March 24, 2000: Ryk Neethling wins his ninth NCAA Championship
Since he left Tucson 13 years ago, Ryk Neethling married Miss Universe 2012, has been on the cover of BMW International Polo magazine, earned a fortune selling wine and real estate in wine country and won a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
I met him at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics after he finished fifth in the 1,500 finals. At 18, he was probably the most hotly recruited athlete on campus — and if not him, his former girlfriend, Olympic gold medalist Amanda Beard. I asked why he chose to attend Arizona.
“I’ve never been to Tucson but I’ll be there in two weeks,” he said. “My father went to Tucson to check everything out. He told me it is a wonderful place.”
Over the next seven years, Neethling would live A Wonderful Life in Tucson.
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Our interview that night in Atlanta was interrupted by a TV news crew from France. I watched as Neethling spoke fluent French to the TV people, and, moments later, spoke in his native South African to a crew from Cape Town.
I had no idea that the son of a Bloemfontein, South Africa, real estate executive was an internationally known athlete. I knew his name only from a brief news release in which the UA listed Neethling among its Class of 1996 swimming recruits.
Why Tucson, of all places?
“Coach Frank Busch is the best long-distance coach in the world,” Neethling said. “He has a great reputation, and so does (UA assistant) Rick DeMont. There was no other choice to be made.”
By the time Neethling swam his last stroke as an Arizona Wildcat, he had become the most accomplished swimmer in school history, and one of the most successful athletes, any sport, in university history.
He won nine NCAA swimming championships. Only Olympic gold medalists Pablo Morales of Stanford and John Nabors of USC had won more. In 1999, Neethling was named the NCAA Swimmer of the Year.
And yet in Tucson, a basketball town, Neethling was virtually incognito outside the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center.
He rode a bike from place to place on campus, virtually unknown, no trace of celebrity. He was a regular at McKale Center, one of UA’s most attached basketball fans. (He vaulted over press row, over my laptop, when Arizona stunned No. 1 Stanford in 2000, the only known court-storming in the last 30 years of UA home basketball.)
After Neethling won his ninth NCAA championship, I asked what he would remember most about his Wildcat days.
He said it was beating Stanford at the Pac-10 finals. Nothing about the Olympics, or the silver medal in the World Commonwealth Games or being the NCAA Swimmer of the Year.
“It was such an accomplishment for our program,” he said. “When I came here we qualified just four swimmers for the NCAA tournament, and dominant teams like Stanford just killed us every year. It was so fulfilling to turn that around.”
He was more known in Australia, a stronghold of swimming interest, than in Tucson.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Neethling was painted as the Big Bad Villain by the Australian press. He was the opponent most feared as the Aussies planned to finish 1-2 in the 1,500 meter finals behind stars Grant Hackett and Kieren Perkins.
“Neethling is the most hated man on the continent,” Hackett said the day before 17,000 people squeezed into the 1,500 finals at the Sydney Aquatic Center.
Neethling swam the fastest 1,500 of his life that afternoon — 15 minutes and 0.48 seconds — and was a heartbreaking fourth. It wasn’t until the 2004 Athens Olympics that he broke through and won a gold medal in the 4x100 relay with two All-Americans he helped to recruit to Arizona, Roland Schoeman and Darian Townsend.
Where are they now? Neethling lives in his native South Africa, married to actress Sahar Biniaz, who was Miss Universe Canada, 2012. On their first date, they flew to Dubai to watch Prince Harry play polo. Among other business pursuits, he is director of marketing at the Val de Vie estate and resort, South Africa’s equivalent of Napa Valley.
How he did it: Neethling was probably the most versatile swimmer in the NCAA over the last 25 years. He won national titles in sprints (200 freestyle) and distance events (1,650 freestyle).
“I can’t describe how coming to the UA changed my life,” he said in a 2000 interview. “The Aussies can break all the world records they want while I’m in college, but they’ll never experience what I’ve experienced. To be a student, to be on this team, is my best choice.”
