Randy Stoklos | |
---|---|
Personal information | |
Born | December 13, 1960 63) | (age
Hometown | Pacific Palisades, California, U.S. |
Height | 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) |
College / University | University of California, Los Angeles |
Randy Stoklos (born December 13, 1960) is a retired American beach volleyball player. Stoklos is the first player to earn $1 million playing competitive beach volleyball. [1] [2] He is a five-time winner of the prestigious Manhattan Open. [3]
Stoklos played college volleyball at UCLA and left early to focus on beach volleyball. [4] He won his first Manhattan Open partnering with Jim Menges in 1981. [5] He then went on to dominate the sport with partner Sinjin Smith in the 1980s and early 1990s. [5]
Stoklos has 122 career wins, which ranks him third of all time. [4] He was selected as MVP of the AVP in 1988, 1989, and 1991. [4] He was selected as the Best Setter in 1989. [4] He retired in 1997, having amassed almost $2 million in prize money in his career. [4]
In 1992, Stoklos reflected on his father's unwillingness to allow him to play volleyball at the beach in his youth. His father, who survived a German work camp as a Pole, was an "old-country type" who was afraid his son would grow up to be lazy if he spent too much time at the beach. [6]
For his achievements and pioneering role in the sport, Stoklos was inducted into the California Beach Volleyball Association (CBVA) Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame in 1999. [5] In 2008, he was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame. [7] In 2015, he was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame. [1]
The pair of Stoklos and Smith was featured in the video game Kings of the Beach released by Electronic Arts for MS-DOS in 1988 and Commodore 64 in 1989, and in 1990 it was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. [8] The pair also appeared in the 1990 film Side Out as Rollo Vincent (Stoklos) and Billy Cross (Smith). [9]
Misty Elizabeth May-Treanor is an American retired professional beach volleyball player. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and as of August 2012, was the most successful female beach volleyball player having won 112 tournaments in domestic and international competition.
Charles Frederick "Karch" Kiraly is an American volleyball player, coach, and broadcast announcer. 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. Kiraly is widely regarded as the greatest male volleyball player of all time.
Christopher St. John "Sinjin" Smith is an American former professional beach volleyball player. He was the first player to win 100 career tournaments, and won numerous Manhattan Open titles with Karch Kiraly and Randy Stoklos as partners.
Kent Steffes is an American former professional beach volleyball player.
Jeff Wayne Nygaard is an American volleyball coach and former volleyball player. He was a member of the United States national indoor team in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He was a middle blocker. He also played beach volleyball at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens with partner Dain Blanton.
ChristianMarlowe 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.
Douglas Scott "Dusty" Dvorak is an American former volleyball player. He was a member of the United States national volleyball team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He is regarded as one of the greatest setters of all time.
Michael Dodd is an American retired professional beach volleyball player who attended San Diego State University. With his partner Mike Whitmarsh, he won the silver medal in the men's inaugural beach volleyball tournament at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Since winning silver in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he has worked the Olympic Games of 2000 as a beach analyst and 2004 as an indoor analyst for NBC. In 2008, Dodd coached AVP stars Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal in the Beijing Olympics. Dodd also captained Team USA to a win over Brazil's best players in the inaugural AVP World Challenge in 2009.
José Geraldo Loiola is a Brazilian former beach volleyball player. He won the gold medal at the 1999 Beach Volleyball World Championships in Marseille, partnering with Emanuel Rego.
John Hyden is an American volleyball and beach volleyball player. Raised in San Diego, California, where he attended Mt. Carmel High School, Hyden was a member of the United States men's national volleyball team that finished in ninth place at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, he finished in eleventh place with the national team.
Michael Allen Lambert is an American former volleyball player who is a two-time Olympian with the United States national volleyball team. His team finished ninth place at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and eleventh at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
Karolyn Kirby is an American female retired beach volleyball player. She won the bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships in Los Angeles, California, partnering with Nancy Reno. The pair also won the 1992 Olympic tournament, at which time beach volleyball was a demonstration sport.
Ricci Judson Luyties is an American volleyball coach and former volleyball player. As a member of the United States national volleyball team, he won a gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Luyties later became a successful professional beach volleyball player and won seven titles. He was the head women's volleyball coach at the University of California, San Diego.
Troy Richard Tanner is an American former volleyball player and Olympic gold medalist. He was a member of the United States men's national volleyball team that won the gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Rita Louise Crockett is an American former volleyball player who played for the United States women's national volleyball team. Crockett was a silver medalist at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She also won a bronze medal at the 1982 FIVB World Championship in Peru and a silver medal at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas.
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.
Alexandra Rose "Alix" Klineman is an American beach volleyball player, 2020 Summer Olympics gold medalist, and former indoor volleyball player.
George Roumain is an American former volleyball player. Roumain played volleyball for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and was considered the nation's top recruit. He played college volleyball for Pepperdine University, where he was a three-time All-American and was named National Player of the Year in 1998 and 1999.
James Menges is an American former volleyball player, coach, and Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tournament director. He played college volleyball for the UCLA Bruins under head coach Al Scates. His college teams won national championships in 1972 and 1974. He is best known for beach volleyball, where he was the game's most dominant player from the mid 1970s through the early 1980s.
Adam Johnson is an American former professional beach volleyball player. In total, he won 44 beach volleyball tournaments, and won about $1,700,000 in prizes in his career. 16 of his tournament wins were with volleyball legend Karch Kiraly as his partner.