Coleman Hodges contributed to this report.
In the latest chapter of choppy water in college swimming, former Indiana swimmer Matt King posted a screenshot of an interesting text message to his Instagram story, one that mentions King’s name directly as having regressed since joining Indiana.
That message, sent from a ‘Matt at Michigan’. roughly states that Michigan “develops athletes better than any other team in the country, that’s fact,” followed by King’s mention, saying that Indiana has King though he has “gone backwards” since being there (specifically mentioning his long-course progression).
SwimSwam cannot confirm or deny who actually sent the message and/or when it was sent.
SwimSwam’s Coleman Hodges and Terin Frodyma sat down to talk about this potentially new “drama” that could come to the forefront in college swimming, and how it may actually have a positive impact on the sport. The video can be watched here:
King recently finished one of his best long course meets in recent memory at the Bergen Swim Festival in Norway; There, he swam a new career best in the 100 free (47.77) and touching just two hundredths off of his best 50 free time (21.72), winning both, in a way, negating the claims of the message that King posted to his Instagram story.
The video discusses how this sort of message may be a new trend between coaches and athletes, which could really stir the pot in the world of college swimming.
In the ever-changing world of college sports, one thing that never changes is the inherent drama, and in the world of swimming, it may have finally arrived and could bring outside eyes to the sport.
As mentioned in the video, this could be the new “drama” that brings much-wanted external viewers to college swimming, and may be the first domino to fall in many similar situations for collegiate swimmers nationwide.
Could this be the fire needed to give college swimming a new edge? What does this mean for college recruiting from now on, and what could develop further from this?
Brady Campbell just got exposed lmao (shout out my homegirl)
Dana Fairbanks
Our homegirl
Love the drama!
But after this move by Matt King I wouldn’t ever trust a message or any other thing with him.
King didn’t post his own messages, it was some recruit who sent it to him.
I’m here for all of it. It’s always been this way. Thanks to this site we can kvetch and kvell about it!
Headline should be:
“British bloke slags King”
😅💀🙈
This is very interesting I wonder what BC thinks about this
Who’s BC?
The Matt King flak is ridiculous. What more does he need to prove? He made an Olympic team as a relay swimmer, was 3rd at Olympic Trials in the 50 by 1/100th. He swept the 50/100 at WUGs in 2025. He’s throwing down when it counts and has a serious shot at making more international teams in the future.
Somehow people get it in their head that one needs to be attached to a trendy “Sprint Program” to see improvement, regardless of whether it’s the right culture fit, training modality, or coaching relationship. Matt’s always been a young man that makes shrewd training choices to advance his career. He was that way in high school. He was that way… Read more »
But how about that scoreboard at the Bergen meet. Let’s talk about that. Behind the lane with full photo, split, place, split breakdown. Come on!
Matt Bowe should be focused on keeping his kids on the team he’s already got. Mladenovic to Texas
I get the sentiment but that definitely wasn’t a Michigan problem lol. Mladenovic had a great year and left to chase a bag at like one of the 4 schools that pay athletes right now
yeah but when your coach is like that I would want to leave… its not all about performance
that’s very black and white of you