As long as he can remember, Ryle High School swimmer Chase Knopf has been chasing best times, records and history while competitors chase him. It’s been an endless cycle involving talent, hard work and determination for the all-around senior.
“I’ve been swimming since I was 5,” said Knopf, who turned 18 in September. “I have worked hard. I’ve made a lot of friends, and I’ve had lots of fun. I think that’s why I like swimming different events because it’s more fun. I like swimming in shorter races and longer ones, and I like to do them all as fast as I can.”
Knopf’s wide-ranging abilities and speed will be on display at the Feb. 20-21 KHSAA State Swimming & Diving Championships at University of Kentucky’s Lancaster Aquatic Center in Lexington. The boys meet is Friday. The girls competition is Saturday.
After Ryle’s boys placed third at the 2025 state meet and the girls finished sixth, the defending combined team state champion has the horses to make another big splash. And the Raiders also have a horse of a different color.
“Chase Knopf is a swimming unicorn in terms of being incredibly versatile,” said Ryle’s Jeff Floyd, the school’s swimming and diving coach. “He can swim in so many different events that I’ve written a lineup a dozen times before I decide on one because I have so many options.”
Knopf has not only competed in every event in his 13-year career, but he’s also done so in record fashion. That’s why he’s heading to the University of Louisville and its highly ranked swimming program.
“Can’t wait,” he said. “Louisville checks all the boxes. It’s close to home but kind of a home away from home. It has a great swimming program that was recently in the top 12. It’s got a great engineering program, and that’s what I want to study.”
He’s not the only talented competitor at Ryle, where Addison Coughenour, Tyler Rice, and brothers Nash and Brody Parsons are high on the boys state psyche sheet. There are also divers Wes Hampel, Carter Young and Eli Evans. Raider girls appearing high on the sheet include swimmers Lydia DiVita, Gabriella Stephens and Haley Yauger and divers Emma Albertson and Annie Kopser.
“We have changed the narrative with all of our determined swimmers and divers,” coach Floyd said. “Instead of us doing all the chasing, people are now chasing us.”
That’s where Chase Knopf comes in — because with him, the narrative practically writes itself. His name is a two‑for‑one special in nominative determinism, the theory that people drift toward the work their names predict. In Knopf’s case, the universe didn’t drift. It sprinted.
Start with Chase — a verb, a command, a mission statement. In swimming, everything is a chase: chasing the guy in the next lane, chasing the clock, chasing the perfect turn, chasing the oxygen you’re not getting because you’re trying to break someone’s will by holding your breath longer.
Knopf does all of that with a kind of cheerful inevitability. He has a record nine career individual regional titles, a regional record, school records and backstroke times that would embarrass many freestylers. He has won the 100-yard freestyle, the 500 free, the 200 backstroke, the 400 individual medley, and then hopped on a relay and dropped a 20‑point leadoff split like it’s a warm‑up.
“I built that versatility with the Northern Kentucky Clippers club team. I’ve been there for 10 years,” Knopf said. “It’s probably the most impactful thing I’ve done in my life.”
But the last name is where the story becomes almost too on‑the‑nose.
Knopf (ka-NOFF), in German, means button or knob — the literal hardware of engineering. Buttons, knobs, switches, dials and control systems. These are things future engineers spend their lives designing, optimizing, and occasionally taking apart just to see how they work. And Knopf, naturally, wants to be an engineer.
The kid who pushes buttons in the pool wants to build the buttons outside of it.
“That is wild,” he said. “I don’t really swim to chase records; I do it because it’s fun. But yeah, there’s a lot of chasing going on in swimming. I did know about Knopf meaning buttons in German. But I didn’t quite make the connection about buttons and engineering, but that’s totally right.”
It’s a perfect double-barreled aptonym: the swimmer named Chase who chases everything and gets chased, and the future engineer named Knopf who’s headed into a field built on buttons, knobs and switches.
Chase Knopf’s name is destiny. He’s a walking, swimming, academically‑inclined case study in nominative determinism. He’s only getting started, though he had a beginning.
“We named him Chase because we liked the name. So, there’s not really a big story behind it,” said his father, Scott Knopf. “But it’s interesting how it turned out.”
What turned out was one of the area’s most versatile swimmers ever — and a cosmically coincidental name that proved to be true.
“He anchors a lot of relays. When you think about it, he does have to chase people down,” said his father. “When he’s done that, sometimes I want to say, ‘Way to chase ’em down.’ But I’ve had to stop myself because I don’t want to be accidentally using my son’s name as a pun.”
Local followers will be using Knopf’s name as a standard-bearing example of swimming excellence.
“I’ve coached 13 years in northern Kentucky and have been involved with swimming and diving now for most of my life here,” coach Floyd said. “I will tell you without hesitation that Chase Knopf is the best boy swimmer I’ve coached. Louisville is getting a great one.”
Knopf loves the praise while keeping it all in perspective.
“The records are great because they give me confidence, but I’m doing it because I love the sport,” he said. “Swimming has brought me a lot of joy.”