Rafer Lewis Johnson was an American decathlete and film actor. He was the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, having won silver in 1956. He had previously won a gold in the 1955 Pan American Games. He was the USA team's flag bearer at the 1960 Olympics and lit the Olympic cauldron at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.
Charles Frederick "Karch" Kiraly is an American volleyball player, coach and broadcast announcer. In the 1980s he was a central part of the U.S National Team that won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games. He went on to win the gold medal again at the 1996 Olympic Games, the first Olympic competition to feature beach volleyball. He is the only player to have won Olympic medals of any color in both the indoor and beach volleyball categories. He played college volleyball for the UCLA Bruins, where his teams won three national championships under head coach Al Scates.
Holly McPeak is a retired American indoor and beach volleyball player. McPeak was three-times an Olympian in beach volleyball. In the professional circuit, she garnered 72 career beach volleyball titles, with career earnings of $1.4 million USD. She is ranked third in titles won and second in career earnings for female professional beach volleyball players. She won a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics with partner Elaine Youngs. Though McPeak was considered short for a beach volleyball player at 5 feet 7 inches in height, she was one of the toughest players to beat on the tour.
Lisa Maria Fernandez is an American former softball player and current associate head coach at UCLA. She played college softball at UCLA as a pitcher and third baseman, and is a three-time medal winning Olympian with Team USA.
Natalie Jean Williams is an American basketball executive and former player in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). Williams was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016. She was also an accomplished volleyball player at UCLA. Since 2022, Williams has served as the General Manager of the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces
Windward School is an independent school in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. It was founded by writer/teacher Shirley Windward in 1971. The school currently enrolls 625 students in grades 7 through 12.
Ana Paula Rodrigues Connelly Henkel is a retired female volleyball player and journalist from Brazil, who represented her native country at four Summer Olympics: in volleyball in 1992 and 1996, and in beach volleyball in 2004 and 2008. With Brazil women's national volleyball team, she won three World Grand Prix editions and got medals in various tournaments, including the 1996 Olympics in the United States and the 1994 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship in Japan. On the beach, she won the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour in 2003 and 2008.
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). For football, they are in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I. UCLA is second to only Stanford University as the school with the most NCAA team championships at 120 NCAA team championships. UCLA offers 11 varsity sports programs for men and 14 for women.
Joy Lynn Fawcett is a retired American professional soccer player. She earned 241 caps with the United States women's national soccer team and retired in 2004 as the highest scoring defender in team history. Fawcett was a founding member of the WUSA and was elected for induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2009. She was in the movie Soccer Mom as herself.
Denise Curry is an American former basketball player and college and professional basketball coach. Curry was inducted in the inaugural class at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.
The USC Trojans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. While the men's teams are nicknamed the Trojans, the women's athletic teams are referred to as either the Trojans or Women of Troy. The program participates in the Pac-12 Conference and has won 131 team national championships, 108 of which are National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships. USC's official colors are cardinal and gold. The Trojans have a cross-town rivalry in several sports with UCLA. However, USC's football rivalry with Notre Dame predates the UCLA rivalry by three years. The Notre Dame rivalry stems mainly from the annual football game played between these two universities and is considered the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. The Trojans also enjoy a rivalry with the Stanford Cardinal. The USC Trojans are considered one of the most successful college athletic programs of all time.
Dain Blanton is an American beach volleyball player who won the gold medal in Beach Volleyball in the 2000 Olympic Games, with partner Eric Fonoimoana. He returned to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece with partner Jeff Nygaard, becoming the first two-time U.S. male Beach Volleyball Olympian.
Annett Davis is an American beach volleyball player, who won the silver medal at the 1999 Beach Volleyball World Championships, alongside Jenny Johnson Jordan.
Christian "Chris" Marlowe is an American professional sportscaster who resides in Denver, Colorado. He currently is the play-by-play announcer for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association in the fall, winter and spring, and in the summer he is a play-by-play announcer for the Association of Volleyball Professionals. He is a former collegiate basketball and volleyball player and played on the US National Men's Volleyball Team. He played beach volleyball extensively and won numerous tournaments on the Open beach circuit. He also was a captain of the US Men's volleyball team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games.
Nicole Marie Davis is a retired American indoor volleyball player and mindset coach at Compete To Create, founded by Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and high performance psychologist, Michael Gervais. Nicole last played professionally for Le Cannet Rocheville in France and retired in 2015. She is 5'4" (167 cm) and played the libero position. She played for Fenerbahçe Women's Volleyball team for the 2007 season and wore the number 1 jersey. She was the first foreign-born libero to play in the Turkish league and led her team to a second-place finish. Davis represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics and 2012 Olympics, helping Team USA to a silver medal both times. She was also part of the US team that won the 2014 World Championships.
Elisabeth Anne "Wiz" Bachman is a retired volleyball player from the United States, who represented her native country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. There she finished in fifth place with the USA National Team.
Debbie Green-Vargas is a former American volleyball player and coach. She is regarded as the greatest American women's volleyball setter of all time. Green-Vargas was a member of the U.S. National Team and won the silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
The UCLA women's volleyball program began its first year in 1965. Andy Banachowski was the head coach each year since 1965 until his retirement after the 2009 season, with the exception of the two seasons of 1968–69 and 1969–70, after he graduated from UCLA. In those seasons, Mardi Hardy Monroe was the head coach. Michael Sealy took over as head coach in 2010 and led the team to a national championship in 2011.
Liz Masakayan is a championship athlete in both indoor and beach volleyball.
Gregory Scott Lee was an American professional basketball and volleyball player. He played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins, winning back-to-back national championships as their starting point guard in 1972 and 1973. He had short stints in the original American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) before playing four seasons in West Germany. As a volleyball player, Lee teamed with Jim Menges to set a record with 13 consecutive professional beach volleyball titles. He was inducted into the California Beach Volleyball Association's (CBVA) hall of fame.
