Marvin Ridge’s Michael Rice drives high school swim team toward a state title

Michael Rice might be the only five-time North Carolina high school swimming champion who also swam with the U.S. Junior National Team and enjoys doing brake jobs and other car repairs for his friends.

“You need to ask him about the cars,” said his mother, Adrian. “He’s always working on them.”

“Ahh, yeah,” Michael Rice said with a chuckle when asked about his auto repair skills. “I really enjoy getting into working on cars.”

“I guess I’ve always been into that,” he said.

Michael Rice has also always been into swimming. His parents enrolled him in a Little Otters swim class when he was 9 months old, and he took to it quickly.

“When he was 5, the instructor told us that Michael was already doing all the strokes,” his mother said.

That’s when Michael joined a year-round club and became a full-time swimmer.

He is a big reason Marvin Ridge is a contender for the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s Class 7A state title this season. The Mavericks appear ready to challenge powerhouse Cardinal Gibbons and other strong 7A schools.

Rice, a senior, wants this to be a special season.

“I love this sport,” he said. “It never gets old. It’s a lot more fun when you’ve got a team like we do — where we work together and get along so well with one another.”

Marvin Ridge took its first step toward the state title Wednesday, when the Mavericks outdistanced the field and won the boys’ team title in the Southern Carolina 6A/7A Conference meet. Marvin Ridge finished with 723 points, well ahead of runner-up Charlotte Catholic (460) and third-place Cuthbertson (348).

Charlotte Catholic’s girls, who figure to be 6A state title contenders, won the conference team title with 634 points, edging Marvin Ridge (597). Weddington was third at 454.

This is the home stretch for Rice, his team, and other swimmers across the state.

Conference championship meets are taking place this week, with regional meets next week, and the state finals in early February.

Under coach Melissa King-Pierce, Marvin Ridge has become a state powerhouse. The girls’ team won four consecutive 3A championships less than a decade ago, and the boys’ team has multiple state team titles.

Rice and the Mavericks won the 4A boys’ state championship in 2024, then finished second to Cardinal Gibbons a year ago.

“We lost a lot of really good seniors from that team, but our younger people have really stepped up this season,” he said. “I think we’ve got a very good shot at winning it.”

But swimming goes far beyond state high school championships for Rice.

He is an Auburn commit who figures to swim the middle-distance freestyle events (100 and 200 meters) with the Tigers. But he also is a standout in the 50 freestyle and has been winning recently in the 100 butterfly.

“Academics are important to me,” said Rice, who plans to follow his dad, John, into engineering. “But the main reason I picked Auburn is because my heart kept going back there, even after visiting other schools. It just seemed like family.”

You could spend a half-hour talking to the Marvin Ridge standout and never learn about his international swim experience.

“He won’t say anything about it,” his dad said. “He doesn’t like to talk about himself.”

Rice was selected to compete with the USA Junior National team that competed in the World Championships in Romania late last summer.

After a little prodding, he talked about the experience.

“It was amazing,” he said. “It was nothing like what I expected. It was so cool, making friends with people from other countries. And you can’t imagine what it’s like, representing your country.”

Rice said he hopes the international competition becomes a regular experience.

When he’s not swimming or hitting the books, Rice is usually fishing with his dad or trying to get a car or truck to run better.

“I think I got some of the mechanical interest from my dad and his engineering career,” he said.

If a friend needs something done to a car, Rice is ready to help.

“I’ve told them that I enjoy doing it,” he said.

He takes special joy in working on his car, a 2022 Subaru WRX — “with manual transmission,” he added.

“I told my parents that the one thing I wanted when I got my own car was a stick shift,” he said. “It makes driving more fun.”

This story was originally published January 23, 2026 at 5:30 AM.