by Kevin Cody
Three beach volleyball players, all Olympians, were inducted into the CBVA (California Beach Volleyball Association) at the Hermosa Beach Community Center on Saturday, November 4.
The players were Jake Gibb, with four Olympic appearances, and Nicole Branagh and Stein Metzger, with one appearance each.
Also inducted this year was Sam Lagana, “The emcee of the party that was the AVP” during AVP’s golden era, from 1985 to 2005. Lagana is now the Sofi Stadium announcer for the Los Angeles Rams.
A panel discussion preceded the evening’s inductions, featuring three players who set the stage for today’s beach volleyball Olympians who have played an outsized role in the Olympics since the sport’s Olympics introduction in Atlanta in 1996.
The panelists — Ron Lang, Jim Menges and Butch May — were dominant players in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a time, May said, when “there was no money involved. It was just, ‘I’m going to beat you.’”
CBVA president Chris Brown, who emceed the panel discussion, noted that Butch May, his wife Barbara, and daughter Misty May-Treanor are the only multi generation family in the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame.
May was a 1968 indoor volleyball Olympian and a dominant beach volleyball player in the sport’s seminal years.
Lang was also a dominant figure in the seminal years.
“Ron won over 50% percent of the tournaments he played in,” Brown said. “Some seasons he won every tournament. He and partner Greg Lee won 25 of the 30 tournaments they played in together, and finished in the top three of all of them.”
Lang won the Manhattan Open in ‘65, ‘66, and‘67.
Menges is a five-time Manhattan Open winner (‘75, ‘77, ‘78, ‘79, ‘81).
Menges, and partner Greg Lee won 13 tournaments in a row over the 1975-76 seasons, a record that still stands, though it was tied 16 years later by 1996 Olympic Gold Medalists Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes, Brown said.
Joining the panel was May’s daughter, Misty May-Treanor, the evening’s most accomplished player. May-Treanor is a three-time beach volleyball Olympic gold medalist (‘04, ‘08, ‘12), and a five-time Manhattan Beach Open winner (‘03, ‘05, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08).
May-Treanor recalled learning to play volleyball at Muscle Beach in Venice, under the tutelage of Lang, Menges, and her parents.
“I’m that rare player who got to watch my idols, and play with them. I tell my husband it would be like him playing with Babe Ruth,” she said. (Her husband is former Dodger catcher Matt Treanor).
“I never really thought about being an Olympian. I wanted to be a veterinarian,” May-Treanor said. “But I just loved playing beach volleyball, and if you love doing something, it doesn’t seem like work. When I started playing in tournaments the prize was a beach umbrella. We were excited just to get Labatts beer at the end.”
Her dad recalled the camaraderie from that era being as important at the competition.
“You never knew if a person was from Yale, or jail,” he said. “In some tournaments, partners were decided by a draw, and in every draw were players we called ‘hamburgers.’ Maybe the person you drew wasn’t as good as you. Maybe they couldn’t play at all. But one thing I always impressed on Misty was to give that person an opportunity.”
May gives the same advice to players she now coaches at USC.
“I tell the kids to play with beginners. It makes you a better player because your passing has to be better,” she said.
Menges attributed much of his success to conditioning when courts were larger, and teams scored only after they sided-out (won the serve). In 1999, to speed up beach volleyball for television audiences, the courts were shortened, and rally scoring (on every serve) replaced side-out scoring.
“In those days, teams in the winners’ bracket played best-of-three matches to 11 points. Losers’ bracket matches were best of three to 15 points. Some matches lasted three hours. It was more of an endurance game back then,” Menges said.
And as a result, Menges added, it was also more of a mental game.
Menges recalled being ahead in a game against Lang at Sorrento Beach when Lang served a sky ball.
“It’s 10 feet out of bounds. It’s going to come down on this umbrella with a lady holding her kid. So I go and grab the ball. Lang yells, ‘Point.’ I say, ‘What do you mean?’ He says, ‘Can’t catch a ball.’ I was so shook up we didn’t score another point.”
“Ron was a great server, passer, setter, and digger. But his best attribute was he just wanted to kill you. Whenever you played him, whether it was during the week or in a tournament, he just wanted to crush you. So the next time you played him, you thought about that. Lang was the best at the mental part of the game.”
The evening’s four inductees also spoke about the sport’s camaraderie.
Branagh was the AVP Rookie of the Year in 2004, and AVP MVP in 2009. In 2008, she and Elaine Youngs finished fifth at the Beijing Olympics.
Branagh said she was more nervous speaking to that night’s audience than when she “played nearly nude” in a fan-filled stadium.
“Volleyball is about community. At the end of the day, it’s the special memories we make,” Branagh said.
Lagana said he was more nervous addressing his 500 friends that night in the sold-out Hermosa Community Theater than he is announcing Rams games in the 70,000-seat Sofi Stadium.
His goal as the AVP announcer, he said, was to ”bring fans close to the players, and bring beach volleyball to America. I made sure fans knew these players were special.” He called the players “Gladiators of the Sand.”
Metzger and partner Dax Holdren won the Beach Volleyball World Championships in Rio de Janeiro in 2003. The following year they placed fifth at the Olympics in Athens. The year after that, he and fellow 2023 Hall of Fame inductee Jake Gibb won the Manhattan Beach Open.
In 2013, Metzger returned to his alma mater, UCLA, to found its beach volleyball team. UCLA won national beach titles in 2018, and 2019, and finished second in 2021, and 2023.
Next year, Metzger will take over the Texas U.’s beach volleyball program. This year, in their inaugural season, the Longhorns’ record was 1 and 12.
Metzger credited his beach volleyball career to his wife Melody, whom he met on a Taco Tuesday at Sharkeez in Hermosa Beach, and who paid off his credit cards so he could play beach volleyball.
Gibb was one of 11 children, growing up in Bountiful, Utah. He played basketball and golf in school and did not take up volleyball until invited by his twin brother Coleman to move to the South Bay.
Like Metzger, Gibb credited his pro beach volleyball career to his wife, Jane, who supported him while he learned the game.
Gibb competed in every Olympics from 2008 to 2020, finishing fifth three times, and ninth in his final Olympics in Tokyo, at age 45.
Like the evening’s other inductees, Gibb expressed his gratitude to the volleyball community for its support.
“You’re only as good as the people you play against. I’m here because of all of you,” he said. ER
