Inside Caeleb Dressel’s Talk with Gold Medal Mel Stewart

Gold Medal Mel Stewart contributed to this report.

Ten-time Olympic Medalist Caeleb Dressel sat down for an interview with our own Mel Stewart to talk about a plethora of topics; including his decision to leave Gainesville, the new NCAA Format, and his thoughts on the Enhanced Games and more.

This report will detail some of his key comments, talking points and where in the video you can find them.

Here is the full interview with Dressel:

Dressel on the accidental cryptic Instagram announcement and moving on from UF; “I will always be number one fan of the program”

(4:50-6:26)

“I meant everything I said in that in that post. I will always be a number one fan of that program. I would do anything to see them win a national title. I still want to be involved. I want to know the names of the freshman. I want to know what’s going on. I want to stop in for dual meets when I can. And I couldn’t have asked for a better 3 years with [Anthony] Nesty and the whole staff. And that’s what made that meeting so hard was it was nothing. They did nothing wrong. Far from it. They went above and beyond for what I was asking of them of being out of the water a year and coming back. And hey, I’d like to make an Olympic team. That’s not, I know there’s a lot of pressure that comes, you know, with being coached or coaching myself just because of the results and success I’ve had. I know that puts pressure on all the coaches I’ve worked with. So, that was a really tough meeting because they didn’t do anything wrong. And like I said, they were exactly what I needed in 2023 getting back in the water. Nesty and the whole staff put me on an Olympic team, how patient Nesty was with me, how caring, checking in, always in conversation with my therapist. Like, I mean, truly, I felt like a son with how he cared for me. So, all that being said, I just needed something truly different at age 29 with two kids and I didn’t see the college program exactly fitting that. And I’ve done it. I’ve done the UF program for 10 years and had great success. And that’s why I’ll always be number one fan of the program.”

Dressel on his next step; “I’m not ready to be done, I love the water too much.”

(13:03-13:48)

“I’m not ready to be done. and I love the water too much. And kind of the biggest thing after Paris was I don’t want to let my demons in the sport override how much I love the sport and that be the reason that I end my career early. I don’t think that’s fair to swimming, the sport in general. And I don’t think it’s fair to myself. I love it too much to let the bad parts just take control. So, still working on getting a handle of the bad parts, the baggage. But the water’s always been there, the water’s always been kind to me. It always will be. And I don’t ever want that ever want that to change. So yeah, I mean I’m still putting in still, putting in a lot of work, but right now it’s just, it’s new. It’s fun. I’m sure there’ll be some hiccups along the way, but I’m game for it. And right now  I’m very excited for the future.”

Dressel on his balance of swimming and family; “I did not have balance. It was I was married to swimming”

(16:00-17:00)

“I did not have balance. It was I was married to swimming. And that’s not fair to Meghan. But there is a way and it takes time and effort and adaptability to find out what does that balance look like because and it could change in 3 weeks. You know, I’ve been doing my schedule here with Steve and if Meghan were to have come to me and said, “This is not working.” Then we go back to the drawing board. This is no longer me just in a house with my two best friends leading up to Tokyo. So there’s  certainly some challenges with it. And obviously I wouldn’t change anything and there’s a way to do it where I can still be competitive and I can still swim fast and this might end up being even better idea because now I have when I get home it’s that much sweeter, you know, getting through the door and hearing that. I mean, I absolutely  live for that. But like I said, there’s some sacrifices that come with that and it’s 100% worth doing for my family because their happiness and how comfortable they are in life is way above my happiness and my comfort level. I’m happy and I’m comfortable, but theirs goes way above mine.”

Dressel spoke on own athletic ability; “I hit 610”

(28:43-29:50)

“Okay, so I’ll go on the recrod because I think I’ve just been dodging this question. It’s not 42 [inch vertical jump]. It just kept going up an inch per year. My actual vert is 40 [inches]… from a standstill”

(35:46-36:06)

“When it was just me in the gym, I was an absolute meathead… I hit 610 [on deadlift]”

Dressel’s thoughts on the Enhanced Games/Money; “I do think it will fizzle out… the issue is quality of life”

(48:55- 50:12)  

“So, I keep an open mind about everything. This is one of those things where I do think it will fizzle out, I know there’s been a lot of like if you go to their Instagram page, whatever, like the more attention they get, the bigger they grow. I understand like their page, you know, putting this stuff out fastest in the world. But I mean, technically they are. They’re doped up. I think the bigger issue at hand is you have people willing to sacrifice their whole reputation, their whole swim career because they weren’t getting paid enough within the sport. This is one of the most popular sports in the entire world. And you have whether it’s people at USA Swimming, whether it’s people at WADA. If they just say, “If you break a world record, here’s a million bucks.” I don’t think you’d have nearly as many people going over willing to do the Enhanced Games or if you make a top eight at the Olympics, you get more money. The issue is quality of life.”

(50:12-51:10)

“I [have] much respect for Ben [Proud], like he’s been great. I’ve been competing with him since 2017. I think his biggest thing from what I saw was it’s about the money. It’s not like he wants to do this. It’s not like he wants to take drugs, but that’s such an enticing thing for a sport where you can’t live you can’t live off of being top, I mean Ben was top three in the world consistently. So it’s like it takes not even one gold medal, multiple consistency to make a living in this sport. So that should be the bigger issue at hand. It’s not what Enhanced Games are doing. They can do whatever they want. People can sign up for it. It’s that people are willing to put their sacrifice their whole reputation of what they’ve built up in the sport because they couldn’t have a comfortable life whether it’s their governing body or world aquatics. Yeah. Like you should have a comfortable life if you’re consistently top three in the world.”

(51:22-51:44)

“Like I mean, I’m never going to do it, but I mean it’s a cool concept, I guess. I don’t want to call it cool, but like well, let’s see how fast these guys can really swim. It’s more funny to me. But the bigger thing at hand is I feel like World Aquatics and USA swimming and all the governing bodies should see the bigger picture here and be like people are willing to do this. That’s the bigger problem.”

Dressel on the new NCAA Championships format with no B final; “I’m all for losing the B finals…”

(1:17:16-1:17:27)

“I’m all for losing the B finals to be honest. Yeah, it’s here, here is the top eight fastest guys in the country. Have them go race. Now, who’s the fastest in the country? Those teams get their points.”

Dressel’s thought on new standard of automatic qualification for conference champions; “That’s going to last a year”

(1:19:22-1:19:33)

“I mean, that’s going to last a year and guys are going to be showing up that are going to be 20 seconds behind in the 500. Oh, I really don’t like that one.”

(1:20:03-1:20:21)

“I don’t want to get myself in hot water because it’s like well if it could help out the teams and the team doesn’t have to go under then yeah but do you really think the administration is going to be like hey we sent a guy to NCAA’s oh we’ll keep but he got the last place like yeah I don’t, I don’t like that one, I don’t like it.”

(1:23:42-1:23:52)

“That’s not going to last. That’s not going to last because then you’re going to have rosters that are super deep and guys are just going to be getting left off because some guy got… I don’t like it.”