CEO’S MESSAGE
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ne of my favorite memories from the 1984 Olympics is when Tom Selleck visited our men’s national team in the locker room in Long Beach, Calif., right before we played Brazil for the gold medal. In case you’re too young to remember, Selleck was one of the biggest TV stars in the world in the 1980s. His show, Magnum, P.I., was hugely popular for many years, and he had mil- lions of fans, especially female fans.
sport. He’s a volleyball player himself – a good one – and he was nice enough to help us raise funds for the program by playing exhibition matches and lending his image to USA Volleyball posters, which, not sur- prisingly, sold extremely well.
When he greeted the team before the gold- medal match, it was evident from his pre- match jitters that he had both great respect for our
team and a true understanding of the pressure we were under playing for the sport’s ultimate title with such high expectations from our home fans. To me, his attitude is testament to the magnitude of the Olympics. Here he was, this iconic fi gure, and you could tell that it was a great privilege for him to visit with the team that would represent us in the Games and, ultimately, win our country’s fi rst Olympic volleyball gold medal.
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Any way you look at it, the Olympic and Paralympic Games are special, and they bring out a collective sense of national pride in fans from every country that participates. Seven U.S. volleyball teams – the Men’s and Women’s Indoor National Teams, two men’s and women’s beach teams, and the Women’s Sitting Team – are now in their fi nal preparation to represent us in the London Games. The Olympic Games run July 27 to August 12, and the Paralympic Games will be played Aug. 29 to Sept. 9. I have no doubt that this year’s teams, like the many U.S. volleyball teams in the past, will make us proud with both their play and their sportsmanship. A slogan we like at USA Volleyball is, “Olympic Dreams Begin Here.” The message is not that everybody who enters our many indoor and beach High Performance programs will have an oppor- tunity to compete for an Olympic spot. It’s an invitation to become the best volleyball player you can be by surrounding yourself with knowledgeable coaches who will teach you and challenge you, and teammates and opponents who will bring out your best. Another USA Volleyball slogan that resonates with me is, “The Team Behind the Team.” The select few athletes who will be in London this summer are the best of the best in our sport, but each and every player throughout the USA Volleyball pipeline, their parents, club directors, leaders at the local, regional and national level, contribute in a very signifi cant way to our ongoing quest to win Olympic and Paralympic medals. Here’s why: When young players work hard to become better, they push the group ahead of them to a higher level, and the cumulative effect is that player after player and team after team gets a bump upward from the competition that’s rising up beneath them. The support provided by volleyball leaders across the country helps encourage participation and growth to continue this cycle, and it travels all the way up to the world-class players who wear USA jerseys every four years at the Olympics and Paralympics. When you think about it, you as a volleyball player or a volleyball coach are not competing against the opponent as much as you’re competing against yourself, and we’re reminded of that when we see our Olympic teams play. These athletes got there by always striving to be a little better than they were the day before. It’s a competition you never really win, because if you think you’ve won it, then you’re saying to yourself that you can’t get any better. And you can always get better. That consistent effort to keep improving may not take you to the Olympics or Paralympics. But the process of striving for it will make you a winner, both on the volleyball court and in whatever else you choose to do in life. Enjoy the Games. Go USA!
Doug Beal
The Olympic dream is for everybody O
Selleck was the honorary captain of the U.S. team in 1984, and he has done a lot of good for our
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