The following week, in Gstaad, we scored two huge victories, knocking off Holly and E.Y. in the first round of the winners bracket, then defeating Shelda and Adriana in the semifinals. Once again, we faced Sandra and Ana Paula in the final, and this time, we beat them, 23–21, 21–15. Then it was off to Berlin, where we got upended in the semifinals by Sandra and Ana Paula, 17–21, 15–21, in thirty-seven minutes, then lost in the consolation to Shelda and Adriana, 18–21, 19–21, finishing fourth. A week later, in Stavanger, Norway, we finished second, again losing in the final to Sandra and Ana Paula, 19–21, 15–21.
Naturally, beach volleyball experts were lamenting that Brazil was, once again, going to supplant the United States as the world’s number one beach volleyball nation. Then Dane came to the rescue. He suggested Kerri and I change our game plan for Sandra and Ana Paula. Instead of serving to the six-foot Ana Paula, Dane said, let’s target the five-foot-nine Sandra. He’d done a lot of research into the hot Brazilian team. He’d also scouted all of their matches. He’d learned Sandra was playing on the right side of the court for the first time in her career, and he thought if we bombarded her with serves it might throw off her game. Well, Dane was correct. We completely dominated the Brazilians in the next two Grand Slam tournaments, crushing them in Marseille, France, 21–10, 21–13, in thirty-seven minutes, then walloping them in Klagenfurt, Austria, 21–17, 21–12, in thirty-five minutes.
Five weeks after setting off on our FIVB tour, we arrived back in the United States as the conquering heroines. We’d vaulted from third to first in the world. (Sandra and Ana Paula had been the top-ranked FIVB team.) After winning four straight AVP events, it was back to the FIVB grind. This time, though, I didn’t have to jump onto a plane. I just hopped into the car and drove thirty minutes to the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California. Kerri and I defeated Australia’s Natalie Cook and Nicole Sanderson in the semifinals, 21–11, 19–21, 15–9, and we were facing a final with—you guessed it—Sandra and Ana Paula.
Predictably, Kerri, ever the type-A-plus personality, was down on herself.
“I’m kind of disappointed with how I played,” Kerri told the Orange County Register. “Misty carried a little extra weight today. We just picked up on what they were doing, and we won on blocking and digging. I’m overanxious and you’re not going to win playing like that all of the time.
“You never want to go to a third game, but we’re confident when we get there. This is home, and we want to dominate here. Misty and I don’t try to change our style of play. We just step up our game.”
Thanks to Dane’s new strategy, and our two straight FIVB victories, we felt in control heading into our seventh meeting with Sandra and Ana Paula.
“Usually, when they beat us, it’s because they serve us off the court,” Kerri told the Register. “They get like five aces a game, which is huge. That’s how they beat us, so (in the final), it’s not going to happen.”
What a prophet! It took us an hour and ten minutes, but after losing the first game we battled back to emerge victorious over Sandra and Ana Paula, 22–24, 22–20, 15–12.
Two weeks later, we closed the season with a bang: We beat Shelda and Adriana, 21–19, 21–19, in the FIVB World Beach Volleyball Championship in Rio de Janeiro, the first team from the U.S. ever to do so. We had a perfect 8–0 record, losing only two sets along the way.
Since forming our partnership, we’d won twenty titles in thirty-seven starts, with twenty-nine podium finishes and thirty-one final four finishes. Our $701,999 in career earnings already ranked second all-time behind Shelda and Adriana’s $1,610,815. We’d accumulated a career match mark of 198–27 (.875), including 153–27 on the FIVB tour.
With the World Championship check, we finished the FIVB season by winning $252,000 overall. Combined with our AVP play, we won thirteen titles at sixteen events with a 91–4 match win-loss record and $395,100 in combined earnings. We won our last fifty-two matches that season, including twenty-eight straight internationally. We finished the season in second place in FIVB world tour rankings—Sandra and Ana Paula, who played in ten events compared to our eight, were first.
Best of all, we were a lock to represent the United States in the 2004 Olympics.
16
FALLING IN LOVE
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the 2004 Olympics: I met my Prince Charming. I first laid eyes on him, in November 2003, at the Sports Medicine Institute (SMI) in Orange, California. I know what you’re thinking. You met the man of your dreams in physical therapy? And it gets even more romantic than that. On our first date, we went to a UCLA–University of California–Irvine men’s volleyball game. With Dad, no less.
But let me start from the beginning.
I’d been doing my physical therapy at SMI since 2001, rehabilitating my knee after PCL surgery. At eight weeks post-op, I felt I needed a more specialized rehab program. I’d been doing basic physical therapy, and while Dr. Schobert was pleased with my progress, I wanted to pick up the pace so I’d be ready for the 2002 season. PCL rehabs, like PCL surgeries, are tricky: If you go overboard in physical therapy, you can reinjure the ligament and set yourself back. I’d heard a lot of pro baseball players went to SMI for their physical therapy, so I gave it a try. I worked with Matt Stresak, an athletic trainer who spent the first month dialing me back. I’d thrown myself into a high-intensity cycling class, was taking yoga, working with a specialist to improve upper-body flexibility, and lifting upper-body weights.
“Your body is still in the recovery process,” Stresak argued. “You’re barely two months out of surgery.”
I trusted Stresak with my body. He played the same sport (beach volleyball), hung out at the same beach (Huntington), and knew a lot of the same people I did (including Dad). He understood the tremendous pounding beach volleyball gave my body. He knew I had an unorthodox arm swing, which placed a lot of pressure on my shoulder. He knew I threw my core into contorted positions, or as he liked to say, some “big, big trunk twists and big, big flexions.” So Stresak became one of my go-to guys for bodywork. In addition, he designed full-body workouts for me, which emphasized strengthening my weaknesses and correcting my imbalances, and I trained, under his watchful eye, at SMI.
So there I was, in November 2003, working out at SMI and minding my own business. Honestly, I didn’t notice Matt Treanor at first. He’d recently had arthroscopic knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus. He barely said boo. He blew in, worked out, and blew out. But the more I saw of him, the more interested I became. He resembled Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. As it turned out, Matt already had scoped me out, and he’d asked our mutual SMI colleague Brian Rios, a minor leaguer, to do some espionage work. But subtle isn’t in Brian’s vocabulary.
“What do you think of Matt Treanor?” Rios asked me one morning.
“He just does his rehab, comes in, and goes out,” I replied.
I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time, and as I later learned, neither was Matt. We’d both recently broken up with people. However, if someone wanted to take me to dinner, I wasn’t going to say no. But I’d also told myself, “I need to concentrate on myself.”
“If Matt asked you out, would you go?” Rios asked.
“Sure, but I don’t really know him,” I said.
So that night, Brian, Matt, and I met at El Torito for Mexican food and margaritas. I asked my half brother Scott to be my wingman. Brian also invited a friend—a Sharpie pen salesman. And then, he tried to set me up with the guy. Needless to say, Matt and I were perturbed.
A few days later, during our sessions at SMI, Matt and I were chatting, and I sensed he wanted to ask me something, but he couldn’t because there were a lot of people around. So I left the building for a few minutes, then came back and announced, “I forgot something in the back room!” Of course, I really hadn’t. I dawdled, scribbling on paper, and Matt appeared.
“I know that you’re really busy, that you probably don’t have the time, b
ut would you like to have dinner?” Matt asked. “I understand you have a busy schedule, and if you can’t, you can’t. I’ve got a busy schedule, too. I leave for spring training in a couple of weeks . . .”
“Actually, do you want to go out tonight?” I interrupted.
“What?” he said, startled.
“Do you want to go to a volleyball game with me?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
Matt picked me up at my Long Beach house. We went to Claim Jumper for happy hour and shared a pizza. We got so caught up in conversation that we were late getting to the volleyball game. Matt was so easy to talk to that I felt I’d known him for a million years. We talked about past relationships, our families, everything. I told him about Mom’s cancer battle and how difficult it had been for me to cope after her death. He told me his brother Michael had been murdered (the crime still remains unsolved) and how he’d never gotten over it. He told me another brother, Malachi, had died as an infant. I’d had closure with Mom’s death, but, sadly, Matt hadn’t had it with either of his brothers.
I felt a strong connection. It just felt natural to be with Matt. He was such a gentleman. He paid for our date. He opened every single door. He endured the UCLA–University of California–Irvine men’s volleyball game, hanging on Dad’s every word, charming all our family friends. And that was it. I went home that night, opened my day planner, and under January 23, 2004, I wrote: FIRST DATE WITH MATT TREANOR. I knew it was going to be a milestone. From then on, we were inseparable.
Very quickly, Matt got a good dose of my sense of humor. We’re both extremely competitive, individually and with each other, in just about everything. Golf. Table tennis. Soccer. Bowling. Surfing. It never starts out that way, then suddenly becomes a competitive mess. And there’s always a bet. When we first started dating, Matt and I went bowling. I bet I’d beat him, and he bet he’d beat me. If I won, I told him he’d have to show up at SMI in old school running shorts, tube socks, and a headband, and he’d have to do a dance. If he won, he told me, I’d have to treat everybody at SMI to a song, “You Are My Sunshine,” dressed as a ladybug. I beat him the first game, and he beat me the second, so we both paid up.
Nine days after our first date, on February 1, Matt decided it was time for me to meet his family. We drove out to Riverside for a Super Bowl XXXVIII party. I was very nervous, and I instructed Matt to “just give me a gin and tonic.” I brought along Tina Bowman, my childhood friend, to help keep me calm. I tried to be myself, but I was very anxious, not only because I wanted Matt’s family to like me, but because the Visa commercial “Snowball,” starring Kerri and me playing beach volleyball in the ice and snow, in our red USA bikinis, was premiering during the game.
We’d filmed for two days at Westward Beach in Malibu, up against the Pacific Ocean. It was seventy-five degrees. But you’d never know it from seeing the commercial. We were playing on an ice field the size of a volleyball court. Hundreds of gallons of foam were sprayed on a white tarp, along with more than twenty thousand pounds of shaved ice, to create a winter wonderland. It felt like snow cone ice, hard and gravelly, and it was super cold. Icicles were dangling off a stiff volleyball net stretched across the tarp. Then we drove up to Mammoth Lakes, California, and shot for a day and a half, in a snowy, off-road setting. It was a real ice field. When we pulled up to the spot, the thermometer read zero degrees. Then we stripped to our bikinis, and the temperature dipped to five below.
“Theme from A Summer Place” by Percy Faith & His Orchestra plays in the background of the commercial, and an announcer says, “Can’t wait for this summer’s Olympic Games? Neither can we.” Kerri and I are grunting and groaning, diving into the ice and snow, embroiled in an intense match against another women’s team, professional beach volleyball players Jen Holdren and Sarah Straton. Why are we playing in the dead of winter? Because we are so eager to hit the beach in Athens! Ah, show biz. Kerri and I got ice burns because of the frigid temperatures, and our skin got all cut up because of the jagged ice. At the end of the commercial, the ball goes into the water, and we’re both stunned. So who’s going in to get it? Kerri calls, “Evens.” I call, “Odds.” Then, we play rock, paper, scissors for the honor. Kerri loses, sulks off, and I’ve got a very devilish grin on my face.
Shooting the commercial was great fun, because, obviously, it wasn’t something we normally did. Swimmer Michael Phelps came to watch, since he was a Visa-sponsored athlete, so we got to meet him. I was able to take home my behind-the-scenes, down-filled wardrobe—a ski jacket, snow pants, and some really cool boots. We had foot warmers and hand warmers going to try to stay warm. They also gave us piping-hot dressing room trailers. At one point, Kerri stood too close to a free-standing heater, and her gloves caught on fire.
It was our first experience with being treated like Hollywood stars. We even had body doubles.
“May we get you a cup of hot tea?” the crew kept asking.
“No, thanks, we’ll walk over to craft services and get some,” we’d reply.
“No, no, no,” they’d insist, and then they’d call three different people to retrieve cups of tea.
After a while, though, they realized we didn’t mind waiting on ourselves, which we later were told was a rarity in Hollywood. Both Kerri and I are easygoing, and we try to keep it simple.
I’m not convinced ice beach volleyball would make a good Winter Olympics sport, though. It definitely would keep doctors and physical therapists in business, thanks to all the sliding around on unpredictable footing. On the other hand, whenever you’re injured, the first thing you’re told is, “Put some ice on it,” so maybe ice beach volleyball is, indeed, a ready-made Winter Olympics sport after all. If I ever got a chance to compete in the Winter Olympics, though, I’d do skeleton or bobsled. (I can’t ski, and it’s difficult for me to stand on ice.)
To tell you the truth, what I was most concerned about on Super Bowl Sunday was Matt and his family seeing me, in my bikini, on national TV. But they all got into the spirit of the commercial. It, and I, both were big hits. When we first started dating, Matt wasn’t keen on my playing in such a skimpy “uniform.” He and his family are Catholic and conservative. He didn’t like the fact that when I dove around in the sand, my bikini didn’t always stay in place, or that when I gave Kerri instructions during matches, flashing hand signals behind my back, just below my waist, the TV cameras showed close-ups of my butt. Eventually, though, he came to grips with my bikini’s being functional, not seductive.
When I got home from our Super Bowl date, I pulled out my day planner and wrote down the names of everybody in Matt’s family because I knew they’d become important to me and I didn’t want to forget them.
Soon afterward, Matt left for spring training, and at the end of March, I flew to Florida for an AVP tournament in Fort Lauderdale. I went a few days early, allegedly so I could do media for the event, but truthfully, I wanted to visit Matt in Miami. When I called home March 31 and announced we were engaged, everybody thought it was an April Fools’ joke. When I delivered the news to people at the AVP tournament the following day, April 1, everyone thought the same thing.
Matt called Dad to ask for his permission, and after the phone call, Dad, sobbing uncontrollably, went for a long drive. If ever there was a time he missed Mom, this was it. He had so many regrets that she didn’t live to see this milestone in my life. With Dad’s blessing, Matt hatched a proposal plan. Before dinner at the River House in Fort Lauderdale, he walked me down to the restaurant’s dock and asked me to marry him. We hugged, and I wouldn’t let go until Matt finally said, “Do you want to see the ring?”
Our whirlwind courtship was followed by a whirlwind engagement.
“Why don’t we have a small wedding?” Matt suggested.
“No, I want to be a princess,” I insisted.
Because of my hectic, pre-Olympics schedule, I hired event planner Kathy Jo Peterson to assist us with our special day. Whenever I had a break from the AVP and FI
VB tours, and I was home in Long Beach, I got something wedding-related accomplished. Mostly, though, because I was so busy training, and so focused on winning the gold medal, the whole wedding-planning process felt like a nonstop fire drill. If I liked a photographer’s work, I’d say, “Book it!” If I liked a florist’s work, I’d say, “Book it!” There wasn’t time to price-shop, much less overthink things.
Almost immediately, I found a wedding dress, a strapless Eve of Milady ball gown covered with silver embroidery and beading. I also found a pearl-and-crystal tiara. Next, I went shopping for the bridesmaid dresses at Castle for Brides in Huntington Beach, with NBC Sports cameras in tow, shooting footage for an Olympics feature. I tried on the bridesmaid dresses to make sure they were comfortable. I found one in icy pink, floor length, sleeveless, and flowing. I never really liked pink before, but now I love it. It’s a very princess color, don’t you think?
Together, Peterson and I created another special detail: a watermark with three angels, a tribute to Mom and to Matt’s two late brothers, which was printed on every wedding item, from the invitations to the ceremony programs.
We were married on November 13, 2004, at noon, at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, California, Matt’s family’s church. The ceremony was followed by a cocktail reception, luncheon, and dancing at the Center Club in Costa Mesa. We had two hundred forty guests.
Jodie Torromeo, an Asics Tigers teammate, was my maid of honor. My six bridesmaids included Kerri; Carol Luber and Liz Martinez (elementary school friends); Tina Bowman and Cara Heads (middle/high school friends); and Marcia Bradbeer (a friend I grew up with at Huntington Beach). They carried pink and white roses and peonies.
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