First, I underwent a sexual assault forensic examination, which is also known as a “rape kit.” I was physically examined by a highly trained rape trauma team, which collected any evidence necessary to establish that a crime had occurred, and if possible, to establish who’d committed the crime. I was swabbed to determine whether there’d been physical or penile penetration. My hair and pubic hair were plucked, as well as combed through to collect any foreign matter. A series of photographs also were taken. Next, I underwent an extensive interview with a rape counselor and a representative from the district attorney’s office. I relived the incident and explained in great detail what had happened. After that, notes from my interview and examination were compared to determine whether I was telling the truth.
And then, I was asked one final question: Do you want to press charges? I said yes. I never wavered. I never wavered on anything I said, or did, that night. At about 5:30 A.M., Dad recalls the district attorney telling him and Mom that a lewd and lascivious act had occurred, that I’d been touched and fondled inappropriately, and that I’d never wavered in the interview or the examination. Dad recalls the district attorney saying that the evidence against the suspect was overwhelming.
Choosing to follow through by pressing charges gave me a feeling of accomplishment and empowerment. I knew I was protecting myself and others from being victimized. It still makes me feel good to know that I fought back. I’m proud of the fact that when faced with a situation like that I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t afraid to phone the police, to show up at the hospital, to go through the physical examination, to press charges, or to testify at the trial, which led to a conviction. I did the right thing.
To this day, I’ve never undergone any form of counseling for the sexual assault. I was strong enough to work through it, thanks to a lot of emotional support from my parents, who always were there to listen whenever I needed to talk. I was able to keep it from affecting me in school and on the volleyball court, and I went on to thrive in healthy relationships with men.
In 1997, my junior season, we stayed at the number one spot in the nation for seven weeks in a row in the USA Today/American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Top 25 Poll. We took over the top spot November 2 and remained there until the conclusion of the season. The last time the 49ers had been ranked number one in the nation during the regular season in the AVCA poll was September 28, 1993. From top to bottom, we believed we were destined to win the NCAA Championship. The expectations the coaches had for us were sky high, but we actually wanted more from ourselves than they could’ve ever imagined. We worked our butts off. We stayed extremely focused. We were determined to be the best team in the nation, when all was said and done.
The turning point of the 1997 season came in our two-game series against number two Florida, in Gainesville. We beat the Gators the first night, 15–8, 15–6, 15–12, then lost to them the second, 15–12, 10–15, 12–15, 15–11, 15–11. It was our first defeat of the season. Afterward we set our team goals in stone. We had a two-hour team meeting in the locker room, longer than any I can remember.
“How good do you want to be?” Brian asked us.
We told him we wanted to be NCAA champions, and when we came back to practice Monday, it was game on! Practices, which hadn’t been easy to begin with, became dreadfully hard, thanks, in large part, to Brian’s telling us we needed to step it up, if we wanted to reach our goals. I don’t know who pushed harder, Brian or us. We were so hungry to win the NCAA Championship we ran through walls for him.
Then the team was dealt two devastating blows.
First, in practice November 13, Jessica broke the third metacarpal on her left hand. Then, two weeks before the fifty-six-team NCAA tournament, we were passed over for the number one seed. That went to Penn State. We were seeded second, Stanford was third, and Florida fourth. Being seeded second meant we’d have to face the defending national champions, Stanford, in one of the semifinals at the Final Four in Spokane, Washington. When the seedings were announced, we were all very upset. We should have been playing the fourth seed, and Stanford and Penn State should have been playing each other. Brian was so outraged that he made his feelings known in the media.
His worst fears were quickly realized: It was one and done in Spokane. We beat Stanford the first set, then we just fell apart. They were such a strong team. They had quite a few seniors. At one point in the match, I was on such a mission to win the NCAA Championship that I looked like a Cirque du Soleil performer. Falling to the court, I took a bad pass a few feet above the floor and shot it within inches of a far corner for a side out. Still, it wasn’t enough. Brian pulled out all the stops, inserting Jessica into Game 4, when we were down, 12–3. She was an immediate spark. We went on a 7–0 run and eventually went ahead, 15–14. But Stanford never let up. The Cardinal beat us, 9–15, 15–10, 15–4, 17–15, in front of 10,284 at the Spokane Arena.
We had a tough time that day trying to thwart Stanford’s Kerri Walsh (twenty-two kills) and Kristin Folkl and Paula McNamee (thirteen). As a team, we were number one in the nation in hitting percentage, yet we’d struggled all match behind a poor .155 attack. However, we were able to limit the Cardinal to a .209 hitting percentage, as if that was any consolation. It wasn’t. My being named AVCA Division I Player of the Year, a first-team All-American, and Volleyball magazine’s Player of the Year didn’t lessen the sting either.
After Stanford beat us, we congregated in the locker room.
“What do you want?” Brian asked us.
“We want to be the best team in the country,” I said.
Then Jessica, a junior and one of our most vocal leaders, took it one step further.
“I don’t want to lose a match all season,” she said.
I think it’s important to set a far-fetched goal. We all wanted to win, but nobody wanted to step up, except for Jessica, and say, “I want to go undefeated.” It was in the back of everyone’s mind, but Jessica wasn’t afraid to say it. Her attitude and her fearlessness rubbed off on everybody else. We rallied behind her proclamation.
I’ve always said the best team we competed against in the 1998 season was our B side in practice. Why? Because they said, “We’re going to compete with the starters in practice and make them the best team in the country. We’re vital members of this team.” I give Brian a lot of credit for our all-for-one, one-for-all attitude. During my first three years at Long Beach State, he’d molded us into one powerful unit. I remember wondering, for example, why he made us wear the same color hair ties, why he wouldn’t let us wear bows in our hair. Everything was so regimented, I thought, “This is a little over the top.” But then, I read a book by John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, and it dawned on me, “Now I know why Brian does what he does.” Bill Walton’s hair was too long, and Wooden told him he’d have to cut it. He wanted everybody on the same level on the court. Everybody’s got to be in uniform.
That’s what was so great about our 1998 Long Beach State team: When we had that meeting after losing to Stanford in the 1997 NCAA semifinals, we knew we were all in it together.
Case in point: Brian had asked everybody to play beach volleyball that summer. I’d given him the idea, and he understood playing on the beach would help my teammates identify strengths and weaknesses in their games. Since there are only two people covering the court, using beach volleyball as cross training for indoor volleyball, you learn to pick up different shots. Then, when you go back indoors, with six people per side, it makes the game much easier. Playing on the beach taught me every skill. Outdoors, the timing is different because of the sand. When you jump, you’re not jumping as high. The wind also plays a role in your performance. Indoors, you have a little less freedom as a player because you’re each responsible for certain zones. Because I was training with the U.S. National A1 team that summer, I didn’t put in time at the beach. However, all of my Long Beach State teammates did. I definitely noticed a difference in our team’s overall performance. Every
body’s skills picked up. Everybody loved it because, like I said, we knew what we wanted, and then we had to ask ourselves, How were we going to get there?
So what happened? We were undefeated in the regular season. We were a powerful machine, mowing down opponents left and right. We blanked California, San Diego State, Cal State Fullerton, Idaho, New Mexico State, and UC–Irvine in 15–0 games. If we did that at home games, every fan in attendance got a free bagel at a local bagel shop the next day. And if we won in less than sixty minutes, everybody got free In-N-Out burgers. That became such a popular promotion, Long Beach State fans booed opponents who took time-outs late in games, threatening to ace them out of free burgers.
Brian, the 1998 AVCA National Coach of the Year, pushed all the right buttons. Physically, we were in the best shape of our lives, thanks to his relentless practices. Mentally, no team in the nation was tougher.
The season was monumental for me, and my family, for another reason: At our Thanksgiving Tournament at the Pyramid, Long Beach State’s arena, the school retired my number five jersey. As Mom, Dad, and I stood together on the court, the lights were turned down, and a single spotlight shone on my number five jersey, which was hanging from the rafters. I became the fourth 49ers women’s volleyball player—and only the seventh athlete in school history—to have her jersey number retired.
Naturally, I turned it into a light moment.
“Does this mean I get another jersey?” I kidded after receiving the honor.
The next evening, the team gathered at Cirivello’s on Viking Way in Long Beach to watch the announcement of the national pairings: We were the number one seed in the nation.
“It’s our year,” I told the Long Beach Press Telegram. “This is the first team since I’ve been here that, when we play a team that’s really not at our level, we still play with the same intensity. Past teams I’ve been on will maybe have a 15–11 game with one of those teams. But this team has all been on the same page, just going for one thing. I feel like the time is right.”
We blew through the first round, obliterating Southern University, 15–0, 15–0, 15–0, in forty-nine minutes. We tied the NCAA playoff record for least points allowed in a match. We set a school record with a .615 hitting percentage and tied the 49ers’ second-best effort for service aces with fifteen. Southern, Southwestern Athletic Conference champions, playing in their first NCAA tournament and seeded last in the sixty-four-team tournament, almost scored a point in the third game, which would have made the score 9–1, but they had the wrong player serving.
We knocked off nineteenth-ranked Arizona, 15–11, 15–4, 15–11. I was awarded a yellow card (penalty) for celebrating too much after spiking the ball in the Wildcats’ court for a side out.
Next up, Illinois. A funny thing happened on the way to that NCAA regional semifinal. Brandy and I had just walked up to the door of the Pyramid, where fans were standing in a long line at the ticket window. I was dressed in my practice sweats, Brandy had on her 49ers’ jacket. A little girl, wearing a Long Beach State volleyball T-shirt, approached us. We figured she wanted an autograph. Instead, she pulled out an extra ticket and said, “Would you guys like to buy this?” Brandy and I rolled our eyes and said, “Is she joking?” But no. She hadn’t recognized us. We busted up laughing. I gently broke it to our young fan that we didn’t need a ticket for admission because we were playing in the match. Then we went inside and bumped off Illinois, 16–14, 15–4, 15–11.
And finally, we defeated Texas, 15–9, 15–9, 15–2, to advance to the Final Four in Madison, Wisconsin. The celebrating seemed to last forever. We ran through the Pyramid, high-fiving everybody in the gym. Before we left the Pyramid for the last time in our college careers, Jessica, Benishe Dillard, and I kissed the floor.
After only one major upset in the first four rounds, the NCAA tournament held to form, with the top four seeds advancing to the Final Four. We were matched up against number four Florida in the semifinals, while number two Penn State would play number three Nebraska. It would be the first time we’d played Florida since splitting two regular-season matches in Gainesville the year before.
The 49ers’ associate athletic director, Cindy Masner, went to great lengths to turn it into a home game for us: She hired the Wisconsin band to perform. All decked out in 49ers’ attire, the UW band opened up with “On Wisconsin,” then played the 49ers’ fight song. We did our part, too, with a .500 attack, committing only two errors on twenty-two attempts.
We won our thirty-fifth consecutive match, eliminating the Gators, 15–2, 15–8, 15–10, to win our sixty-seventh consecutive game and record our thirty-first sweep in front of 12,327 at the Kohl Center. At that time, it was the largest crowd ever to watch a women’s volleyball match. I recorded my sixth triple-double (thirty-two assists, fifteen digs, and eleven kills), and I had a couple of service aces to set an NCAA tournament record.
Ironically, several of my teammates and I were fighting colds, and we wore down as the match went on. It hadn’t begun until 10:15 P.M. Central Standard Time and didn’t end until 11:45 P.M. We’d waited two hours and twenty-seven minutes for the first semifinal to be played. Penn State defeated Nebraska, 3–1. And then, after meeting with the media after the game, I was selected by the NCAA for random drug testing. That made my night, and Brian’s, even longer. I was suffering from bronchitis, and I was dehydrated. I didn’t get back to the hotel until after 1:00 A.M., and I didn’t fall asleep until almost 3:00 A.M.
Our semifinal victory set up the title match everybody had been dreaming of since the summer, when we’d both laid claim to the number one ranking: Long Beach State versus Penn State. We both were undefeated with 35–0 records. It was believed to be the first time in NCAA tournament history that teams with perfect records would meet in the NCAA title match.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” I told the Long Beach Press Telegram.
We had a day off before the final, and Brian limited practice to one hour, figuring it would be best for us to get some rest.
The championship match was an epic battle, and our most harrowing, thanks to a hostile crowd and a Penn State team that just wouldn’t quit. But we all knew it would be. In addition, the Nittany Lions just rubbed us the wrong way. In a November article in USA Today, their players were quoted as saying to forget about the rankings, which had Long Beach State number one. They were number one in the nation, in their minds. Jessica was so perturbed by Penn State’s arrogance that she carried that article in her duffel bag from that point on.
When we fell behind in the final game, Brian called time-out and made the most important speech of his career.
“We can’t lose! We’ve come too far, and we’ve worked too hard to lose!” he said. “Forget all the noise. Just concentrate on what we do best.”
We fell further and further behind. 7–2. 8–4. And then, suddenly, we took command. In my mind, I was just waiting for the last ball to drop, so we could all start jumping around. Finally, it did.
We defeated Penn State, 15–3, 15–10, 13–15, 14–16, 15–12, in front of an NCAA-record crowd of 13,194. The two-day total of 25,521 broke by more than 4,000 the record set the year before in Spokane, Washington. We’d won one for the underdogs—Long Beach State’s annual athletic budget was $5 million, compared to Penn State’s $40-plus million. We’d saved the best for last: We’d hit a magnificent .556 in Game 5, committing only one hitting error on eighteen attempts.
We threw ourselves on top of one another on the court.
I was named co-MVP of the 1998 Final Four, with nine kills, seventy assists, and four blocked shots in the title game. I set an NCAA tournament record with twenty service aces in six matches, shattering the previous mark of thirteen set by UCLA’s Natalie Williams in 1991. I also was named the AVCA Division I NCAA Player of the Year for the second consecutive season, the first back-to-back winner since the 49ers’ Tara Cross won in 1989 and 1990. We’d posted a perfect 36–0 mark, the first time in NCAA history a wome
n’s volleyball team had gone through the season undefeated. Arguably, we were the greatest women’s volleyball team in college history. It was the perfect ending to my Long Beach State career.
In early February 1999, we came together again for a magnificent evening, this time at our NCAA Championship banquet at the Ramada Renaissance hotel. The year before, after we’d lost to Stanford in the semis, our annual banquet had been held at the Pyramid, with only a few hundred family, friends, and boosters attending. This time, though, seven hundred people filled the second-floor Renaissance ballroom. So much excitement still swirled around our volleyball program that there was a buzz in the room. It was a three-hour lovefest, filled with laughter and tears.
Always the class clown, when I was introduced, I got behind the podium and asked the audience to please remain standing.
“I’d like to sing the national anthem,” I joked, referring to a threat I’d made a few years before.
For me, it was all about leaving ’em laughing.
The evening closed with highlight clips of our perfect season, set to Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman singing, “Time to Say Goodbye.”
All that was left was a visit to the White House, which has become routine for outstanding athletes and championship teams. But instead of going to Washington, D.C., to meet President Bill Clinton, he came to us. In May, we met him on the tarmac, next to Air Force One, at the Los Angeles airport. He was on a four-day, five-stop tour through California, Washington, and Nevada. President Clinton praised us for our accomplishment, and he told us how much he appreciated our sport. I believe it was the first time a women’s college volleyball team had met the president of the United States.
My years at Long Beach State were life-changing. I couldn’t have asked for better teammates. At the time, I thought, “This is a very special group of people.” But now, so many years later, I realize just how special they were, and still are. It was such a great team to be part of. No other team ever would, or could, mean as much to me.
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