BLOOMINGTON— Lilly King is the queen of Indiana swimming as she heads to her third Olympics as someone who has won two gold medals, two silver medals and a bronze medal already.

And just recently, as she qualified for the Paris Summer Games at the U.S. Trials in Lucas Oil Stadium, she became a darling of live television through her exuberant marriage proposal acceptance from boyfriend James Wells while dripping wet.

He said, Will you? She said, Yes. And everyone else oohed and ahhed and now we all want to know if King is going to get married on live television.

 

Freedman

When issued that question recently back on campus at IU, King said they hadn’t planned that far ahead yet. But she did say the handy aspect of James’ stealth proposal being broadcast was that she didn’t have to call anyone and ask, Hey, guess what’s new?

“It was great. Everyone I know was there,” King said.

That doesn’t mean we’re all invited. However, the world is invited to her planned career finales in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke races in France.

After that, the native of Evansville, who is as much of a Hoosier as the movie “Hoosiers,” and who competed for Indiana in college, winning numerous championships in the Big Ten and NCAAs, and has done her post-graduate swim work in Bloomington, is calling it a wrap.

This was under the coaching auspices of Ray Looze, IU’s Hall of Fame coach who is coaching Team Lithuania in these upcoming Olympics. He believes King has had a vast influence on younger swimmers across the state, and even across the world with her success and longevity.

King, Looze said, has helped make U.S. swimming “a brand” with her ability to make little girls and boys “want to be like her. It’s been huge.”

Looze called her a big sister, of sorts, too, to younger IU and American swimmers, whom she helps with advice and as a role model with her workouts and stature. King semi-deflected that praise, though.

“As much as they I helped them, they helped me,” King said.

That is gracious response to a compliment, and maybe it is even so since King is 27 years old, reasonably advanced by high-level swimming standards. Blake Pieroni, 28, a contemporary on IU’s swim team and now on a third Olympic team, said one aspect of King’s approach always impressed him.

“Lilly has always been ready to go,” said Pieroni, meaning big race or small race. “She is always ready to go.”

Pieroni was born in Crown Point, raised in Chesterton, swam for IU, and retired from swimming two years ago after winning three gold medals. He is somewhat amazed he is going to Paris without buying a ticket, even if as just a relay back-up. The goal of his comeback was solely to get in good enough shape to be welcome at the trials in Lucas Oil.

The adaptation of the Indianapolis Colts’ home football stadium into a swimming venue attracted him early, but how successful an experiment it was, is the talk of USA Swimming, Looze said. Some 285,000 fans turned out and stamped Indiana as a cornerstone of the sport in this country.

“I thought it was so cool,” Pieroni said. “I really want the sport to continue to grow.”

During the previous Olympic cycle, headed into Tokyo, the Games were delayed from 2020 to 2021 because of COVID-19, Indiana’s Olympic aspirants were shut out of a place to train. Seymour offered use of the outdoor Shields Park Pool.

Given they were coming off practice sessions in a pond’s gnarly water, the swimmers were grateful. Pieroni says the pond was the worst place he has ever trained. Not so, King.

King said her worst swim venue was the pool in Evansville where she grew up. Several high schools worked out simultaneously there. Since then, the community has razed the old place and built a new Aquatics Center with the competition pool named after King.

Some of those little girls and boys who admire King may get their own starts for big things in that pool.

They also better not blink this summer, or miss their last chance to watch King in an Olympics. Her first Games was 2016 in Rio, so long ago, she said, she barely recalls that Olympic experience. She remembers Tokyo for its weirdness with the odd-year scheduling and a ban on spectators.

Paris will definitely be the end.

“I’m good,” King said. “I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to do in this sport. I’m content with what I’ve done in the sport.”

Maybe what comes next will be Lilly and James in reality TV as “The Wedding Planners.”