
 
 After years of indoor training, Michael Phelps is really enjoying sunny Tempe. (Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images) 
 
 Michael Phelps has had his fair share of success in the pool. Eighteen Olympic gold medals. Twenty-two overall. Thirty-nine world records. And having already committed to retiring, presumably for good this time, following this summer’s Rio Olympics, it appears he is already thinking about what he will do beyond the pool — or at least out of it. 
 
 Phelps currently resides in Tempe, Ariz., after following his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, from his near-lifetime training grounds at North Baltimore Aquatic Club to Arizona State University, where Bowman took over as head coach earlier this year. And according to the Arizona Republic, Phelps has told his coach that he will be sticking around after the Olympics to be a volunteer assistant coach for the Sun Devils during the 2016-17 season. 
 
 “I wanted nothing to do with the water” after London, Phelps said. “I wanted to be as far away from it as I could. Now, being around it more than I have in a long time, I don’t think I’ll be able to go far from the sport because it is a part of me.” 
 
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 Bowman’s decision to leave Baltimore, and Phelps’s subsequent move, has already provided a recruiting boon for Arizona State, and the opportunity to be coached by the sport’s “greatest of all time” isn’t likely to stymie that upward trend. Plus, according to Phelps, Tempe is a pretty great place to live regardless. 
 
 “For me, somebody who swam inside for 20 years, being able to see a clear blue sky and sun 95 percent of the time, it’s just a good change,” Phelps said. “Our attitude towards workout is a lot better now than what it was in the past. I’d be the first one to say this is one of the best places I’ve ever lived.” 
 
 It is only the third place Phelps has trained long-term in 15-plus years as a professional athlete. He grew up and has trained most of his life in Baltimore, and also had a four-year stint at the University of Michigan, where Bowman served as the program’s head coach from 2005-08. But in the hierarchy of his recent life changes — he got engaged in February and announced in November he and fiancee Nicole Johnson are expecting a baby — his move west was likely among the least of them. And plus, besides Bobman, he’s had a close friend along the way to help ease the transition. 
 
 Allison Schmitt, a fellow Olympic swimmer, also moved to Tempe to train at the same time as Phelps and reportedly will remain at ASU, as well. Schmitt, a Georgia alumnus, said she will be pursuing a master’s degree in psychology. The six-time Olympic medalist revealed to the Baltimore Sun in July that she has battled depression since the London Olympics in 2012, and she has iterated often that she wants to help others who have had similar struggles as her. 
 
 She also seems happy to stay in sunny Tempe, where she followed Bowman for the second time in her career after a similar move, when Bowman left Michigan to return to Baltimore. 
 
 “I love change, and I’ve really adapted well to it. I’m just so happy to be here,” Schmitt said. ||||| Matt Slocum / AP U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps poses with his gold medal for the men's 4 x 200-m final at the Aquatics Centre during the Olympics in London on July 31, 2012 
 
 Can you really smile while you’re swimming? Most of us, I’d imagine, would fill our ducts with rivers of chlorine. But Michael Phelps, who has gills for something, has no problem grinning in the pool. With about 20 m left in the 4 x 200-m freestyle relay in London on Tuesday night, Phelps knew he had it: he was about to win a gold medal, the 19th Olympic medal of his career, breaking the record held by former Soviet Union gymnast Larisa Latynina. “I started smiling,” Phelps says. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that in a race before.” 
 
 He had good reason. After Beijing, what more could Phelps accomplish in the pool? Phelps was never going to win eight gold medals in London; after he spent part of the past four years, by his own admission, slacking off, it was clear he had no great desire to repeat Beijing. “In the pool, we’ve done the work,” says Phelps. “And sometimes not done the work.” But he still didn’t own one honorific, that of the most decorated Olympian of all time. He needed three more pieces of hardware. 
 
 Few people, over the past four years, talked much about this final milestone. Phelps’ own family was in the dark. Until this year, says Phelps’ sister Hilary, “we didn’t even know about the record. It didn’t register on our radar that he was three away from being the greatest Olympian of all time.” So there’s no doubt he’s the best now, right? Hillary shrugs, which says it all. “He’s the greatest ever, you know,” she says. 
 
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 The record clearly motivated Phelps to return to the Olympics in top form. “Being able to do something that’s never been done before, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” Phelps says. “There was nothing that was going to stand in my way of being the first Michael Phelps.” After finishing in fourth place in the 400-m individual medley on Saturday and winning silver in the 4 x 100-m relay, Phelps eased his attitude coming into the historic night. “I guess the last couple of days have been a lot more relaxed,” Phelps says. “From the very first day, I was super tight, I was trying to be all superserious. And just the last couple of days, I’ve just been laughing all the time, joking, having fun.” 
 
 For Phelps, the night didn’t get off to a joyous start. In the 2008 100-m butterfly race, Phelps memorably caught Serbian Milorad Cavic at the last possible moment, beating him by one-hundredths of a second. In London, Phelps got caught at the end: after leading for most of the race, Phelps, Takeshi Matsuda of Japan and Chad Le Clos of South Africa splashed furiously toward the finish, bunched together in three lanes, like cars in one of those scoreboard races at a baseball game. Who would touch first? It was anyone’s guess. 
 
 The winner: Le Clos, over Phelps by five-hundredths of a second. The South African had clipped his idol. “Phelps is my hero, and I love the guy,” Le Clos says. He knew the history, having watched Phelps catch Cavic in Beijing countless times on his laptop. “I’ve got it in like seven different languages,” Le Clos says of that race. “I’ve watched his races millions of times. I guess I can watch now my race.” Le Clos gained momentum on the final turn. “It sounds crazy, but I actually thought I was Michael at that last turn,” Le Clos says. “I just remembered how he used to do it. When I turned that way, I looked at him. It was a trigger point, that I could do something special.” 
 
 The loss fired Phelps up. “I sure as hell wasn’t happy,” Phelps says. But he was also drained from the race and had to swim the relay in less than an hour. “I told those guys I wanted a big lead,” says Phelps. “I wanted a biiiiiiig lead going into this last leg.” He got it: Ryan Lochte, Conor Dwyer, and Ricky Berens gave Phelps a cushion, and Phelps swam his 200-m in 1:44:05 — the fastest among his teammates. Afterward, the joyous Americans huddled together. “I thanked them for allowing me to have this moment,” says Phelps. 
 
 Phelps’ family and dozens of friends were on hand to see it. As most fans filed out of the Aquatics Centre, rows of Phelps fans stayed behind to snap some final photos as he conducted television interviews. Phelps’ mother Debbie signed autographs and took pictures with children. “Wow, wow,” she says. “I mean, wow, wow.” After her son crossed the finish, Debbie was overcome with emotion. “It was just the joy on Michael’s face,” Debbie says, before choking up again. “That was so … magical to me. Because he had goals to reach, and he wasn’t done yet.” 
 
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– With 22 medals and 39 world records under his belt, swimmer Michael Phelps is set to retire (again) after Rio 2016 this summer, the Washington Post reports. So, what's next for the most decorated Olympian of all time? Phelps has signed on to be a Arizona State University volunteer assistant coach in 2016-17, reports the Arizona Republic. "I don't think I'll be able to go far from the sport because it is a part of me," Phelps says. Phelps, per the Post, moved to Tempe, Ariz., earlier this year, following longtime coach Bob Bowman, who took over as head coach at ASU. "Being able to see a clear blue sky and sun 95% of the time, it's just a good change," says Phelps, who has spent most of his career training indoors. He calls Tempe "one of the best places I've ever lived." In November, about a year after being charged with a DUI, Phelps announced his fiancée is pregnant; a son is due in May.