of the quadrennial. But after some encouraging late-night words in the Olympic Village from captain Kim Oden, Kemner rebounded and so did the team, winning the next day in straight sets over Brazil and taking home a bronze medal. “If we didn’t win that (bronze- medal match), I probably would have been thinking about that Cuba match for the rest of my life,” Kem- ner said afterward. “But the fact that the team finished so strongly – that we got back on the horse and rode out – I think is something that will overshadow it a little bit.”
Playing in her second Olympics,
Weishoff was terrific, and she ended up being chosen the Outstanding Player of the Games.
Atlanta, 1996 • • • • • • • Men — Finish: 9th • Re-
cord: 2-3 • Team: Lloy Ball, Bob Ctvrtlik, Scott Fortune, John Hyden, Bryan Ivie, Mike Lambert, Dan Landry, Jeff Nygaard, Tom Sorensen, Jeff Stork, Ethan Watts and Brett Winslow. • Head coach: Fred Sturm
1-1 in matches that were meaningless to them. That left them with a seventh- place finish. Beyond Cuba’s prowess, there were plenty of issues on the U.S.’s side of the court. The setting was up and down – starter Lori Endicott was subbed for frequently by backup Yoko Zetterlund – and the team’s top left-side hitter, Teee Williams, was inconsistent. Starting middle Bev Oden was sub-par at key times, too, and she was often replaced by rising star Danielle Scott.
Overall, it was a big
disappointment for a team that was clearly hoping to build on its bronze from Barcelona and compete for a gold.
SYDNEY SHUFFLE: Resilient Logan Tom played in the first of her three Olympic Games in 2000. (Photo: Peter Brouillet)
Going in, as U.S. advisory coach Al Scates would say shortly after the tournament, team insiders were realistic that a bronze medal was probably the ceiling for this team. It was a young group, with a lot of new faces and undersized outside hitters, but two years earlier, it had proved capable of overachiev- ing when it won a bronze medal at the FIVB World Championship in Greece. As expected, the U.S. Men defeated
Poland and Argentina to open pool play, both three-set sweeps. In the third match, they lost a grueling match against Cuba – 18-16 in the fifth – and U.S. coach Fred Sturm expressed concern afterward that the loss could be crucial in the team’s quest to push through to the medal round. Turns out, he was right. The U.S. men lost the next two pool-play matches – in three to Brazil, in five to Bulgaria – and didn’t advance.
For a team that had grown accustomed to winning medals at the Olympics, it was a big setback.
Ctvrtlik, who had returned two years ear- lier and taken a firm and vocal leadership role, shared his thoughts shortly after the U.S. was eliminated, saying: “This is about as painful (a result) as you can have. Usually, I can find a bright spot in something. But I’m hoping the sun comes up tomorrow.” Women — Finish: 7th • Record:
5-3 (4-1 in pool play, 0-1 in the medal round, 1-1 in the consolation bracket) • Team: Tara Cross-Battle, Lori Endicott, Caren Kemner, Kristin Klein, Bev Oden, Elaina Oden, Danielle Scott, Tammy Webb, Paula Weishoff, Teee Williams, Elaine Youngs and Yoko Zetterlund. • Head coach: Terry Liskevych Gold was the hope, but Cuba, as usual, was in the way. The Cubans had won the 1992 Olympics, were about to win the 1996 Olym- pics and would win again in 2000, making for one of the great volleyball dynasties – men or women – in the sport’s history.
Adding to their impressive credentials, the Cubans had also won the 1994 FIVB World Championships and the 1995 FIVB World Cup, but the U.S. team’s confidence had been buoyed with a gold medal at the 1995 FIVB World Grand Prix, so players and coaches were gunning for an upset. It didn’t work out, though. Cuba, as it had been known to do, virtually sleepwalked through pool play, winning just three of five matches. That put them third out of fourth in their pool, which meant they drew a quarterfi- nal faceoff with the U.S., which had gone 4-1 in pool but lost to China.
In the quarterfinal, Cuba turned it on and won in three sets, and the U.S. was relegated to the consolation bracket, where they went
“The starting lineup never came out and played like the team we’ve been starting for two years,” assistant coach Aldis Berzins said at the time. “For whatever reason, they were a little tentative. The matches that we won in pool play, a lot of it had to do with the subs coming off the bench.”
Liskevych’s final analysis was that there was plenty of blame to be shared. “The coach- ing staff has to be pointed at to be at fault … and the players need to take some of the blame, too,” he said. “Everybody failed.”
Sydney, 2000 • • • • • • • • • • • • Men — Finish: 11th • Record: 0-5 •
Team: Lloy Ball, Kevin Barnett, Thomas Hoff, John Hyden, Mike Lambert, Dan Landry, Chip McCaw, Ryan Millar,
Jeff
Nygaard, George Roumain, Erik Sullivan and Andy Witt. • Head coach: Doug Beal In some ways, this team was done when its plane landed in Sydney. The list of ail- ments was long, from setter Lloy Ball’s knee problem to middle blocker Tom Hoff returning from back surgery and then pulling an ab- dominal muscle. Middle blocker Jeff Nygaard sat out the entire Olympics with mono, and another key player, outside hitter Kevin Barnett, hadn’t fully recovered from an injury he’d suffered earlier in the summer. What it all added up to wasn’t pretty. Five pool-play matches, five losses. To recap: The U.S. was defeated by Argentina (in four sets), then by Russia (in four), then by Yugoslavia (in three), then by Korea (in five) and, finally, by Italy (in four).
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