“JC life was quite interesting, that was where I met my wife.” An interview with Teo Ser Luck (Part 2)

By Les Tan, Dawn Yip and Jan Lin

Teo Ser Luck is the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Transport.

Before joining politics, he was in the private sector and his last position was as General Manager of DHL Express Singapore.

An Ironman triathlete, Ser Luck, who turns 41 on June 8th, has championed the role of sports, especially for the masses.

When the topic seizes him, Ser Luck also writes an occasional column for Red Sports.

Red Sports caught up with him for an exclusive interview.

Part 2

Red Sports: So what was JC like? What sport did you play?
Teo Ser Luck: I was swimming captain at Nanyang JC. I only did swimming; I didn't do anything else because, only 2 years, I wanted to focus. And I did many other things outside of JC, dabbled (in) business and other things….

What was your core event, or core stroke?
I was pretty good at sprints. I remember I was ranked maybe 3rd or 4th in Singapore at JC level. I trained on my own. I was the only one who did not belong to a club, then I was winning all the inter-constituencies that they didn't allow club swimmers to join. So I trained on my own. Mainly freestyle and breaststroke.

I went into administration, I told the teachers that I can organise a swim meet. Rather than the teachers organise, let me do it, I think I can do it better.

You volunteered?
I volunteered. So I wrote a proposal, I said I will organise the swim meet and I actually organised it.

Why did you do that?
When I was in year one…I went to the invitational relays and I saw how ACS organised and I saw the rest [of the competitors] – wow, so fantastic, you know.

And I came back and had my own swim meet and I was thinking: ‘We can do better than this'. So I told my team – they are swimmers and not administrators – ‘Let’s do a better job than this, let's organise something, let's make it bigger.' So that's how I got started in organising things and in administration. So I told the principal, ´Let me do it'.

This is a school swim meet, so I asked them for a day off for the whole school and then…get everybody involved. But it ended up with people saying that, ´You organise this meet for yourself,' because I was winning all the medals, so they say this is like not so fair!

Now I think back, I say, "Oh this thing is like, you know, politician at work"!

But no, we only wanted to organise and do a good job, but you end up winning, you see, so what to do. Not that I arrange the event in that way you know. Not like SEA Games, you have capteh and all that just to get more medals.

But I did that, I volunteered, so I convinced my team of swimmers to become organisers, they were very unwilling but later on they got a lot of satisfaction. So that was how I started.

JC life was quite interesting, that was where I met my wife.

Is she a swimmer?
She was a dancer. She's not interested in sports. She doesn't watch sports programmes, my children do, but not her. So she is totally opposite, it wasn't sports that impressed her. It was purely one-sided interest – my interest – she wasn't interested in me, so what to do.

It took me 10 years…then we finally got married. There were ups and downs. It was difficult because she couldn't imagine having a husband like me - she didn't think I was the long-term type, not really the guy of her dreams.

And she told me the truth - before we got married, when we knew that we were going to get married - she told me, ´To be honest, this is how my boyfriend and husband should look like: the type that goes to the library'. I said, ´I go (to) the library now you know, because I need to research for all the policies to speak in Parliament'.

I'm the on-the-go kind [which] she doesn't like. She said, ´I like a man who stays at home, take care of the family, come back like 9 to 5, 5:30 reach home everyday. You are totally opposite, you just want to get involved in everything and anything, you are such a busybody also.' So that's why it took 10 years.

So you managed to ‘win’ in the end?
Yeah, but I won’t say win lah. I'm sure she has no doubts now, but before that I cannot blame her. It's just myself, so career-minded and I want to be involved in many things, but I've slowed down a lot now.

I had my business and my business did well, accumulated some wealth and we were financially secure…and then I could almost train full-time…3 times a day when I was running companies, [it was] easy for me to run a company, so I trained twice or three times.

So in the age-group, I was just behind Adam only. Last time, I was second. Then people were like, ´Woah, you still have time!' Then my business was sold to UBS, so I cashed out and I wanted to train full-time, I wanted to beat Adam!

If I can just go back to the chronology, so after JC, at university, what sports did you do?
I was doing accountancy at NTU, [it was a] tough course. I just thought that studying shouldn't be the only thing in my life, I should do other things. My CCAs were soccer, triathlon – I started learning about triathlon relay, I was doing the swimming leg – and water polo.

Were there Inter-Varsity Games at that time?
Oh IVP, yes. We were champions for swimming, [and] for water polo.

Look out for Part 3.

“I think you join the girls,” a primary school softball coach once told Teo Ser Luck (Part 1)
“I feel that for schools, the best is: Don’t focus so much on winning.” An interview with Teo Ser Luck (Part 3)