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.” 
 
 [Michael Phelps hit rock bottom with DUI arrest. Now he’s back.] 
 
 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. ||||| News Michael Phelps and his Speedo distract free throw shooters at ASU basketball game 
 
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 Arizona State's student section turned in a gold medal performance when it came to distracting opposing free throw shooters on Thursday night. 
 
 The school's famed 942 Crew cheering section and its "Curtain of Distraction" behind the opposing basket unveiled an Olympic-sized, Speedo-wearing distraction when Michael Phelps made a special appearance. 
 
 Wearing a swim cap, a bow tie and some of his Olympic-record 18 gold medals, Phelps mimicked the freestyle stroke after the curtain parted to induce a missed foul shot by Oregon State freshman Stephen Thompson with 13:47 left in the second half. 
 
 Matt York / AP Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, center, performs behind the "Curtain of Distraction" during an Oregon State free throw against Arizona State in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Tempe, Ariz. 
 
 Phelps then kicked it up a notch on Thompson's second shot by emerging wearing just a bow tie, his medals and a Speedo, while being flanked by two 942 Crew members dressed as Chippendales dancers. 
 
 That resulted in another missed foul shot as the home crowd roared. Arizona State went on to an 86-68 win. 
 
 Matt York / AP Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, center, performs behind the "Curtain of Distraction" during an Oregon State free throw against Arizona State in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game. 
 
 "I don't think you could have written it any better with the Oregon State player missing both free throws," Arizona State associate athletic director Bill Kennedy told Yahoo Sports. "You could see the look on his face. He couldn't help but look. He was trying to hold himself together, but you could tell by the look in his eyes he was going to miss the first one. Missing the second one was just icing on the cake." 
 
 @942crew we just killed it!!!! #mp #mpswim #asu #curtainofdistraction and he missed both!! A video posted by Michael Phelps (@m_phelps00) on Jan 28, 2016 at 7:28pm PST 
 
 It was a fun taste of the university experience for Phelps, who never attended college because he was already an Olympian by the time he was 15 years old. He has been training in Tempe, Arizona, for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro because his long-time coach, Bob Bowman, is currently Arizona State's head coach. 
 
 Phelps' appearance was the latest show-stopper for the 942 Crew, which is named after the number of seats in Arizona State's student section. Everyone from Elvis to a hairy "Miley Cyrus" and her wrecking ball have popped out from behind the Curtain of Distraction. 
 
 The Curtain of Distraction has a real effect, as The New York Times found that since its creation in 2013, it has given the Sun Devils almost a two-point advantage in their home games. 
 
 The 942 Crew has also inspired student sections from high school on up to get creative. The "Red Regiment" student section from Sheridan High School in Thornville, Ohio, recently pulled off an all-time heckle job against an opposing foul shooter by staging a mock birth in the stands. 
 
 Student sections take note. The @SheridanStuSect knows how to put on a show. pic.twitter.com/2BW2YH6bv8 — Storied RivalsÂ® (@StoriedRivals) January 20, 2016 
 
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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.