Misty

by Misty May-Treanor

  Why didn’t Mom stop drinking after Dad got sober? I’m still dumbfounded by that. Dad says it’s because “she didn’t find it necessary.” Again, I just don’t think she could disengage herself from alcohol’s stranglehold. It was a strong, strong addiction for her. Dad says you’ve got to hit rock bottom before you make radical changes in your life. He also says every bottom has a trapdoor. Well, Mom just hadn’t bottomed out yet. She kept finding trapdoors. She drank a lot at night, after she came home from teaching tennis. With her being drunk, and Dad putting in so much time at MGM, there were many hours when nobody was looking after me. That ended my childhood long before it should have. I had to become an adult well before I was ready. All those nights, at home, alone with Mom, a beautiful, loving woman, who turned into someone else as the evenings, and the drinking, wore on, hurt me deeply. Often, I had to be the responsible one in the household: “Mom, you can’t get into the car and drive.” Or, “Mom, you’ve left dinner in the oven and burned it. Let’s order a pizza.” Or, “Mom, you’re not making sense. It’s time for you to go to bed.”

  One night, Mom called Dad at MGM, drunk and in a panic.

  “Somebody stole Misty!” she cried.

  Dad explained the situation to his boss, admitted Mom’s drinking problem, and was excused from work.

  “Whatever it takes, go home and find Misty,” his boss told him.

  When Dad got home, Mom already had the neighbors out combing the area, searching for me. They were walking the streets, knocking on doors. Before he joined the search party, though, he headed upstairs to my bedroom. He just had a hunch. Sure enough, there I was, asleep in my bed, buried underneath a warm pile of laundry. It turned out Mom had done several loads of wash that night, then folded the clothes and dumped them on top of me. She’d been too drunk and disoriented to notice me sleeping.

  Being the only child of alcoholic parents could be extremely lonely, especially when both Dad and Mom were drinking. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone—my friends, my grandparents, my teachers, my guidance counselors, my coaches, my teammates—about what was going on inside my world. At times, I felt as if I were the only kid on earth who had such a topsy-turvy life. So instead of talking about it, I just tried to deal with it on my own. I’d lock myself into my bedroom and do something to try to distract myself. Listen to music. Do homework. Work on jigsaw puzzles. And cry. I’d always cry.

  I often worried that their fighting would eventually lead to divorce. Dad says his Muscle Beach friends told him to leave Mom once he was sober. They were concerned about our welfare. But Dad was deeply in love with Mom. He says he never came close to leaving her after he’d sobered up. He had faith in Mom, faith that someday the light would go on and she’d realize she had to get sober. He didn’t want to walk away, he says, because then he’d always wonder.

  There were times when Mom’s drinking got so out of control that Dad and I both had to leave the house. We’d go to movies, hoping that by the time we came home she’d be sobered up. Or passed out.

  Even now, I can’t recall why she finally stopped drinking in 1992. Perhaps it was because she saw all the progress Dad was making. Perhaps it was because she recognized all the opportunities unfolding in front of me. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because she finally understood it was no fun being miserable all by herself. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

  For years, Mom used to paw through Dad’s dresser drawers, rummage through his stuff in the garage, dig through his truck, looking for booze. She couldn’t understand why he came home from AA meetings so upbeat. She couldn’t figure out what was making him so happy. He must have been drinking, she thought. Eventually, she figured it out: He was happy because he was sober. Dad likes to call AA “a program of attraction.” One day, Mom finally went to Dad and said, “I think I might have a problem.”

  “Come to a meeting, and we’ll find out,” Dad suggested.

  Mom’s first AA meeting didn’t go well at all. She listened to others tell their stories, and she absolutely hated it. “That’s not me,” she told Dad. But he was so faithful about attending AA meetings, and he was so encouraging of Mom’s sobriety, that she kept right on going. At most meetings, she’d get into it with the recovering alcoholics, to the point of cursing at them. If she heard an answer she didn’t like, she’d take it personally. A few months into the process, Mom announced, “I’m through with AA!” She stopped attending AA meetings, and to her credit, she was able to remain sober. She never fell off the wagon, never even came close. She stayed sober because of her own sheer willpower. She stayed clean because Dad stayed clean. She stopped drinking so she could be present for me. One day, Dad found her in the kitchen, pouring twenty bottles of liquor down the drain.

  Even today, I’m grateful, every single minute, that my parents got sober before my volleyball career really took off. While I was living in their tumultuous, alcoholic hell, though, I promised myself I wouldn’t let them pull me, and my future, down the drain along with them. I made secret plans to live with my grandparents, or someone else (whom I wasn’t sure), in a more stable environment. If I’d had to live apart from one or both of my parents, I would’ve, in order to save myself.

  In the process of becoming sober, Mom became happier, more open, and more centered. She recognized her character defects and learned how to manage her shortcomings. Most important, she learned that quitting booze was only the tip of the iceberg: Just because you stop drinking, it doesn’t mean your problems stop, too. Through her own self-analysis, she realized her drinking stemmed from her childhood. One of the things Mom always had longed to hear was her parents saying, “I love you, Barbie.” But it was difficult for them to say. Eventually, Mom came to terms with it, and she filled that hole in her life by helping them in their old age.

  Now, I’d have to say alcoholism actually brought my parents and me closer as a family. Once Dad and Mom got sober, we did a lot more family things. We talked more. We tried to address our problems, not bury them. Our lives together became much more meaningful. We always started our days grateful, happy, and hopeful. I have vivid recollections of waking up each morning to the blaring sounds of the Three Tenors. At the crack of dawn, my parents would slip in a videotape of their favorite PBS program and crank up Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras. Their songs were so uplifting, such a far cry from the darkness. Mom would be busy cleaning the house, and Dad would be gardening in the backyard, and I’d hear them both singing along with the Three Tenors. Thinking about the scene still brings a smile to my face.

  As the years passed, the three of us were able to celebrate our past. Dad is proud of his AA sobriety chips, celebrating various sobriety milestones, five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. He and I always made a big deal of Mom’s sobriety milestones, too. We all finally reached the point where we could laugh about our darkest days. If Dad got uptight or edgy, Mom and I would always poke fun at him and say, “You need an AA meeting.” Without getting teed off, he’d agree. “Yeah, Serenity Prayer,” he’d proclaim, thrusting his fist in the air, and off he’d go to another AA meeting to straighten himself out.

  7

  HIGH SCHOOL

  My two biggest assets in life are passion and commitment.

  I’m fully invested in being exceptional, especially in volleyball. You’ve really got to love what you do for it to be extremely powerful. You’ve got to feel it, from your head to your toes, down through to your bones, right to the center of your heart. I’m talking goose-bumps-all-over-my-body, the-hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-my-neck territory. I can’t hide my passion. It’s extremely evident. I exude it from every pore when I’m on the field of play.

  I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to get to where I am today, although, in the scheme of things, I didn’t give up a whole lot. I attended only three high school dances, and now I tell girls, “High school dances are overrated.” When you’re part of a team, you don’t want to miss practice. When you’re having fu
n with your teammates, you don’t want to miss a single minute. Give it everything you’ve got.

  I learned some of my most valuable life lessons during my high school years, when I was emerging as the best young volleyball player in the country.

  From the moment we moved to Orange County my eighth-grade year, I felt like an outsider. My parents moved into a 1,040-square-foot, three-bedroom house in Costa Mesa. We finally had a house! I could take advantage of the area’s superior academics and athletics. It also was closer to my maternal grandparents, who lived in Laguna Hills. I was sad to leave my old friends, but Dad and Mom assured me sports would be my entrée to new ones. However, fitting in was more difficult than they’d planned.

  We were leaving our Muscle Beach sanctuary, the acceptance, the familiarity, the comfort, and the security of our extended family. That colorful cast of characters of all colors, ages, shapes, and sizes laid all of their cards right out on the table. They never put up racial, gender, religious, or socioeconomic barriers. Now we were entering affluent, predominantly white Orange County, and more specifically, Newport Beach, one of the wealthiest communities in the nation.

  It wasn’t my first brush with prejudice. That happened when I was ten and attended the Kamehameha Schools Ho’omaka’ika’I Explorations summer program. It’s the admissions policy of the Kamehameha Schools to give preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry to the extent permitted by law. The one-week boarding Explorations program centers on foundational themes and activities such as Hawaiian values, mele, hula, Hawaiian crafts, and much more. Because I was whiter than everybody else—I’m three-sixteenths Hawaiian—few people talked to me. By the third day, I couldn’t keep down any food and had diarrhea. Dad received a call from someone affiliated with the program, who told him I was sick.

  So Dad pulled some strings. He called his close friend Gordon Pi’ianaia. He’d attended and taught at the Kamehameha Schools, and he’d played volleyball at the University of Hawaii. Thanks to Gordon’s help, I soon was assigned a mentor from Ni’ihau, the smallest inhabited Hawaiian island. It’s the only Hawaiian island where the Hawaiian language is spoken as a primary language. Instantly, I was steeped in Hawaiian culture. It was amazing. I learned Hawaiian values and crafts. I mastered the hula. I won all of the swimming races. And, most important, I finally fit in.

  When I got home from Hawaii, Dad took me to see the movie Mississippi Burning, which dealt with racial prejudice in the South. Afterward, we talked about how it felt for me not to be completely accepted in Hawaii as Hawaiian.

  “So what do you think about Hawaii now?” Dad asked.

  “Hawaii always will hold a special place in my heart,” I said.

  However, my lack of acceptance in Newport Beach wasn’t about racial prejudice. It was about socioeconomic prejudice. When I arrived on the scene as an eighth grader, I was a talented athlete whose reputation preceded her. All of the girls in town had played together for years, in various sports, on public school teams, recreation league teams, and club teams. Instead of being welcomed because, in coming years, I could make the Newport Harbor High girls’ teams better, I was looked at with raised eyebrows. More hurtful yet, I was looked down upon because I was a lower-middle-class kid, who lived on the wrong side of the tracks. This was something I’d never encountered before. For example, a lot of the girls in the eighth and ninth grades would have birthday parties, and I wouldn’t be invited because I wasn’t part of the group.

  Fortunately, while I was working hard to make inroads through sports, I met two very nice girls, both of whom came from mixed race families, which also had made it difficult for them to fit in: Tina Bowman, my badminton partner in eighth-grade physical education class, and Cara Heads, the point guard on my eighth-grade basketball team. She later placed seventh at the 2000 Olympics in weightlifting. Tina and Cara could relate to the social challenges I was facing in the predominantly white, affluent community. I respected, embraced, and celebrated their diversity. Through the years, Tina and Cara have remained my close friends.

  I learned one of my most valuable life lessons in my freshman year at Newport Harbor High, when I was a member of the varsity volleyball team. Early in fall 1991, we were entered in a tournament in Santa Barbara, which fell on the same weekend as a family reunion. My parents asked head coach Dan Glenn if they could drive me to Santa Barbara, instead of my going on the team bus. Coach Glenn initially told them no, but finally relented, as long as I was in the gym an hour before the first game. Dad and Mom assured him I’d be there in plenty of time. Well, I wasn’t. A sailboat came off a trailer, closing the freeway we were on for ninety minutes. As I watched the clock tick down to game time, I got more and more nervous. Sure enough, I didn’t arrive until after the team had started warming up.

  “I told you if she was late, she wouldn’t play,” Coach Glenn told Dad.

  Dad explained what had happened, but Coach Glenn didn’t budge. He didn’t even allow me to participate in warm-ups. In fact, Coach Glenn completely ignored me. After the first or second match, Dad said, “We’re out of here!” And we drove home.

  A few days later, Coach Glenn laid down the law.

  “This stuff can’t happen, Misty,” Coach Glenn said. “You’ve only known me for a couple of months. You’ve known your parents all your life. I don’t expect you not to listen to your parents. I just need you to be here.”

  Years later, Coach Glenn admitted he was irritated with me that day because, in his view, I hadn’t come sprinting into the gym, apologizing profusely for my tardiness. What really ticked him off, he recalls now, was the “nonchalant manner” with which I walked through the gym door. Realistically, because I was a freshman, Coach Glenn says, he knew I probably wasn’t going to play in the tournament. The team had several seniors, including girls who’d played for him for three or four years. But Coach Glenn admits he used that incident to teach me exactly what he expected from his athletes. He wanted me to understand that nobody, not even a rising young star, got special treatment. Coach Glenn had high hopes for me. He already was thinking down the road to my junior and senior years, when he wanted me to be a leader.

  Sometimes, the head coach teaches you life lessons verbally. Other times, you learn them the hard way. For a week after the incident, Coach Glenn subjected me to rigorous drills, including “Coach on One” and “Marble Mania.” In “Coach on One,” a defensive drill, he’d set a time clock at one minute, then he’d toss a ball, anywhere on the court, and I’d have to get it up. If I didn’t touch the ball, ten seconds were tacked on to the minute. In “Marble Mania,” he’d roll the balls all over the floor, and I couldn’t let them roll out of bounds. If I did, again, he’d add ten seconds to the minute. The drills weren’t fun; they were exhausting. But this was my penalty, and I accepted it. The way I handled the adversity, Coach Glenn says, earned me the respect of my teammates.

  As my freshman season went on, I ended up starting and doing a phenomenal job. At five feet seven, I was the setter on a team featuring four-year varsity players. I was the only freshman named to the all-tournament team at the Orange County Championships. Coach Glenn says he believed we had the best team in the state that year, and he was devastated (and so were we) when we lost in the CIF quarterfinals in five games. Laguna Beach won the state championship that year, and we’d defeated Laguna pretty handily during the season. So the quarterfinal loss was especially painful. We knew we were better than that. We knew we’d blown a golden opportunity.

  In fall 1992, my sophomore year, we had a very young team. Coach Glenn started four sophomores, including me, a junior, and a senior. He moved me to outside hitter, and I excelled at the new position. His reasoning was this: If I were playing at outside hitter, I’d be touching the ball when I passed it, and I’d also get to hit it. So every time the ball crossed the net, I’d have a good chance of touching it twice, as opposed to being the setter, where I’d have only one shot at the ball. He thought I’d be more dynamic at outside hitter, and he
admits he used Karch’s career as the measuring stick in making the switch. Karch had been a setter at UCLA, but on the U.S. Olympic indoor team he was an outside hitter. Now, Coach Glenn says he wishes he’d kept me at setter.

  We were a young, scrappy bunch. We relished our underdog label. We weren’t very big, but we were extremely talented. We went on to win the 1992 CIF Division III State Championship behind my thirty-one kills in the title game. A small school, we always played up in Division I. After losing in the semis to Laguna Beach, we weren’t eligible for the Division I state playoffs. So Coach Glenn decided we’d step down to Division III. What a smart move. I was named Division III State Player of the Year.

  In my first two years at Newport Harbor, I also participated in soccer and track. I was asked to go out for basketball, but I declined because I felt I’d had enough gym time already. Also, I was very passionate about soccer, which was held the same time of the year as basketball. That didn’t mean I didn’t play basketball for fun, though. One day, while we were practicing approach jumps for volleyball, and we were measuring our vertical leap, Coach Glenn said, “Misty, you’re close to touching the basketball rim.”

  Close? I took that word as a challenge. A week later, as practice was getting started, I said, “Coach, watch this!” I did an approach and touched the rim. Outwardly, Coach Glenn was unfazed. “That’s great,” he said. “But the true test is if you can touch it three times in a row.” Years later, Coach Glenn told me, inside he was saying to himself, “Are you kidding?” Two weeks later, I burst into the gym and said, “Coach, check this out!” I touched the rim three times in a row off an approach. If you challenge me, I’m going to rise to the occasion. I’ve got a lot of drive, but it’s very quiet. I think people always have underestimated my drive because it’s so deep under the surface.