Longhorn Legacy Lives in the 200 Free at Eddie Reese’s Final Olympic Trials as Texas Coach

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Remember that time that the Texas men didn’t put a swimmer on the USA’s Olympic 4×200 free relay team? Unless you’re closer to retirement age than high school graduation, no, you don’t.

The Longhorn legacy in the 200 free and 4×200 free relay isn’t a new story, but it’s one that’s worth telling again.

Eddie Reese arrived in Austin as the head coach of the Texas Longhorn men’s swimming & diving team back in 1978. Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. Pete Rose collected his 3000th hit that year. The Star Wars Holiday Special would get its one and only television showing that fall.

It only took three years before the Longhorns would win their first NCAA title under Reese. In the early part of the 1980s, the biggest Texas star on the international level was a backstroker, Rick Carey. But in 1988, Doug Gjertsen would qualify for the US Olympic team in the 4×200, marking the beginning of one of Texas’ most enduring legacies.

A Texas swimmer has been part of Team USA’s 4×200 freestyle relay at every Olympic Games since then. Tonight, that streak was guaranteed to continue after rising senior Luke Hobson touched first in the 200 free, earning an individual swim in Paris. Former Longhorn Drew Kibler took 3rd, earning his second-straight Olympic berth in the 4×200 free relay.

The Longhorn legacy on the 4×200 free relay: 

Of course, Texas has seen plenty of mid-distance success in the college short course yards format as well. Gjertsen, Davis, Walters, Haas, Kibler, and Hobson all have won NCAA titles in the 200 yard freestyle. Smith, Haas, and Hobson have won NCAA titles in the 500 yard freestyle. Longhorn teams have won 17 titles in the 800 yard freestyle relay.

But back to this summer — while technically the US coaches don’t have to put Hobson on the relay, tradition dictates that he’ll get an automatic spot on the finals of the relay, along with 2nd-place finisher Chris Guiliano of Notre Dame.

Additionally, another Texas alum, Carson Foster, locked up an Olympic spot with last night’s win in the 400 IM. Given his splits on this relay at the last three World Championships (including a sub-1:44 in February), there’s a strong chance he’ll automatically get the nod to swim on the finals relay despite not swimming the 200 free individually this week.

Eddie Reese is retiring after this summer, but the man Texas hired to replace him, Bob Bowman, knows a thing or two about coaching 200 freestylers, and it looks like the Texas 200 free pipeline will continue to pump. Aaron Shackell, who’s transferring to Texas after spending the fall of his freshman year at Cal, qualified for the US team in the 400 free, and made the final of the 200 free, finishing 8th tonight.

Reese would be the first to tell you that swimming is about much more than titles and trophies and medals, and if asked about this streak, he’d probably make some self-deprecating remark about how it just means he’s old. But it’s still remarkably fitting to see Reese’s legendary career come to a close with Longhorns set to represent the Red, White, and Blue on this relay once again.