At age 15, decided it wasn’t time for her to turn pro because she wasn’t ready for swimming to become “a job.” She made the same decision after Olympics, saying she wanted to experience the life of a collegiate swimmer for two years.
That’s behind her now. Franklin, a sophomore at California who led the Golden Bears to an NCAA team championship Saturday with three individual wins, announced her decision to turn pro Monday on the “Today” show in New York.
“It’s so unreal,” Franklin said. “We made this decision coming out of London. I really wanted to get that team experience in college, and I figured if I could get two years and then go professional and have a year going into the Olympic Trials for Rio to really kind of set that platform for myself, and that I think would be the best thing for me, and now it’s happening.”
Franklin, 19, will be represented by Mark Ervin, who works for Beverly Hills, Calif.-based WME-IMG. Ervin previously represented snowboarder Shaun White. Franklin and her parents vetted 14 agencies over 15 months.
“She wants a long-term relationship,” said Franklin’s mother, DA. “She wants an agent who’s going to be with her for her career.”
The Franklins narrowed the list to two in recent weeks, then left the decision to Missy.
“I think what WME and IMG have built across the last year is really dynamic and I feel like it’s the right fit for me as I turn professional,” Franklin said in a news release. “My focus in the pool is going to be pushing myself day in and day out to be my best self and achieve my goals, and I know that my new team at WME-IMG will help me use the platform I have been given to make a difference.”
Franklin will be swimming in international World Cup events and domestic Grand Prix races this year before competing at the world championships in Kazan, Russia (Aug. 2-9). Now, she will have sponsorship appearances on her schedule as well.
Franklin still wants to get a degree from Cal, but likely will lighten her class load next year in the run-up to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She is majoring in psychology.
“She’s a very good student; she always has above a 3.5 (grade-point average),” her mother said. “But that means she’s working hard. She doesn’t come out of a class and go, ‘OK, I’m prepared for the test.’ She studies and studies and studies. … She’s interested in two things: broadcasting and — I can see this when she’s a mother — she’d like to do some teaching in kindergarten. She loves kids.”
John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or
