ONE ON ONE
Davis & Rich
Two liberos – 15-year-old Davis Gillett from Huntington Beach, Calif. and gold-medalist Rich Lambourne from the U.S. Men’s National Team – share a few trade secrets.
TALKIN’ VOLLEYBALL: California teen Davis Gillett and the U.S. Men’s National Team’s Rich Lambourne discussed libero strategy. N
o more than fi ve minutes after the interview ended, U.S. Men’s National Team libero Rich Lambourne and Davis Gillett – a high school freshman from Huntington Beach, Calif., and also a libero – were playing one-on-one short court at the training facility in Anaheim, Calif.,where the U.S. National Teams practice. Lambourne’s skills were everything you would expect of a player who started on started on the 2008 Olympic Games gold-medal team. Gillett, only 5-2 but likely to be a lot taller in the near future since his father is 6-5 and his mom is 5-8, kept up just fi ne, demonstrating quick- ness, nice ball control and some crafty shots. The 6-3 Lambourne, who was an outside hitter on BYU’s NCAA championship team in 1999, joined the U.S. Men in 2000 and became a libero soon after, earning a starting spot in 2005.
As a kid, beginning at age 5, Lambourne played 10 years of baseball. He gave it up as a freshman at Foothill High School in Santa Ana, Calif.when his buddies convinced him to try out for the volleyball team, although he did recently question that decision after
34 | VOLLEYBALLUSA
Albert Pujols signed a 10-year, $254-million contract with the Los Angeles Angels. “We did the math the other night at din-
ner,” Lambourne said. “He’s making $2,900 an hour. Certainly, that lingers in my mind.” Gillett also began his athletic career at age
fi ve with a sport other than volleyball. His was soccer.
He played midfi eld and forward, and he scored plenty of goals. But with an assist from his step-dad, Kevin Hodge, who played volleyball at Penn State from 1998 to 2002, Gillett discovered volleyball three years ago and never looked back. He is now offi cially retired from soccer and fully focused on mak- ing digs and passes for his club team, Ohana 16s in Orange County, Calif., and playing for his school team in Huntington Beach. Gillett hopes to someday get time at out- side hitter after climbing toward 6-feet (and possibly beyond), but for now he’s looking on the bright side of his economy-size stature. “If I was taller,” he says, “I wouldn’t be working on ball control as much, and I wouldn’t be as scrappy.” VolleyballUSA got the two players
together in mid-December to give Gillett an opportunity to ask Lambourne about what it takes to become really, really good at a sport they both love.
Lambourne kicked things off by giving Gillett an early Christmas gift: an offi cial USA libero jersey with “Lambourne” printed on the back. Here’s how the conversation went:
Gillett: As one of the world’s best liberos, what do you do to train besides the hours of practice time with Team USA?
Lambourne: Weight lifting and trying to keep physically healthy is a big part of our training outside of volleyball practice. In the offseason, that’s the primary focus. The legs are important for liberos. I hesitate to advocate tons of heavy weight lifting for players who are still growing, but there’s a lot of plyometric stuff and body weight exercises that you can do to really strengthen your core and your legs. That will give you good stability so you can do all the things that are required of a libero.
What is your escape from volleyball? I enjoy golfi ng. And as strange as it
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