Ryan Lochte sold nine of his twelve Olympic medals by 2026. Not because he was facing financial difficulties or disillusionment with the sport that made him. It was more because they had simply stopped meaning anything to him, a move that baffled observers who saw medals as sacred. Yet, it made perfect sense to Lochte, who is set to rekindle a lost fire. Now at 41, he’s channelling his energy into the next chapter of his career.

A press release from Missouri State University confirmed the news and verified rumors about Ryan Lochte joining their team. The Olympic medalist will join the school’s swimming team as an assistant head coach. It has the 41-year-old excited for the role, and he even detailed part of his coaching plan for the swimmers.

“The little things that I’ve done to help perfect my underwater, to help perfect, like, my strokes, my mechanics,” Lochte said in an interview on X. “Like, me staying late after practice and working on little things, like I’m gonna implement this into workout for these kids to understand the movement of kicking underwater, like the drills that I’ve done.”

Lochte swam from age five but didn’t commit until fourteen, when losing drove him to train seriously. Lochte soon became one of the greatest swimmers of all time and the third most-decorated in history.

Only the iconic Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky have earned more than Lochte’s 80 career medals, 54 of which are gold. That tally includes 12 Olympic medals, with six gold, three silver, and three bronze. Yet after he failed to qualify for the 2021 Olympics, everything changed. So much so that Lochte even admitted that he “lost all the fire in me.”

“Do I have some tax debt? Yes, but I did it because I don’t need them. And I’ve done the hard work. I cherish those memories, and if I got money from it, great!” revealed Lochte as he prepares to turn the page on his career as an Olympian and transitions into a trainer.

But the fire is back—redirected toward coaching. That’s because, despite being a swimmer of his calibre, Ryan Lochte is not coaching for money. The 41-year-old will reportedly earn only around $30,000 per year at Missouri State. He does have bonuses which are based on various stipulations, but even those max out at $750.

The move yet again surprised fans, especially given that most Olympians rarely accept lower-paying university roles after their retirement. However, for Lochte, the move wasn’t about money but about how he could use his knowledge to help others.

“I could help out so many people because I busted my ass and I worked my way up to the top, and I fell off the top, and I got right back up and kept going. So, like, I’m gonna help out so many kids in the aspect of training, reaching the top, reaching your goals, falling short, and keep moving forward. And this is just gonna be, this is gonna be fun.”

That philosophy was forged in crisis. In fact, Ryan Lochte believes much of it was shaped by one moment that completely altered the course of his life.

Ryan Lochte reflects on the incident that changed his life

While he felt lost after the 2021 Olympic trials, the 2016 Rio Olympics started that downfall. Ryan Lochte did make the team and even won gold in the 4x200m freestyle relays, but that wasn’t what caught the spotlight. Instead, it was a scandal involving Lochte and teammates Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, and Jimmy Feigen. The swimmers claimed armed robbers held them at gunpoint, but they had actually vandalized a gas station bathroom.

While they paid security for the damages, the authorities in Brazil didn’t take the false accusations kindly. The world also reacted negatively, as Lochte faced a 10-month suspension and lost major sponsorships. That includes Ralph Lauren and Speedo, leading the Olympian to lose more than $2 million a year. For Lochte, that was what he now calls his “biggest wake-up call.”

“It was the biggest fall that I’ve ever had, and I fell into a black hole, and I couldn’t get out,” Lochte revealed, according to the New York Post. “And I tried to climb out, and then once I got out, I got knocked back down…It happened multiple times after 2016.

“No one ever taught me what happens when you become famous or when you get all this money,” he added, “No one ever told me about financial literacy. No one ever told me about ever when you’re on top of the mountain, and you fall down, how to get back up. No one ever taught me that.

However, now that he knows better, Lochte plans to draw on his experience when coaching at Missouri State.

“But now I did it. I guess I was the guinea pig for myself, and now I can honestly change people’s lives. I can help them, make them reach their dreams, their goals that I once had when I was a little kid, and I could help them get there,” he added.

Now, Ryan Lochte hopes the mistakes that once derailed his life can become tools to help the next generation avoid the same path. More importantly, coaching at Missouri State appears to have given him something far more valuable: a sense of purpose again.