USA Swimming has an article on Gary Hall

Gary Hall talks about swimming and his financial endeavors in a USA Swimming article: [Link]

Gary Hall Jr. has been to three Olympics and medaled in all of them. Gary has 10 medals total, 5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze. (Sprinters can do that. Their shelf life is far longer than a distance or middle distance swimmer. Mark and I joke that a warm up for a sprinter is just a long hot shower.)

He and his father also founded the Race Club where he trains and coaches. What is revealing is that Gary Hall not only has the Race Club as a business endeavor but that he is a financial planner as well. One of his financial vehicles is buying "Stock Warrants" for his clients.

An example of buying a stock warrant: Let's say we have a company called Tony Bologna Steel. Let's say that Tony Bologna was a publicly traded company on the stock exchange but it went bankrupt, thrown off the stock exchange, and is now in the process of reorganizing so as to pay off it's debts. Once this is accomplished, Tony Bologna Steel plans to come out of bankruptcy and be relisted as if it were a brand new company. Now, before Tony Balogna can do that, it needs to pay off it's debts utterly and completely. So, here is what it does: it goes to family member or a friend and even a stranger and says, "I need one-million-dollars to pay off all Tony Bologna debts, Once my debts are paid I will be relisted on the stock market for $30 a share, I will allow you to purchase right now 3-million dollars of that stock for only 1-million and I will give you a "promise receipt" called a "stock warrant" to guarantee that sale! Once I am out of debt and back on the exchange, 3- million-dollars worth of stock is yours and you can sell it any time you want."

Gary Hall has a variation to this where he purchases stock warrants of companies BEFORE they were EVER listed on the stock exchange. In other words companies that have not gone bankrupt. Keep in mind this is speculative investment that relies primarily on trust.

By the way, the little kid in the picture "owned" Gary Hall in a 200 LCM. ;-)