The schooling of Joseph Schooling

When my flight touched down on Changi Airport at twenty past eleven in the morning of August 13, I immediately opened my phone to check on my feeds. Social media was teeming with news about Singapore’s first ever Olympic gold medal won a young athlete by the name of Joseph Schooling. As I alighted the plane, the airport was abuzz with jubilation about this incredible feat.

Who is this young Singaporean champion, now 21, who beat his long time idol, Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, in the 100-meter butterfly in Rio, setting a new Olympic record of 50.39 seconds and securing his tiny republic's first ever Olympic gold? Parsing through stories about his life and how his parents reared him, we can glean invaluable lessons in fortitude, determination, and humility.

Joseph Schooling, born and raised in Singapore, is the only child of May and Colin Schooling and is of Eurasian ethnicity. Both parents were into sports – May is of Chinese Malaysian descent and a Singapore permanent resident who previously represented the Malaysian state of Perak in tennis while Colin, a Singapore-born businessman, is a hurdler and water polo player who represented Singapore in softball. His grand-uncle, Lloyd Valberg, was Singapore's first Olympian in the 1948 Summer Olympics.

Genetics probably played a role, but most likely as a child, Schooling had seen and heard his parents converse about sports. In fact, according to accounts, his first notable incident that jumpstarted Schooling's Olympic dream started with a conversation he had as a six-year-old, with his relatives about his granduncle, Lloyd Valberg, Simgapore’s first Olympian. He then spoke to his father and said that he wanted to go to the Olympics. “From then on, Joseph was just engrossed in going to the Olympic Games,” according to his father.

He had already begun swimming by then, though it was “nothing serious” even though he won several gold medals at the age of five during his first competition. But the unwavering support of Schooling’s parents was important and critical in honing his Olympian grit. Fact is, they sent their son to a bone test when he was twelve, to check how far their child could go in the sport.

His parents sent him for training by coaches and swimmers from Australia. In his early career, two months away from his 14th birthday, Schooling clinched Singapore's oldest junior record. He reportedly said then, "I'm sacrificing my childhood – my time with friends, but I want to look back after I've reached my goal and be able to say that I made it."

In the 2011 Southeast Asian Games, despite Schooling's qualifying mark for the 2012 London Olympics, he did not manage to qualify for the semi-finals after finishing poorly in his heats where swimming officials disallowed the use of his swimming cap and goggles. But this did not stop him from pursuing his Olympic dream.

What worked well for Schooling to keep on training for perfection is his role model – Michael Phelps. “As a kid he wanted to be like him” said Schooling, who got his photograph taken with Phelps before his eightgold-medal performance at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Schoolings parents are instrumental, and in fact sacrificed a lot in terms of time and resources. One account tells of his father creating swimming aids for his son and delivers them to Florida, where he trained.

Another one of his support groups is his Filipina nanny Auntie Yolly or Yolanda Pascual, who he personally thanked profusely for having taken care of him for 19 years. Schooling even protected her from social media bashers when her name surfaced reportedly taking credit.

As Schooling gears for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, our country should take inspiration from his success and preparation. It is noteworthy that the Philippines clinched its first medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics – Hidilyn Diaz’s silver medal is the country’s first since Onyok Velasco’s triumph at the 1996 games in Atlanta. But we should aim high; and it is achievable.

*** The author is a senior executive in the information and communications technology sector. He also teaches strategy, management and marketing courses in the MBA Program of the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business, De La Salle University. reylugtu@gmail.com