Besides having an alarmingly nice chest and winning Olympic medals, Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte has not proven himself the sharpest tool in the shed. His most recent and talked about scandal includes a fabricated story about being held up at gunpoint in Brazil after him and fellow swimmers Gunnar Bentz, Jimmy Feigan, and Jack Conger drunkenly vandalized a gas station. I can’t help but think this story is kind of comical in its desperation. It’s the more serious version of the typical suburban Connecticut kid getting too drunk at a rager in New Haven, vandalizing the bathroom at Toad’s, and letting his friends arrange plans to sleep at a stranger’s house while ordering an Uber home. While he’s sitting by himself in the Uber thinking, “Thank God I got out of that one,” he’s sending out a tweet chronicling how some “hoodlums” messed with his boys. I think “Reezy”, one of Lochte’s nicknames according to his Wikipedia page, would thrive at Toad’s. I mean, except for the fact that he would be the 32-year-old man vandalizing the bathroom.
This isn’t the only stupid thing Lochte has done though. In fact, he’s said and done an incredible amount of stupid things outside of the pool. Let’s start with his E! show after the 2012 London Olympics, “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” The show should have been preceded with “Warning: Do not try this at home,” as it followed Lochte’s typical frat boy persona and critical decision- making process. He was often pictured shirtlessly gyrating with various women after downing numerous tequila shots. On nights when I want to have a good time and make a few risky decisions, sure, I’ll go ahead and ask myself, “What would Ryan Lochte do?” I’d probably ask the same if, in a dramatic turn of events, I found myself confronted with a life or death swimming race. I'd also consider the question if given a chance to get crazy rich off of endorsement deals. Exceptions aside, at any other point in my life, “What would Ryan Lochte do?” is the last thing I would ask myself.
"Like all of a sudden like I have like a jumping banana in my head.
And I stop and pause.
I'm like, 'That damn jumping banana is in my head.'"
Ryan Lochte is notorious for being incredibly bad at interviews. Although he received his bachelor's degree in Sports Management from the University of Florida in 2007, evidence shows that he is not one to put together a coherent sentence on the spot. It's okay, Ryan, many of us aren't very good under pressure either. At least he knows the answer to whether he enjoys his status as a sex symbol, a simple "Yeah." If anything, Lochte is super relatable. He reminds me of 50 percent of the guys I've met at frat parties so far in college.
