Glacier Peak grad finds a home with Virginia swimming

Matt King found the perfect fit. And it has more to do with the setting than his swimming times — though his times are doing great as well.

The Glacier Peak High School graduate, who’s now a sophomore on the University of Virginia men’s swimming and diving team, is one of the marquee names at the ACC Men’s and Women’s Championship, which began Tuesday and continues through Saturday in Atlanta.

King is competing in seven events at the ACC Championship: the 50- and 100-yard freestyles and the 100 butterfly as an individual, as well as the 200 and 400 freestyle and medley relays. His first swim is on Wednesday when he takes the pool for the 50 freestyle. The goal, over the course of the ACC meet and next month’s NCAA Championship, is to surpass his accomplishments from his freshman season at Alabama, when he was an All-American in five events.

“The season has gone really well,” King said via cell phone from Charlottesville, Virginia, prior to departing for Atlanta. “It’s hard to tell exactly where I am because I haven’t tapered for any meets at all. But I’m going a lot faster than I was last year, so that’s a good sign. And I’m having a blast.”

Yet it begs the question: Why did King decided to transfer following such a successful freshman season at Alabama?

King had a sensational freshman campaign with the Crimson Tide. He placed fifth in the 100 freestyle at the NCAA Championship, and he became the third-fastest freshman in NCAA history when he swam a time of 41.63 seconds leading off Alabama’s 400 freestyle relay as the Crimson Tide took seventh at nationals.

But that didn’t prevent King from entering the transfer portal last June. It turns out his main reason for transferring was a coach.

“I originally committed to Indiana when I was first being recruited by Coley Stickles,” King explained. “Then he left to go to Alabama, so I left to go to Alabama. I trained with him during the first semester and was going extremely fast doing what he had me doing, he and I always had a good connection and I had a lot of trust in him. But he left to coach some Olympians.”

King also referenced the desire for a fresh start, without divulging any details. So King entered the transfer portal, and one of the four or five schools he considered was Virginia, a school that had recruited him out of high school. A call from Cavaliers coach Todd DeSorbo sealed the deal.

“One of the first things he said was that he wanted to get me on the Olympic team for 2024,” King said. “I love that. Even when he was recruiting me my junior year of high school I always loved him as a coach. After swimming for him he really knows what he’s doing.”

Virginia is a strong swimming school, as the Cavaliers are ranked 15th in the nation by the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America, and Virginia’s women are ranked No. 1. But for King, it’s the team’s culture rather than the team’s ranking that’s made it the perfect fit.

“I don’t think there’s a team like this in the NCAA,” King said. “I think we’re closer, and we definitely have more excitement than any other team I’ve been around. We had a meet against N.C. State a little while ago, and we knew we weren’t going to win because N.C. State has a top-three team in the country. We weren’t the faster team, but we could be the louder and more-hyped team. In the first event we got annihilated, but we cheered more for that event than for any that we won. It was that moment when I realized you don’t have to be the No. 1 team in the country to have the most fun or be the closest and most-excited team in the country. I really think I chose the best place in the country.”

While this week’s ACC meet is important, with King looking to firm up the times ahead of nationals, the true goal is the NCAAs. While most of the team has tapered back its training in anticipation of peaking for the ACC meet, King and a select few of his teammates aren’t undergoing a true taper until before the NCAA meet, which is March 23-26 in Atlanta.

King, whose career bests are the 41.63 in the 100 freestyle and 18.96 in the 50 freestyle, is targeting big time drops in both events, as well as contention for national championships.

“The 50 free is my second-best event, and I’d like to be top five (at nationals),” King said. “I think I can swim an 18.6 if I have a perfect swim. The 100 free is pretty open this year for who could win, so it’s anyone’s game there, but if I have a perfect swim — I want to break 41.0 — I think I could win that, and that would be really cool. But the one we’ve been talking about the entire season is the 200 free relay. We’ve been adding up our times and our goal is to break the American record. We’d be excited if we pull it off.”