David Johnston's 3 Reasons Why He Transferred to Florida

Welcome to this swim swim podcast. I'm today's host Coleman Hodges and joining us today. He's an

NCAA champion for the University of Texas, but big news is he is transferring to the University

of Florida for a grad year and to train with their storied distance freestyle program.

Today we are sitting down with David Johnson. David, thanks so much for joining us. How's it going?

Great. Thanks for having me, Coleman. Excited to discuss this.

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Book your demo today at CommitSwimming.com. It's been a big year for you. Let's talk about

the news I just mentioned. You're transferring to Florida. You're going to go train with some

very heavy hitters there in the distance for you world. You know, among them, obviously Katie

Ledecki, Bobby Fink, Medjewati, the new NCAA record holder in the 1650 as well as his

Tunisian teammate, Ahmed Hafnawi. But can you tell me just a little bit about what went into

this decision for you and ultimately what made Florida the right fit for, you know, 2026,

the college year of 2027, and what I'm assuming will be shooting for LA 2028 as well.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so this was definitely a move that will be able to set me up for LA 2028.

So, you know, typically when people ask me why I chose Florida, I can give them three reasons

as to why that was the case. I think first I wanted to choose a program that could help me,

could help work with me through my injury. You know, I wanted a program that I think I trusted

the training staff and could have good communication with the coaches. And based on, you know,

the calls I had with the coaches, the training staff and other athletes on the team,

I felt like this was the right fit in terms of a program that can help me get back to where I was

and help me get back to going best times because with where I am right now in my injury process,

like it's not going to be easy to come back. I need these people in my corner to be able to help me.

And so I wanted to choose a program that I think could help me help nurse me back to full strength.

And second of all, I wanted to go to a program that could help me out financially.

I think that I've never really had an opportunity to make an aisle money at Texas. And so I wanted to

use this opportunity through my last year of eligibility to seek that out. And I think just

heading into the Olympics, it'll be nice to, you know, now be working a job next year and go

for a second graduate degree and just swim, you know, swim for the team and, you know, be fully

funded with that. So it's just a huge plus because typically in swimming, there's not too many

opportunities to get funding unless you're making international teams or kind of top two in your

event, the country, which I have been in the last couple years. I've made money in the last couple

years, but which is the way that this summer could shake out with kind of my lack of training through

this injury. It'll be hard for me to qualify for that. So having this in my back corner is huge.

And I honestly think that was probably the biggest, one of the biggest reasons why I chose Florida.

And then third of all, I just wanted to be a part of a team that I think could give me more

individualized training towards that distance freestyle. You know, I think part of the reason

the last two years didn't go or the last year didn't go the way I wanted wasn't necessarily the

coaching staff of Texas or anything that I think they have a great team, but I think that I just

need to be healthy. And once I am healthy, I want to train into a program that is able to give

me more individualized training towards that distance. So I think there's not really a better

program to join than coach Nasty and the Gators with the amount of distance summers they have,

the amount of people that can push me. And you know, I'm going into a team with, you know,

three plus really fast, more class distance summers, not only plenty of other people on the team

to push me as well, but I have always thrived from going into environments so people faster than me

and trying to chase them. Like when I was 18, I made the decision to come to Texas. And I remember

talking to my parents about that. And they were like, you could be like a big fish in a small

pond and go to, you know, Auburn or A&M where you could go to UT and you'll be one of those guys.

And I was like, no, I'm going to go be a big fish in a big pond. And this isn't even bigger fish,

this isn't even bigger pond than I've been in. But I want to go there and try to chase down

those guys every day until I can become like them. You know, I see those guys as much better

summers than me. They've accomplished a lot more, but I'm going to go in there with some humility and

make them work for every rep that I'm in practice. When I'm healthy and I'm going to go chase them

down until I become them. So that's why I think Florida is a good fit for me. Yeah, that you've laid

it out very clearly and makes sense. I mean, I think in this day and age, like you said, NIL

money is out there. There are lots of opportunities and we see a lot more movement and I think

movement that's motivated by that because if there are opportunities for swimmers to

make money doing this and I don't want to say make a living necessarily, but

be get funding to do what they do year to year. Why not take those opportunities? I think

I think we've talked a lot about it in swimming and I think it's cool to see those to see people

get those opportunities when they're available. I do think that was a really big part of my

decision because I felt like after all this time, I'd put into swimming. I didn't want to start

working eight hours a day and try to handle training 70k a week. So I need to be funded and then

I think it's, you know, I never wanted to be in college swimming at this point, but I think

just with, you know, the red shirt that I took in the injury, like I can't pass down the

opportunity to make money swimming as opposed to if I didn't, I would, I guess just make nothing

and work as I swam. So I think it's just an easier path for me to prepare for the Olympics

and, you know, the money that I can be given, I can just save that for the Olympic year so that

kind of no matter what happens in 2027, you know, the trials, I'm not as stressed out about that

and I can just go race freely because I think I can make this a little bit team and I can continue

to go best times even after everything I've went through. So it's easy when you have or easier

when you get this kind of financial stability to help you along the way because I think just the

finances have played a part in the last couple of years for me and that's just a real, a real

part of being a, you know, a professional swimmer, you know, college swimmer in your 20s is you

got to deal with the finances. So it's easier when you're, you know, in school and so being in

school, I'm going to do that. So I just, I can't say how grateful I am for this opportunity.

And I would say really, really weird situation to being in college at my age, but I'm just so

grateful for a chance to be funded and keep swimming. I appreciate you recognizing that because

obviously we have, we have commenters with opinions and we have people, you know, saying,

oh, he's still in college, but the reality is, you're, you're taking advantage of the opportunities

that are being given to you. I believe in current rules and I don't, and I don't think anyone can

fault you for that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I think I had a couple friends

contact me and say, hey, you know, like, did you, did you see what people say? Like, like, I hope you

don't listen to him, you know, I'm like, I kind of haven't read one thing from the last like

eight months. Like, I know people definitely have their opinions, but I feel like for me,

if I went and read those things, I don't think that would help me sleep at night. I don't think

that would be good for me. And so I honestly don't know exactly what they're saying, but I do know that

there will be some people that are frustrated by this decision. And what I can say is I don't think

there's going to be anything that I can say in this podcast that is going to make everyone happy,

but I can at least share with 100% honesty and perspective as to why I made this decision and why

I think it's best for my career moving forward. And so if, like, honestly, like, I could go read it

and I could go look through all the arguments and see how I could debunk or see, like, how would

make me feel, but I don't even think I'm going to spend the time to do it. I think I'm going to

just do what I think is best for me. And I think if someone's frustrated about it, I think they

definitely could have a very valid perspective. I'd like, I don't like that we have these roster

limits and calls for me now. And it's, I would hate to see somebody not be able to be a part of the

team with me being on it, but, you know, at the same time, I have to do what's best for me. So I

feel like there's not going to be, I'm not, I can't come on here in this podcast and convince

everyone that, you know, what I'm doing is good, but I cannot be share my honest perspective

behind why I think it's best for my career. And a lot of that is the finances, but the other part

of it is just that I love being a part of the team. And, you know, I think when I look back on my

swimming career, I don't think I'm going to remember as much of like what it was like to make the

Olympics or to win US trials in 2023 or I think I'll remember like what it was like to be a part

of the team. You know, one of my favorite meets in my, my career was the 2022 NCAAs. And how

to good meet, but our team lost, but I really love the feeling of being in that team battle.

You know, and that's something that I really miss. And I got to experience it again in 2025 when

we won. And I loved that like feeling of swimming for a team and being there for other people.

You know, so when I go into Florida, like, I'm going to be three to six years older than everybody

on the team. But I, at the same time, I want to come in there and try to make these people better.

And I want to try to be a good, I want to try to be a good leader on the team. I just, I'd love

swimming. I love being a part of the team. And I also want to help other people get better.

And I think through this situation in Florida, I can do that.

I appreciate hearing it. Yeah, like you said, can't please everyone. But I think as an athlete,

and certainly as an older athlete and then moving into a professional athlete, you got to, you

have to do it's best for you. And I think people, you know, if we get to see the fruits of your

labor payoff, people, people are going to thank you for that. And I think you will thank yourself as

well. Yeah, absolutely. I think like, you know, I'm not done with swimming. I feel like I've achieved

quite a lot. But I'm still not done with swimming. And I want an opportunity to be able to make

another Olympic team or do more. And I think that ultimately, if we adopt the mentality that we

want our athletes in our mid 20s who have already achieved, you know, national team status or

Olympic team status to retire or which I don't know what they're saying, but at least not compete.

Like, I mean, you can swim outside of college. But I think if we adopt that mentality, then we're

ultimately not going to grow because we need to adopt. We need to find a way to get this, you know,

sport more money. And that's a really hard thing to accomplish. And it's, I couldn't give you all

the solutions here today. But, you know, what I can say is that if you push people out of the sport,

they have a chance at making the Olympic team. Or I mean, I'm not necessarily saying that's what

they're doing. But if you make the path harder for them to do that, then it hurts our sport to grow

because part of the reason we don't like why there's not as many people competing at world

trials as there are Olympic trials or why there's why their sport is so young is because there's

just not many opportunities for people in their mid 20s to continue swimming. And so if we like

kind of adopted a mentality of like trying to spur on our athletes in their mid 20s to continue

competing, then we'd probably have a faster and more, you know, a feel a little more depth that

our trials meet. So I don't know if I explained that perfectly, but ultimately I think like I have a

chance to make the Olympic team, you know, like I'm not sure how good it is. I think it's great,

but whether it happens or not, I want to like pursue that with everything I have and considering

that I have this option to swim in college, given the injury I experienced, I'm going to take it

because I think that is what's going to prepare me best to get to that moment. And so I'm still

dreaming of those things. I still have goals to make the Olympic team go best times. And so

I'm not going to give that up and I'm going to pursue that with everything I have with the options

in front of me. So let's change gears a little bit. You've you've mentioned the injury now

quite a few times. And so let's talk about just your last year. You were at Texas,

you would plan on competing, but then you were dealing with this injury and didn't end up

racing at all for the long horns. How can you can you take me through this year and how you've

managed this injury? And I mean, I guess how it has set you back from what you wanted this year to be.

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, this has been something that I haven't really spoke

publicly about. And a lot of the reason for that is because I didn't think I was going to miss

the season or be out this long. So what happened was I strained my calf over the summer. And that,

I did a lot of pulling over the summer and I did a lot of upper bodywork and my shoulders held

up. And then when it got to August after I had swam in that knee, nerve, I and after worlds,

I kind of got back really quickly into weights because I feel like I hadn't been lifting as much

and I was doing a lot of bench press and stuff. And when I would like bring down the bench press,

my shoulder would just crack and crack and crack and then I'd lift it up. And so my shoulder was

always bothering me, my left shoulder, but I didn't really think much of it because I had shoulder

problems in the past and I was always able to get by if I just icing all the time, you know. Like I

was icing my shoulder, you know, every single day, both of them, I was doing cupping, I was doing

therapy. So I started the season and it was bothering me, but it wasn't anything abnormal that you

couldn't work through. And then it continued to bother me more and more. I went to that Alabama

meat and that was the meat. So I did the team intro squad and I did that Alabama meat and it went

pretty well. Like I mean, I was 843 in the thousand and like I was getting off to a good start in

the season, but I was kind of working through the shoulder and then it was the next week is when

things really got bad for me. It really started bothering me on the Friday after that Alabama

dual meat and I did this like I don't think this set injured me, but I think it made it harder for

me to get over the injury. I did this suitup set on that Friday afternoon when my shoulder was

bothering me and I think that really sent it over the edge and then I pretty much didn't swim

after that. So basically it was really bothering me. So I got an MRI on it the next week.

And you know, ultimately with the first MRI, you know, they said it was a rotator cuff,

supersonic strain, you know, that I could be able to heal from a couple of weeks, you know,

max a couple of months or something. So I ultimately just started kicking and I started doing a

lot of kicking with my hands on my side just thinking, okay, I'll be back in like a month or two

or even less. And so I was doing that, but it never really got a lot better. And so I got to the

point where I've been kicking for like two months, two, two and a half months and we got to the new

year and I was like, well, if I want to have a season at this point, I got to try to start swimming.

So I tried to swim for two weeks. Well, I had a couple of doctors suggest that I get a PRP

injection around the new year. I met with three different doctors that told me that I should do that.

But I was like, look, that might be what's best, but like, I don't want to give up on the season,

yet. So I'm going to see if I could make it work and then maybe do it after the NCAAs.

And I tried to swim for two weeks and I did some of the team workouts, but it just didn't work.

I mean, like, to be honest, I don't think I took one stroke that didn't hurt. And that was terrible

for me because this whole time I didn't know how long I was going to be out every time. Like,

I was like, okay, I'll be back the next one, playing back the next month, I'll go back the next

month. And then we got to a point where I was like, okay, this just isn't going to work. So I can't

swim in the college season. So once I realized that, you know, the coaches let me come up here to

Colorado Springs. So I'm still here. I've been in Colorado Springs since February 4th and I've

been rehabbing my shoulder. And so I got a PRP injection in my left shoulder on February 6th.

And I got a PRP injection in my right shoulder on February 27th. And ultimately, the official

diagnosis here was that the doctors believed that I had micro tearing in my bursa at about 25%

and then I had chronic ten-in-a-pathian tube muscles in my rotator cuff. And then the right one

was really similar. I had problems. So I'd also had problems in the right one, also due to the

kind of the overcompensation from the last couple months. So I didn't think I was going to need

to do anything on the right one. I thought I would just need a rest, but I ended up getting an

injection on that one as well because we thought it was needed, but it's just not as serious as the

left one. So now what is it? It's like mid-April. So since then, I've been at the UTC for nine and

half weeks now. So every day I rehab, I do, you know, I kick and bike as much as I can. And, you know,

still trying to come back. So I've literally missed six months of training. Like when I come back to

swimming, this is not going to be pretty. Like it's going to take time to come back, but like I didn't

tear my shoulder, fully tear my shoulder or need surgery, right? So like I had a legitimate injury

that kept me out of competing, but at the same time, like this is something that I will scientifically

come back from. And to be honest, I know this is a really, really long answer and like someone's

listening to this or probably thinking this way too long, but I think, you know, this will heal

what time and it's astounding that it hasn't healed at this point. Like you would think that it

wouldn't have taken me this long to get over in the first place. But I do think that I've done

enough kicking and biking to be in pretty good shape. But, you know, like I said, it's not going

to be pretty when I come back, but, you know, I'm still, I have two years to the Olympics in

every year until the NCAA. So I'm just going to do my best to rehab every day and come back from

this. I'm starting to turn, you know, turn a corner right now. Like overhead motions are getting

easier. Like the last therapy in the last, I would say like two to three weeks has been really,

really good. I'd swam a 500 on Wednesday of last week or maybe it was Thursday. I think it was

Thursday of last week, which is the most I'd swam. So I'm hoping that, you know, in the next

couple of weeks, a couple of months, I can get to a point where I'm, you know, training half

or full capacity. It's just going to take a little bit of time to build up. But I think now I'm

really like turning that corner where I'm about to get back to things. So, you know, it's been,

it's been a really, really hard last six months because I love swimming so much and it was really

hard for me not to swim for the Texas team this year. I think part of the reason why I tried to

continue training and not get this injection earlier was because I wanted to be there for the team.

Like I wasn't sitting here wanting to just wait around and try to see if I could swim another

year. Like I wanted to swim. I wanted to win NCAA. So I wanted to compete against, you know,

Joay and Zalon and Levi and those guys like I hated like I was on a bike watching those guys

break that record. Like I was working out as I was watching that and, you know, it was really

entertaining. But at the same time, I hated not being there and I hate not being able to swim.

But, you know, it's, I had a lot of upward progress from, you know, 17 to 22, 23 and sometimes things

happen to you and things are going to happen to everybody and a lot of times how you handle that

is going to figure out how you move forward. And I think I'm going to handle this the right way

and come back from this the right way and not let this be the end of my story.

That's, I mean, that's great to hear, David. And thank you again for just being honest and

sharing such a thorough perspective on what the last year has been like because I'm sure there

are many, many swimmers and former swimmers and coaches who can relate to going through an injury

and things not going according to plan, right? Yeah. The rehab and the recovery

process can, can honestly be more frustrating than the injury themselves, right? Because you

have this expectation of getting back to normal and this timeline of getting back to normal.

And especially if it keeps getting pushed, that sounds really challenging.

Yeah, exactly. And I think part of the reason why I was never like officially like, oh, I'm not

in NCAA as I'm not doing this is because like, I never, I probably could have done that in late

January or early February, but I thought I was coming back and I thought I'd still be able to

swim. So a lot of it is just like a lot of uncertainty. You know, like when you're dealing with like

a chronic issue, it's like, you never, you never really know when it's fully going to heal. And like,

I've been swimming since I was really competitively since I was six years old. Like when I was six

years old, I was doing multiple times training a week, you know, working on my stroke technique.

So I mean, I've been just a lot of years of swimming on my body that I think I just need to recover

from. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's incredibly frustrating because when I look back to where I was

in 2023, you know, that moment that I won U.S. trials and with where I was at that point, you know,

I would have thought by 2025 or 2026, you know, I'd be on top of the world. I'd be one of the best

summers in the world. And I am a great summer, but I figured I'd be a lot faster. And I feel like I,

there were a lot of things that happened to me in that three-year window that I think really

prevented me from achieving that. You know, like when I got mono before the 2023 world championships

and then swam at Japan with the mono that having swung through that and then not knowing I had it

for a couple weeks, that kind of tanked my health for a while. And then dealing with this injury

and getting in code at the Olympics, like there were some things that happened to me that frustrated

me. But again, like I said, it's just how you move forward. And so like when I think back to where I

thought I'd be in 2026, I thought it'd be a lot better than I'm doing now. And it's kind of hard

breaking to see the situation I'm in now. But I ultimately just like have to put that behind me.

And I just have to move forward like I was when I was 18 and I was just chasing. And that's why I also

think Florida is going to be great because I get to go into a new environment and I get to go chase

guys who are better than me. And I get to kind of have like a fresh start in my career. And so

you know, I think I got to try to put this behind me as hard as it is to not sit up at night and

think about all the things that happened to me, like what could have happened at the Olympics,

what could have happened at the world's, you know, what happened if I wanted to get injured,

what could I could have done at NCAA's, like those are real mental things. But I think I'm just

going to put it behind me. And I'm just going to move forward and not necessarily forget the

things that I've done because the things that I've done are great goals, mentally like it's in the

past now. And I'm going to try to come into Florida and and chase and become a better swimmer

just like I did back in the day. Like I just love training and I love being a part of a team

and I'm excited to do that. I know I repeated myself a lot through this, but

no, no, it's all good. I mean, I really appreciate getting your perspective on these topics.

And I think a lot of other people will as well. It's an exciting update. And yeah, like you said,

I hope a new perspective, a new environment. And obviously this rehabilitation can help,

you know, kind of kind of get your career back to where you want to go. But I appreciate you

taking the time to sit down and explain it all, David. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, I'm really

glad to. And, you know, I think this is going to be a great opportunity for me to continue. It's

a very, very unconventional opportunity. Yeah, but I think just with these resources that I have

in front of me, I kind of be more thankful for this chance to continue my career in a way that I

think is best suited for me. And so I'm really excited to chase that. So I appreciate you asking

me these questions and getting me to provide my perspective because I think it's really important

to share with people who might not fully understand or necessarily know what's happening. So thank you.

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