Olympic champ and University of Texas standout Joseph Schooling says he tore his bicep twice the fall after the Rio Olympics and wishes he would have red-shirted (an NCAA term for sitting out a season) his junior year of college. The comments came on coach Sergio Lopez‘s podcast.
Lopez coached Schooling in high school when both were part of the Bolles School program in Florida. Schooling graduated and moved to the University of Texas, where he won four individual NCAA titles. Representing Singapore at the 2016 Olympics, Schooling won gold.
But he says the months after Rio were injury-riddled, and he regrets not sitting out a year to recover. Schooling struggled in both his junior and senior year of college after sweeping NCAA 100 & 200 fly titles over his first two seasons.
“Looking back, if I could change one thing, without a doubt, I would have red-shirted my junior year of university,” Schooling says on the podcast. “I should have taken that year off.
“[Texas coach] Eddie [Reese] was pushing me to come back. I tore my bicep twice during the first semester, missed the invite meet, couldn’t qualify for NCAAs and found myself backpedaling for the next year and a half or two years.”
Lopez eventually left Bolles to head Singapore’s National Team, but has since moved back to the U.S. and taken over the college program at Virginia Tech. A few months ago, Schooling reunited with Lopez at Virginia Tech, with plans to train through the Tokyo Olympics.
I find it a bit troubling to read “Eddie… was pushing me to come back…” Has anyone confirmed this with Eddie Reese??? To simply let this statement stand without confirmation seems irresponsible….
Oh the young Asian guy isn’t allowed to have a perception of what he was pushed to do without permission of the old white man?
The cult of Eddie is getting a little old.
What do you think Eddie is going to say? “Yeah, I knew he was hurt, but we wanted to win an NCAA title.”
Ageism much?
One possibility is that he meant Eddie was pushing him to come back for Schooling’s sake — his post-Olympic doldrums. Rather than Eddie was pushing him to come back from his biceps injury, which undoubtedly happened from him flexing in the mirror too much, shouting “I’m Joe Schooling, dammit!” (like Eddie Murphy as Gumby).
Not defending my guy Joe. But to mess with people that hate on my dude. It was amazing to see what he did 4 years ago. He still got an Olympic gold and got millions of dollars out of it. Got one question…. If he represented America instead of Singapore, would he get as much negative criticism????
See Missy Franklin. People always gave her the benefit of the doubt and pulled for a comeback but eventually it got old
I remember a decent amount of trashing for Franklin too, especially when she didn’t make finals in the 200 free or 200 back in Rio. People saying she didn’t deserve those spots and things like that
Let’s see that sub 50 next year then…
We can say all the trash talk we want … but homie has an Olympic gold medal and nobody can take that away from him. I agree the excuses are getting old and he can’t move on but a gold medal is a gold medal .
No kidding. I watched that “Return to Rio” series a few weeks ago. After Schooling’s race it was impossible not to laugh at all the comments here.
Dang! Schooling is getting torched in the comments. While some other swimmers seem to get frequent passes.
But every elite swimmer is a drug cheat, thats the only way they can be this fast!!! AMIRITE???????
Probably.
He has a bad habit of making excuses that deny credit to the people who just flat out beat him. Drug cheats deny credit to the people who could beat them. The classic was the interview with Conger and him when instead of talking about Conger’s new NCAA record, he talked about his tummy ache. Truth is, Dressel broke him in that NCAA 100 fly race when he was behind at the 50 and no-breathed the last 25. Schooling was never the same.
Well then. How can he explain a best 100 fly time at 2017 NCAA’s?
So he thought the excuse he made up about having the runs during the 2017 NCAA meet after he got put in his place by Dressel wasn’t good enough so now he’s coming out with this LOL stop it Joe… also him adding in that bit about Eddie “pushing” him to come back, regardless of if it’s true or not, just reflects poorly on his character. It’s just unnecessary to include, but then again, this whole excuse was unnecessary.
Eddie pushing him to come back has nothing to do with an injury unless Eddie knew he was injured.
Injuries happen.