In fact, in October 2008, I suggested we get back together for our ten-year reunion. We hadn’t all seen each other since we’d won the 1998 NCAA Championship. It was a simply amazing weekend; it felt like we’d never left campus. Because I’d had surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon, I was getting around on a motorized scooter. Interestingly, some of my teammates had no idea I was recovering from an injury I’d sustained on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Not everybody watches TV, I guess. In fact, they just figured I was using the scooter to make them laugh, that I was just being Misty May.
10
U.S. NATIONAL TEAM
On a whim, a few months after my team had won the 1998 NCAA Championship, I decided to dip my toes in the sand.
Valinda Hilleary Roche, who worked in my physical therapist’s office, asked me to play with her in a pro beach volleyball tournament. I thought, “Why not?” However, it was a little more complicated than throwing on a bikini and hitting the beach. First, we played in an AVP qualifier in Santa Monica. Then I scraped together the cash to get me to my first official pro tournament, an AVP Pro Beach Tour event, May 1 and 2 in Clearwater, Florida.
Jim Steele, our dear family friend, suggested I approach the Long Beach Century Club for help. Founded in 1957 by a group of prominent sports enthusiasts, the nonprofit corporation is dedicated to the promotion of amateur athletics in the city. It has supported thousands of Long Beach athletes and teams. The club gave me vouchers for Southwest Airlines and money to cover my other expenses. At that time, all I had was a Discover credit card with a five-hundred-dollar limit. To save a few bucks, I stayed with my high school friend and former track teammate Tina Bowman.
Valinda and I finished ninth in Clearwater. I remember it well because I felt so lost all weekend, traveling on my own to a volleyball tournament for the first time in my life. And I’ll never forget our generic uniforms—black bikini bottoms and black cotton sports bras from Mervyns. We won two thousand dollars, but I didn’t take any money because I wanted to maintain my amateur status. In our second tournament, a USA Volleyball event in Huntington Beach, we finished thirteenth and won three thousand dollars. Again, I didn’t take the money. However, when I made my first big pro paycheck, I paid back the Century Club, and I’ve been a big supporter of the organization ever since. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to get my start if they hadn’t helped me.
A month or so after that tournament, I received a surprise phone call from Holly McPeak, the best female beach volleyball player in the world and a three-time MVP on the domestic beach circuit. She and her partner Nancy Reno had just split up, after defeating the world’s number one team, Brazil’s Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede, in an event sanctioned by the FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) in Toronto, Canada.
“Can we have dinner?” Holly asked.
At that time, Holly was thirty, and the sport’s It Girl. She’d been playing beach volleyball part-time since 1987 and full-time since 1992. She’d won every major professional beach volleyball title, except for the Olympic gold medal, which had eluded her. She and Nancy had dominated the sport, domestically and internationally, leading up to the 1996 Atlanta Games. Then they’d beaten themselves, twice breaking up their partnership for personal reasons. They’d never regained their form, and in Atlanta, finished fifth.
When the doorbell rang, my housemates and I pulled back the drapes and peeked out the kitchen window to scope out Holly and her black Mercedes. You would’ve thought Madonna was standing on my front porch. I had to pinch myself in Holly’s car, on the way to dinner, I was so in awe. We went to Claim Jumper, and today we both laugh at our one-sided conversation. I mostly listened, as she told me how much fun it would be to play together, how she’d teach me the ins and outs of the beach game, how she’d show me what it takes to be a professional athlete. She also filled me in about beach volleyball’s financial rewards. Finally, she threw out the kicker: If I joined her on the beach, we could try to qualify for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
By the end of dinner, my head was spinning. Playing in the Olympics was a dream of mine. Playing with the number one woman in the world was the opportunity of a lifetime. Playing on the beach was something I was very familiar with. It all sounded so exciting, and it all felt so right. I asked Holly if I could take some time to think about her offer. Over the next several days, I wrestled with my decision. I pride myself on being a woman of my word, and I’d already made a commitment to the U.S. national team to play indoor volleyball. Finally, I phoned Holly and declined. I had to honor my promise.
From my early days at Newport Harbor, I’d been fast-tracking through the USA Volleyball system. In summer 1993, before my junior year, I became a member of the USA Volleyball youth girls national team. The next summer, I was the only high school player to take part in the 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival in St. Louis, Missouri. At first, I wasn’t even going to be allowed to try out because I was too young. And the following summer, I was one of only four incoming college freshmen to play in the 1995 U.S. Olympic Festival in Boulder, Colorado.
As a freshman and sophomore at Long Beach State, I played on the U.S. national A2 team, and then, the summer after my junior year, I was promoted to the ultimate spot: the U.S. national A1 team, which was composed of the best women players in the country. I was one of the youngest members of the team, and I was fearless.
“You have to make a name for yourself, especially when you’re the youngest,” I told the Los Angeles Times. “You know people are talking about you, with opinions on whether you’re good enough. But it was just a different level of competition, and I figured out right away that I could play for them.”
Finally, in June 1999, the summer after my senior year, I became a full-time member of the U.S. national A1 team, living and training at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Head coach Mick Haley had pushed me to join the team six months earlier, weeks after we’d won the 1998 NCAA Championship. I’d declined because I’d wanted to finish my spring semester.
When you’re in residence at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, you feel like a character in the movie Groundhog Day. You have twice-daily practices, and in between, you sandwich meals, naps, weight training, and aerobic conditioning. You go to sleep at night, you wake up the next morning, and you do it all over again. Because the U.S. women’s indoor team hadn’t yet qualified for Sydney, there was a lot of anxiety surrounding it. So it was just me and my U.S. teammates, and volleyball, volleyball, volleyball, for days on end.
Doing nothing but training is a luxury, and I was grateful to be a member of the U.S. national team, except for the fact that I wasn’t being given much of an opportunity to play. From the outset, Haley told my parents and me that I most likely wouldn’t be the starting setter for at least a year and a half. At the time, I thought it was a curious statement. I’d just completed one of the most successful collegiate careers ever, establishing myself as one of the most dominating players and one of the best setters in college and U.S. history. Now, with some perspective, I think the reasoning behind Haley’s decision to sit me for a year and a half had to do with three things: I was one of the younger players, I had to learn a new system (which was very different from Brian’s fast-moving, quick-hitting philosophy), and I lacked foreign playing experience.
In addition, it probably didn’t help matters that, at five foot eight and a half, I was one of the shortest players on the U.S. national team. And it probably worked against me that I’d chosen to stick around Long Beach State until June, rather than move to Colorado Springs six months earlier as Haley would’ve preferred.
Of course, Dad has a very different view. To this day, he’s convinced Haley’s decision to sit me for a year and a half was political. Dad believes the issues he had at the 1968 Olympics with Jim Coleman, his U.S. team’s head coach, influenced how I was treated by Haley thirty years later. At that point in time, Coleman was the general manager of national teams for USA Volleyball, which meant
he oversaw my women’s team. While Haley may have had a solid reason to treat me the way he did, it wasn’t evident to me or my family. Even today, Dad continues to apologize to me about what he wholeheartedly believes was his negative impact on my shot as the starting setter for the U.S. national team.
“I’ve been around volleyball long enough to know that it’s very political, that you make enemies for life because the people that are in this thing never forget,” Dad always says. He’ll apologize to me, then he’ll say, “We’ll never know how good you could’ve been indoors, pal.”
One thing Haley said still sticks out in my mind. He told me that, as a setter, I was “too deceptive.” I thought, “But isn’t that what you want from your setter?” At Long Beach State, Debbie had taught me deception is a huge plus. Dad had drummed that into me, too. “Keep ’em guessing,” he’d tell me. Maybe Haley thought I was too deceptive for my own teammates.
Regardless, it was clear from the get-go that Haley and I had a major difference of opinion over the philosophy of setting. He tried to change my setting style. He wanted me to set every ball at the same height. I wanted to hit each ball at the height I thought was best for each individual. Being a setter on a volleyball team, to my mind, is like being an NFL quarterback. In football, not every receiver wants the ball thrown to him exactly the same way. Some guys like it higher, some guys like absolute rockets.
After I got to the U.S. national team, we participated in a handful of tournaments and exhibitions. One was in New Orleans, where I didn’t get off the bench; another was in Japan, where I played sporadically. (Ironically, a lot of the girls who came to watch me in New Orleans were wearing pigtails, mimicking my signature hairstyle.) I was disappointed by my lack of playing time, but it wasn’t until I got to the Pan American Games, July 23 to August 8, in Winnipeg, Canada, that I started to ask questions. There, I ran into Jen Pavley, a volleyball player from Agoura Hills, California. She’d been a club teammate of mine. She was competing in beach volleyball. (She and partner Marsha Miller ended up winning the Pan Am Games silver medal.) She told me that she was on her way to see a movie. A movie? What a concept—doing something to take your mind off volleyball!
When you’re part of a team, there’s a pack mentality. If one person goes to the bathroom, everybody goes. If you go to dinner or to the movies, everybody else goes, too. There’s no deviating from the group. I was getting tired of that mind-set.
“How are you dealing with all of this team stuff?” I asked Jen.
“I’m playing beach volleyball. We each have our own schedule,” Jen said. “That’s why I can go to the movies if I want to.”
“Wow, that must be nice,” I replied.
The wheels in my brain started turning. I wanted the challenges, connections, excitement, and growth I’d experienced at Long Beach State. I wanted the laughter, lunacy, relationships, and fun I’d experienced with my parents and their friends at Muscle Beach. Most of all, I wanted the freedom of self-expression I’d always felt when I played volleyball. How was I going to get that?
Toward the end of the summer, I was moved back to the A2 team to get some more playing time. My parents were working at a volleyball clinic in Colorado, so I asked them to drive over and watch practice. We were playing mini-tournaments against each other, and I wanted them to take a look at my game, as well as catch the vibe of the team and its coaching staff. Plus, I was homesick and unhappy, and I wanted to see familiar faces.
After the clinic, they drove eight hours, fighting traffic and road construction, to see me. When Dad took one look at the practice, he flipped out. He recalls Haley reading the newspaper and talking on his cell phone throughout the two hours we were on the floor. He remembers me setting balls, and my teammates shooting them every which way, with no correction by the coaching staff. Dad was fuming.
“Butch, keep your mouth shut,” Mom instructed.
At the end, Haley asked Dad what he thought of practice.
“When does practice start?” Dad sarcastically replied.
One thing led to another, and then Haley said, “I told Misty she’d have to sit for a year and a half.”
In hindsight, not being given much of an opportunity to play for the U.S. national A1 team is one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was the impetus I needed to think about what I wanted out of my volleyball career. It was the impetus I needed to ask myself, “What makes me happy?”
Truth be told, I was getting more and more depressed. I’d started losing the fire. Worst of all, I was losing my love of volleyball. And that really worried me. I wanted to quit, and I wasn’t raised to be a quitter. My emotional state was the big reason why I’d phoned my parents and asked them to visit. I’d wanted their opinion of practice, but most of all, I’d wanted them to know how I was feeling about volleyball.
After practice, my parents and I went out to dinner, and I said, “Well, what do you think?” As always, Dad was brutally honest. He made it very clear that he wasn’t at all happy about my situation.
“What do you want to do, Misty?” he asked.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I said. “Are you going to be mad at me if I quit?”
“Absolutely not,” Dad said.
As it became clear throughout the summer I wasn’t going to play a major role with the U.S. national A1 team, at least not at this point, I began soul searching. Over and over, I asked myself, “What can I do to make a change before I end up completely hating volleyball?” I’d seen friends come to despise the sport because they were driven so hard as kids. I didn’t want that to happen to me, because volleyball was such a meaningful part of life for me and my parents. I’ve always valued my parents’ opinions, and I knew they’d shoot straight with me. Of course, Dad’s view would be absolutely black and white, while Mom’s would have shades of gray.
“Maybe it’s time for a change,” Mom said.
She’d always wanted me to play beach volleyball. She felt that’s where my heart was, and she believed that my body would last a lot longer playing on the beach.
A few minutes later, I decided I was officially finished with the U.S. national team.
“I’m going to try this beach thing,” I announced to my parents.
Brian and Debbie tried to talk me into sticking it out indoors. However, while they were a little skeptical about how well I’d do on the beach, they also knew my heart wasn’t with the U.S. national team. It might have been different, if Brian had taken the U.S. national team’s head coaching job when it was offered to him a few years earlier.
“We wanted to see Misty represent the country as the Olympic team setter because that’s the goal of anyone who has played indoors,” Brian told the Long Beach Press Telegram in 1999. “But Misty has a quality I’ve rarely seen in athletes. I believe she can be a success at whatever she chooses. I think she’ll be one of the best beach volleyball players in a few years; it just may not be until 2004 before she can get to the Olympics because she started late.”
11
FIRST OLYMPICS
After quitting the U.S. national team in August 1999, the first person I called was Holly McPeak. Since we’d last talked, she’d struggled throughout the summer, playing in FIVB, AVP, and USA Volleyball events with Gabrielle Reece and Karolyn Kirby, and she’d had mediocre results with both partners. The word had gotten out that I was pursuing a professional beach volleyball career, but I wanted Holly to hear it directly from me. I needed her to know that if she was still willing to take me on as her partner, I was ready to go.
“Are you truly serious about this, Misty?” Holly asked, sternly.
She proceeded to impress upon me that qualifying for the 2000 Olympics wasn’t going to be easy. There were spots for four U.S. teams in Sydney, two men’s and two women’s, but because I’d dilly-dallied with the U.S. national team all summer, we now were ten months and six tournaments behind the other U.S. contenders in the Olympic qualifying process.
In the two years le
ading up to an Olympics, beach volleyball teams try to qualify for the Games by playing in worldwide events sanctioned by the FIVB, the governing body for the sport. Points are awarded at each tour stop, depending on where each team finishes. Some events award double points. At the conclusion of the qualifying period, each team’s best eight finishes are added together, and the two teams with the highest point totals represent the United States.
Holly explained that we were behind the eight ball: We had only ten FIVB events in which to get eight world-best finishes. Just one tour stop was in the United States, and it also was the only tournament with double qualifying points. The two leading U.S. women’s teams—Annett Davis and Jenny Johnson Jordan, and Liz Masakayan and Elaine Youngs—had big points leads, and they also had the advantage of having had good finishes in the 1999 World Championships in Marseille, France, a double-points qualifier. (A silly FIVB qualifying procedure placed too much emphasis on old points.)
I quickly glanced at their cumulative points totals. In my mind, I calculated that to qualify for Sydney, we’d have to finish in the top four in every event, and we’d always have to finish higher than those two teams. I thought it was doable. At the time, though, I was so young and so naïve, I didn’t truly grasp what a monumental task it was going to be, how many thousands of miles we would have to travel, and what a physical and emotional toll it would take on us both. I also had no clue about Holly’s drive, or her workouts, which were a regular topic of conversation in beach volleyball, described as falling between army bootcamp and hell. What’s that saying? Ignorance is bliss?
And then I asked Holly, “Why do you want to play with me?”
Her response cemented it for me: “Because I know you want to win.”
After speaking to Holly, I called Dad and Mom.
“Guess who I just talked to?” I said.
“Who?” Dad replied.
Misty Page 13