After winning his historic gold medal for Singapore in the men’s 100 fly at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Joseph Schooling recieved several reward offers from different companies. However, Schooling made the choice to finish out his NCAA career with the Texas Longhorns, and had to decline rewards that may affect his eligibility.
Among the companies who offered rewards was Grab, a ride-sharing service in Singapore, which offered a year’s worth of free rides to Schooling and his family. Schooling wasn’t able to accept the offer, but he decided to gift the year of free rides to two other people instead.
One of the people Schooling chose to gift his rides to was para-swimmer Benson Tan, an 11-time ASEAN Para Games medalist and 2011 Special Olympics gold medalist. Tan will get over $7,000 worth of free rides, which will help with his daily commute to his training base at the Anglo-Chinese School (ACS).
Schooling also chose someone outside of the sport as his 2nd beneficiary, gifting free rides to Ismail Akbar Abdullah, a blind masseur. The gift will allow Ismail, a father of three, to save money on his daily commutes to work.
Fantastic act of kindness! Hook ’em. I’m glad he’s finishing up at UT.
Benson Tan, enjoy your rides!! You earned it!!
I wasn’t that big a fan after I thought he looked like he was pouting after the 100 fly at NCAA’s. But now, I am in the Joseph Schooling fan club. Well done, son! Stuff like that makes my eyes water. Best of sport!
Hey, NCAA, look over here. See, isn’t all that bad when athletes get benefits for what they accomplish at the Olympics once every 4 years (which by definition is the one time it is possible as an NCAA student athlete).
So lighten up on that and do something important, like shutting Baylor football down.
Class act
Absolutely!
Being generous empowers – and thats smart
And smart – companies usually give stuff away like this for marketing efforts. Schooling has turned it into something more viral than it ever would have been on its own. Very generous of course, but saavy too.