‘I’m Going to Call Michael Phelps Very Quickly’

New USA Swimming CEO Kevin Ring: ‘I’m Going to Call Michael Phelps Very Quickly’

A typical thread within the skilled expertise of recent USA Swimming CEO Kevin Ring, whose hiring was introduced Thursday, is managing relationships.

The function he fills atop USA Swimming has seen a rupture within the hyperlink between the group and a few of its most high-profile Olympians, none larger and extra public about it than Michael Phelps. Ring is out to vary that.

In an interview with Swimming World upon taking the job Thursday, Ring mentioned he’s making outreach to Phelps and connection to alumni particularly a precedence.

“I’m going to call Michael very quickly here,” Ring mentioned Thursday. “I’m going to reach out to him. I want to hear more about them (his experiences). I think a lot of this for me is going to be looking forward.”

During the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, a number of alumni had been extremely essential of the state of USA Swimming, by way of performances within the pool and the truth that the group had been with out a CEO since August 2024. Phelps, Rowdy Gaines and Ryan Lochte had been amongst these most vocal. Phelps expounded on that criticism after the meet, mentioning that his efforts to achieve out to the group had been repeatedly rebuffed.

Ring singaled that stance will change once he takes the office on Sept. 17. Two components are in his favor. First, he’s an outsider to swimming. He enters the job with few pre-conceived notions and can solicit the experience of stakeholders in and across the group. Of them, the 28-time Olympic medalist is tough to beat.

Second, Ring has an extended observe document of managing private and company partnerships, from 12 years at IMG Consulting to a decade at PGA of America as its company partnerships supervisor. As he seeks to mesh his enterprise abilities with the swimming-specific wants of the group, this would appear a fairly clear are by which to deploy that aptitude.

Ring will get the good thing about a recent begin. He mentioned he was struck by the eagerness of Gaines and Phelps and their need to enhance situations of the subsequent generations of athletes. (With Phelps, there’s a commonality of their shared ardour for golf, with Ring having met Phelps briefly at a Ryder Cup match up to now, although they don’t have an present bond.)

“I think alumni have so much to add here,” Ring mentioned. “I believed what Michael wrote was actually one thing that must be taken to coronary heart. I believe it’d be silly for me to not. So I’m wanting ahead to having a dialog with him, listening to from him, hopefully we discuss in some unspecified time in the future right here quickly, but it surely’s going to be at his timeline. I need to understand how he desires to be a part of this, in what he can lend to it, or if he simply desires to be an ear and be heard.

“Whatever Michael wants to do is something that I think would be foolish of me not to listen to. And for me, it’s all looking forward. It’s going to be a conversation with him, and it’s a conversation with other of the prominent alumni to see what can happen and how we start anew, turn the page and work together to have the best success for USA Swimming.”