Eddie Reese, Carol Capitani Talk Big 12, SEC, and NIL Ahead of Championship Season

Ahead of the 2023 Big 12 Championships, the University of Texas hosted a media day that included men’s and women’s swimming & diving head coaches Eddie Reese and Carol Capitani.

Both teams finished in 2nd place at last year’s NCAA Championship, and both teams are overwhelming favorites to win this year’s Big 12 titles.

In their interviews, both coaches highlight a few swimmers, talk about competition in the Big 12, Texas’ 2024 move to the SEC, Name-Image-Likeness endorsements, and Big 12 Championship event choices.

Texas Men’s Head Coach Eddie Reese

Coach Eddie Reese shared some thoughts about how his team approaches the Big 12 Championships when the outcome of the team score is, essentially, a foregone conclusion. No team has ever finished within 100 points of Texas at the Big 12 Championship meet, and the Longhorns have won 43 consecutive meets overall, dating back to the days of the old Southwest Conference.

“The Big 12 meet’s always real important,” Reese said. “We don’t go into any meet talking a whole lot about winning, we just, the whole season, spent time talking about what it takes to get better. Cause, doesn’t matter what part of life you play in this country, if you’re getting better at something, you’ll be beating people that used to beat you.”

Key takeaways:

• Reese says that competition is getting better every year from TCU and West Virginia, that he wishes there was a little more sometimes, but sometimes the Longhorns are their own competition.
• Eddie Reese says that NIL is a “monster” and he’s “worried about the next 5-8 years.”
• Eddie Reese believes that there is a best suit for male swimmers in context of NIL, but he says that if swimmers sign with other suit companies, they can wear those.
• Reese highlighted David Johnston, who went 80,000 yards a week, swimming alone in a 25-yard pool in someone’s back yard during COVID. That was presented as a sign of his work ethic.

Texas Women’s Head Coach Carol Capitani

Other key takeaways:

• Some of the team’s top swimmers will swim secondary events at Big 12s to “keep from getting stale.”
• Trying to make the Olivia Bray decision between the 500 free and the 200 IM after surprise swims at the Sterkel Invite. She swam a 4:40.80 at the Sterkel Invite.
• One of the team’s goals was to take more swimmers to NCAAs this year, and they’ve done that.
• Capitani says she’s looking forward to the SEC Championship because she likes the competitiveness, but their focus remains on the NCAA Championships.