Misty

by Misty May-Treanor

  We came into the Olympics as one of the best teams in the world, enjoying a meteoric rise to the top, thanks to our globe-trotting Olympic quest, as well as our relentless drive and determination. Unfortunately, my injury put us in a bind. In beach volleyball, rhythm is everything. We’d been playing well as a team, then we’d put on the brakes. We’d completely stopped for almost six weeks. I rested, trying to heal my abdominals. Holly trained, trying to hold “the team” together. Meanwhile, everybody else in the world was fine-tuning their bodies, their partnerships, and their games for the Olympics.

  Throughout the Olympics, I thought I’d held it together pretty well. In fact, I don’t think I was that bad off, physically or emotionally. And then, in the quarterfinals, against Brazil, something snapped. We didn’t do as we’d been told. At times, we tried to do too much. At times, we did too little. Because coaches aren’t allowed to instruct during matches or to be near the players, and because there aren’t any time-outs to stop the action and regroup, I’ll never forget hearing Dad and Gene scrambling to get us back on track. From up in the stands, Dad yelled, “Don’t!” followed by Gene screaming, “Block!”

  At the conclusion of our Olympics, I was disappointed, but not devastated. Yes, I was quoted in Volleyball magazine saying, “I won’t lie: It really sucked to lose.” And, yes, I cried after our final match. Dad, Mom, Brack, and Scott kept assuring me there’d be a next time. But having witnessed Mom’s cancer battle, I knew there were worse things in life than losing a volleyball match, even in the Olympics.

  Truthfully, what we’d accomplished to get there, all three of us, Holly and I and Mom, made the fifth place finish sweet. Learning beach volleyball from the ground up was a victory. Qualifying for the Olympics was a victory. Growing as a person, on and off the court, was a victory. Coping with excruciating pain and pushing myself to achieve great things was a victory. And having Mom there to see me play was the biggest victory of all. It’s still the highlight of my career.

  What my Olympic experience taught me, firsthand, was that time waits for no one. You must identify your passion and follow your heart. You must never back down from challenges. You must never, ever give up. You must do everything possible to seek out, embrace, and savor the special moments in life. You must cherish family and friends. You must always go for the gold. Because you never know what tomorrow may bring.

  I’ll always remember looking up into the stands in Sydney, after Holly and I had lost, and thinking how lucky I was to be Barbara May’s daughter.

  12

  KERRI WALSH

  I’d just finished the final match in Sydney, and I hadn’t even mentally or emotionally processed my Olympic quest, when talk of the 2004 Olympics began.

  Leonard Armato, Holly’s significant other, a sports agent, and a cofounder of the AVP, told Dad they’d like me to sign a five-year contract to play with Holly through the Athens Games. Dad said he couldn’t promise that I’d continue as Holly’s partner, but he also wouldn’t speak for me. Mom, meanwhile, was much more blunt.

  “No way!” she barked, still smarting from the loss and our inability to follow Dad and Gene’s game plan.

  Fortunately, I was out of earshot.

  After all those weeks on the Olympic quest merry-go-round, I was completely worn out. I had to slow the breakneck speed with which I’d approached my rookie season on the beach. I had to dial back the intensity of my training. I had to stop the constant analysis of my game. I had to end the relentless drive for perfection. I wanted to enjoy the journey, as much as, if not more than, the destination. For me, beach volleyball is all about the journey. So is life. They always have been, and they always will be.

  I had to stop feeling as if somebody were holding my head underwater and not letting me come up for air.

  I wanted to breathe.

  After Holly and I finished fifth, my parents were so disappointed we hadn’t advanced to the medal round that they immediately began talking about finding a new partner for me. As luck would have it, the very next evening, Dad and Mom stumbled upon the perfect candidate: Kerri Walsh. We were eating dinner at the AT&T hospitality center for U.S. Olympians and their family and friends. We had Misty’s Misfits in tow, and more, about seventeen people in all, including my parents and me. Dad noticed Tim and Marge Walsh, Kerri’s parents, across the room.

  “What are you looking at?” Mom asked Dad.

  “Kerri Walsh’s parents,” he replied.

  Then, he turned to me and said, “Misty, what about playing with Kerri Walsh?”

  “She doesn’t play beach,” I replied.

  “You can ask her to try,” Dad said.

  For several minutes, Dad and Mom discussed the upside of my playing with Kerri. Finally, Dad walked over to Tim and extended his hand.

  “I’d like to introduce myself,” Dad said. “I’m Butch May, Misty’s father.”

  “Sure, Butch, we know who you are,” Tim said. “How are you?”

  “Well, I was just wondering, would Kerri like to play beach?” Dad asked.

  “Why?” Tim replied.

  “Because my wife, Barbara, and I think she’d be a great beach player,” Dad said. “We’d like Kerri to come down to Southern California to see Misty for a couple of days, get the two of them out on the sand and give it a try.”

  “Are you serious about this?” Tim asked.

  “Absolutely,” Dad said.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play with Holly any longer. She was a great partner and a great person. Even today, when Dad sees Holly, he thanks her for pushing me through the threshold. It was an honor for me to have played with her. She was a great teacher and an excellent player-coach on the court. She was successful for so many years because of her intensity. She was relentless in trying to get better every day, and while being exposed to her attitude was incredibly instructive, keeping the flame burning so brightly 24/7 was also tremendously draining for me.

  I wanted to enjoy the process, and Holly’s crash course in beach volleyball hadn’t allowed me to do that. The more my parents talked about the possibilities playing with Kerri offered, the more I realized it was the right time to move on to a new partner, the perfect moment to start over again from the beginning with a younger, taller player. Deep down, I wanted, and needed, to learn the game slowly and to grow with a partner over time.

  Picking Kerri as a partner for me was a stroke of genius on my parents’ part. At that time, Kerri was twenty-two, almost ten years younger than Holly, and considered the nation’s best young female indoor player. A year younger than I, Kerri was six foot three, and from the moment she stepped onto the sand, she’d become one of the tallest, if not the tallest, women in beach volleyball. Instantly, my role would change. With Holly, I was “the big player”; with Kerri, I’d become “the little player.” That would play to my strength as a defensive player.

  Kerri grew up in Northern California, born in Santa Clara and raised in Saratoga. The nearest beach was in Santa Cruz, about thirty minutes south, where she’d participated in Junior Lifeguards and spent her free time, swimming in the ocean and hanging out on the sand. She’d made a conscious effort not to play beach volleyball because she thought she’d be too terrible at it, or in her own words, she was worried she’d “look like an idiot.”

  Kerri was a smart woman with impeccable volleyball credentials. She’d led Stanford to two NCAA Championships (1996 and 1997); was a four-year, first-team All-American, Final Four MVP (1996), and co–National Player of the Year (1999). Just like me, she had strong, athletic genes: Her father, Tim, who was six foot eight, had pitched in the Oakland A’s organization and made it to the Triple-A level. He’d also played semipro basketball. Her mother, Marge, was a two-time volleyball MVP at Santa Clara University.

  Kerri and I already knew a lot about each other. Volleyball is a tight-knit community, and you always hear about the standouts. At that point in time, she might be best described as the Northern California version of me. We’d pla
yed against each other twice during our high school years—I was at Newport Harbor, and she was at Archbishop Mitty in San Jose—and once in college. Stanford had defeated Long Beach State in the semifinals of the 1997 Final Four. Kerri later told a story about how, as a high school player, she’d been so nervous about playing against me in the Tournament of Champions in Santa Barbara she couldn’t breathe. She remembers tearing up after her team won because it made her a little sad for me. Another time, also in high school, she’d asked for my autograph at a tournament in Stockton. She was in tears because she was so anxious about approaching me. Her parents told her to just walk up and ask me, and she finally approached me, handing me her lucky number nine towel and a pen to sign it.

  “I won’t bite you,” I told her. At the time, I couldn’t understand why Kerri was acting so goofy. I thought, “I’m just a person like everybody else.” I guess she just looked up to me that much.

  What I didn’t know then was that, as a kid, Kerri was extremely insecure. The first five years of her life, she barely spoke. Her brother Marte, who’s eleven months older, did most of the talking for her. Throughout high school, Kerri was very shy, even in small groups. She always leaned on Marte, her support system and her pillar of strength. She’d led her teams to championships in a variety of sports, but she wasn’t a vocal leader.

  As I later learned, Kerri’s Sydney Olympic experience had been bittersweet. Thirty minutes before her first game with the U.S. Olympic indoor team, she was told she couldn’t play because a drug test had indicated a suspicious testosterone to epitestosterone ratio. After she was retested, it turned out to be wrong, and Kerri was back on the court a few games later. She and her U.S. Olympic indoor teammates finished a disappointing fourth. Kerri was feeling burned out on volleyball. She didn’t want to play professionally overseas because she didn’t want to be far away from her family. She also needed a change of pace, so she was considering playing in Puerto Rico, which had a shorter indoor season.

  When we both got home from the Olympics, Kerri and I began trading emails. Should I come down? Yeah, come down! It was really casual. Kerri later told me in her head, and in her heart, she was so nervous about what she thought was “an audition” that she tried to prepare for our meeting by getting together a group of players in Northern California to play with her at the beach. From the time she was fourteen, Kerri now admits, she’d always wanted to play volleyball with me.

  In early February 2001, five months before Kerri graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree in American studies, my parents’ matchmaking finally came to fruition. Kerri traveled to Southern California to spend several days with me on the beach. She recalls driving to see me at Huntington Beach, “practically hyperventilating on the freeway.”

  Instantly, we clicked. Mom was there, trying to get a feel for how we’d mesh as partners. Mom asked Casey Jennings, a pro player, and Steve Curtis, a family friend, both of whom happened to be training at the beach, if they’d play some games against us. She wanted to see Kerri run, jump, and move in the sand. Ironically, Kerri paid zero attention to Casey that day because she was so nervous about “auditioning” for me and my parents. Nobody would’ve ever guessed they’d later fall in love and get married.

  At that point in time, Kerri says, her volleyball skills were “at a level 20 million times below” mine. As always, she’s being ridiculously hard on herself. I thought she had all of the skills and fundamentals. It was clear that she, like me, had come from very good junior and collegiate programs. We both were well-rounded players. She was a phenomenal athlete, which was especially impressive given her height. She was quick and explosive. She had good balance and body control. She could move equally well to her left and to her right. She had soft hands. She had the ability to be a force blocking and hitting. She could play defense. A lot of times, taller girls just park themselves at the net. You won’t find them running around the court, playing defense.

  And while I’m at it, let me clear up something else. Kerri always says my parents and I were “auditioning” her, putting her through “a tryout,” that day. That’s an overstatement. In my mind, it was as much about seeing if Kerri liked playing on the beach as it was about us seeing if we meshed well as partners. It was just a casual, windy, late afternoon at Huntington Beach. It was “Either you like playing beach, or you don’t, Kerri.”

  Throughout the weekend, Kerri and I continued to play together. Both Dad and Mom were on hand, and they grew more excited by the minute by Kerri’s performance. They loved her height. They were impressed by her athletic talent. They were elated she enjoyed playing on the beach. They believed our partnership had a lot of promise. As Dad now says, “Kerri looked like a daddy longlegs spider out on the sand. She had all the makings of a beach volleyball superstar.”

  Breaking the news to Holly that I’d be moving on to a new partner wasn’t easy. She never takes no for an answer. She doesn’t go away easily or quietly. In beach volleyball, there’s a term for switching partners: “getting dumped.” It sounds cruel, but you can’t believe how routine dumping partners becomes for some players. A poor showing in a weekend tournament, and the first thing Monday morning, phones are ringing all over the beach volleyball world, as players get jettisoned, while their former partners continue the seemingly endless search for the winning combination.

  In April 2001, Holly and I played in our final event together, an FIVB tournament in Macau, where we finished third. We’d signed up for the tournament well ahead of time, so we had no choice but to follow through with our plans. When I explained to Holly I was planning to partner with Kerri, she wasn’t at all happy with my decision.

  “Why don’t you get Kerri a coach for this year and play with her next year?” Holly argued.

  I’m sure 2001 would’ve been a lucrative season for Holly and me because, after killing ourselves to qualify for the Olympics, and becoming a force to be reckoned with worldwide, we probably would’ve won a lot of tournaments. But, my reasoning was, if I waited until 2002 to solidify a partnership with Kerri, then I’d be right back to where I was with Holly, cramming to teach her the sport while trying to qualify for the 2004 Olympics under an extreme deadline.

  At first, the volleyball world thought Dad and Mom and I were crazy to jettison Holly and partner with Kerri. Back then, a lot of people were scratching their heads and saying, “How can Misty May dump one of the all-time winningest players for someone who’s a total beginner?” But if you’re going to develop a new partnership, especially with someone as green as Kerri, the best time to do it is the year after an Olympics. The timing to move on from Holly was especially important for me, too, given the new, smaller court size that was coming into play in the game, which Dad and Mom, as well as other beach volleyball experts, believed eventually would cater to the taller, more powerful players. The bigger, better athletes would be coming out to the beach, my parents predicted. So it was the right time for me to get a jump on the trend. And beyond all of that, I really wanted to play with someone my own age. It was going to be fun to learn, and grow, together.

  Back then, the more appropriate question about my decision to partner with Kerri would have been: “Can Kerri Walsh become a great beach player as quickly as Misty did?” After having lived through our grueling Olympic quest, I would’ve answered, “Absolutely not!” And that’s not a knock on Kerri. Nobody could have survived the crash course I’d endured to get to Sydney. I’m not sure I could do it again if I tried. While nobody will ever forget Kerri’s diving digs in the United States’ upset victory over Korea at the 2000 Olympics, the rule of thumb in volleyball is that it takes three years to transition from the indoor to the beach game. Not only hadn’t Kerri played beach volleyball growing up, but she wouldn’t have the benefit of the now-defunct Fours tour, a four-person circuit, which had sped up the transition of former indoor players such as Jenny Johnson Jordan, Annett Davis, and Elaine Youngs. Most important, Kerri wouldn’t have the benefit, as I did, of starti
ng her beach career with an experienced veteran like Holly.

  Anna Collier was our first coach. My parents picked her, thinking she’d be the perfect teacher for us when it came to beach volleyball skills. We met with Anna two or three times a week, at least two hours at a time. She was very tough, strictly no-nonsense. We were there to work, and she ran us into the ground. Just as I’d hoped for on my second go-round, Anna started from square one. She taught us basic passing and footwork, how to keep everything in perspective, how to move together as a team. She also taught us to never give up, how best to motivate the other person if she got down. She put us through a drill where we each served a ball, then ran in and played defense. If our serve was a lollipop, she wouldn’t accept it. We had to go after it as if we were playing a match, as opposed to just putting the ball in play, then casually getting ready for defense. With Anna, it was attack, attack, attack. She worked us so hard in training that when we got into a game situation it was easy. I’ve always said, “If you aren’t in shape after training with Anna Collier, there’s no hope for you.”

  In our first season together, Kerri and I defined our relationship with Anna strictly as being a teacher-and-trainer-on-the-sand, but not in real competition. We didn’t bring Anna to tournaments. She never wrote up scouting reports on our opponents, never videotaped our games, never analyzed our performances after matches. Truthfully, we didn’t know what we wanted or needed out of a coach. Plus, that first season together was, in our minds, all about learning every aspect of the game. Rather than having somebody tell us what to do, we wanted to learn everything for ourselves. And learn the hard way, if need be. It wasn’t until later that we changed our tune, after seeing top Brazilian teams put together an entire army, including technical coaches, scouting coaches, and training coaches, as well as massage therapists and physiotherapists. Once we started analyzing how the best teams were run, we wanted to bring a coach to tournaments, especially internationally.