snows, Nowicki knows exactly what to do.