Ryan Lochte’s life appears to have taken a different turn in a parking lot somewhere in Gainesville, Florida. That’s where the story of his transition into college coaching actually started, according to reports from earlier this month. A former Olympic legend agreed to take an assistant coaching position at Missouri State for thirty-four dollars an hour after having a casual conversation and making a connection. When compared to twelve Olympic medals and a career that once brought in over a million dollars annually from endorsements, it’s a startling figure. But you have to go back to the University of Florida to understand how Lochte got here.
In 2003, Lochte, a young Port Orange resident who had won state titles in the 200 and 500 freestyle at Spruce Creek High School but had not yet fully committed to what his body was capable of, enrolled at Florida. The entire narrative has a sort of inherited momentum because Ryan’s father relocated the family from upstate New York to Florida when he was twelve years old in order to coach swimming. The son was carried along by his father’s beliefs before he fully developed his own. Lochte later claimed that by junior high, he was still spending more time in practice than working. Something seemed to come into focus after he lost at the Junior Olympics when he was fourteen. He claimed he just made the decision that he was tired of losing.
That mindset found a structure worthy of it while swimming for Gregg Troy at the University of Florida. Lochte transformed untapped talent into something historic at the O’Connell Center natatorium on the Gainesville campus. During his four years there, he won seven NCAA and SEC titles, was named NCAA Swimmer of the Year twice, and was a 24-time All-American. In just his senior year, 2006, he broke long-standing records and won national titles in all three of his individual events at the NCAA Championships, producing one of the most dominant individual performances in collegiate swimming history. He received his degree in sport management in 2007.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider that degree. management of sports. It implies someone who was considering swimming as a system rather than merely a physical activity even back then. It’s difficult to say whether that actually happened in practice, but Lochte always seemed to have a deeper understanding of the sport than the majority of his contemporaries. His areas of expertise were the individual medley and backstroke, which require a different kind of intelligence than straight freestyle because they call for judgement regarding energy distribution, pacing, and transitions across several disciplines. He had a remarkable ability to read a race.
By all accounts, he had an incredible international career after his time at Florida. While still a freshman in college, he qualified for his first Olympics in 2004, where he won silver in the individual medley and gold in the relay. He was the second most decorated male Olympic swimmer in history, only surpassed by Michael Phelps, by the time his competitive career reached its zenith in 2011 and 2012. For years, the two remained constant in each other’s lives, serving as training partners, rivals, and foils in a rivalry that the swimming community needed despite its inability to define it precisely.
A different story emerged in the years following 2016. Much of what he had developed commercially was taken away by the Rio incident, which included the inflated robbery claim at a gas station, the suspension that followed, and the loss of four significant sponsorships. After years of earning seven figures, he told Alex Rodriguez in 2019 that he had about twenty thousand dollars remaining in savings. He sold his home. Nine of his twelve Olympic medals were sold; most recently, he sold three gold relay medals at auction in January for almost $400,000. The weight of that is difficult to ignore: a man selling tangible evidence of his greatest accomplishments in order to continue on.
Moving forward, it seems, entails a conversation in a Florida parking lot and an assistant coaching position at Missouri State. Perhaps that’s exactly where he belongs—someone who taught the next generation of swimmers to detest losing at the age of fourteen. He received the foundation from the University of Florida. It’s still unclear what he does with it after this.
