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Vote for the 1988 USA Men's Volleyball Team as the greatest ever

The USOC is giving people the chance to vote on who they think are the best teams and individual competitors for induction into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.  One of the five squads nominated this year for best team is the U.S. Men's Volleyball team, which won gold in the summer games in Seoul, Korea.  I had the VHS tape of these guys that I watched so many times it eventually snapped, and they were beyond awesome.  Even non-fans of the sports thought they were cool to watch.

In my circle of friends (volleyball players, so we're admittedly biased), these guys were the equivalent of Greek gods - and considered by most in the know as the greatest team to ever take a court in our beloved sport.  They won the triple crown (1985 World Cup, the 1986 World Championships, and the 1988 Olympic Games, in addition to the the 1987 Pan American Games).  Without argument, Craig Buck was the top middle blocker on the planet.  Steve Timmons was the best hitter, Jeff Stork (who was hurt in the early part of the tourney) was the world's best setter, and 5'11" Eric Sato redefined the defensive position.  And Karch Kiraly was and still is the world's best player. 

Vote the 1988 team in at www.usolympicteam.com

The team was like a who's who of California 1st team all-americans - even the bench players were legends in the college game.

Craig Buck - Pepperdine
Scott Fortune - Stanford
Doug Partie - UCLA
Jon Root - Stanford
Troy Tanner - Pepperdine
Bob Ctvrtlik - Pepperdine
Steve Timmons - USC
Jeff Stork - Pepperdine
Dave Saunders - UCLA
Ricci Luyties - UCLA
Karch Kiraly - UCLA
Eric Sato - Pepperdine


I'd pay anything for this throwback of The King

I had the pleasure of being in one of Coach Marv Dunphy's clinics, and it was amazing.  Really nice guy with a lot of cool stories to tell, many of which were about his experience with the '88 team.  If you're a volleyball player, it's your duty to vote these men in that did our country proud.

Vote the 1988 team in at www.usolympicteam.com

Props also to Paulo Soriano at www.usavolleyball.org for all his work.

Posted: Sep 21 2005, 09:59 AM by guam-aspdev | with 8 comment(s)
Filed under:

Comments

Jeff said:

I do remember those days. I think it was that year that I really got hooked on volleyball. The '92 team was fun as well. These days, it's really the womens' teams, indoor and beach, that are most exciting to watch. Certainly the rule changes have helped the sport in general.

I actually run a volleyball site (http://www.volleybuzz.com/), but sadly, the volleyball community sucks at being online.
# September 20, 2005 9:38 PM

Jason Salas said:

Thanks Jeff! I've been to your site before but I never knew that was you! I subscribed to your RSS feeds. :)
# September 21, 2005 12:40 AM

gloria said:

Hi, i'm a girl form Spain and i'm doing a work about Eric Sato, can you help me??

please, for contact with me use my e-mail: gloria_grefusa@hotmail.com

       thanks

# May 18, 2007 7:23 AM

Eire said:

Hi Guys and gals.  I remember the USA team so well. Amazing. Swing blocking. two receiver system.  I ofter sat down with players from my team and we tried to figure out the USA receive rotation and wondered who was where and how they were not overlapping.

Definitely worth a major vote.

Like you said Jeff.  Today there seems to be so much about the womens game and nothing wrong with that either.  If anyone would like to check out our site on world volleyball we would love to hear from you.

Good luck to USA in the future.

Eire

# July 13, 2007 4:13 PM

MEO said:

HI VOLLEYBALL'S FRIENDS, SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH, I'M AN ITALIAN PLAYER, I'VE HAD THE PLASURE TO PLAY AGAINST THE GREAT USA VB TEAM, I THINK THAT JEFF STORK BUT DUSTY DVORAK ALSO WERE THE BEST SETTER YOU'VE EVER HAD.

THE TEAM THAT YOU SPEACK ABOUT WAS THE FIRST TO CHANGE THE WAY TO PLAY WHIT ALL SPECIAL ROSTERS LIKE ONLY TWO RECIVERS.

YOU'VE HAVE HAD GREAT PLAYERS BUT I THINK THAT THE COACH - DUG BILL- WAS AND IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON OF THE  MODERN VOLLEY.

CIAO

MARCO MEONI

# February 25, 2008 4:36 PM

David said:

Heh, I live in Los Angeles and obviously volleyball is well known here as were many of the players on this team.  Although I confess to being a basketball player myself, this team, and even the 1984 team were amazing.  I agree the 1988 squad was the better of the two, but it's not that they were just better volleyball team, they were some of the most incredible athletes I've ever seen (this coming from someone who watches Kobe Bryant, my favorite NBA player of all-time behind Magic Johnson, play basketball in the summer inside at the UCLA men's gym).  The crazy jump serves, blocks and digs they often made look so easy spoke to their talent.

In particular, Steve Timmons, was and still is one of the most jaw-dropping spectacles I've ever seen and is how I managed to stumble onto this years old blog and am now posting.  Timmons leaping ability, hang time, and power as he would just crush the ball w/ his high fly acts was insane.  I still have never seen anything quite like what he would do and only Mike Powell (another Olympian, world record holder and best slam dunker I've ever seen outside of a game) even comes close in terms of a human flight.  Michael Jordan, Kobe (as I said, I've watched Kobe for hours up close playing pickup hoops vs guys like Paul Pierce), Vince Carter?  They aren't even close.

Sato's jump serve and digs , Karch Kiraly's ability to seemingly do everything flawlessly, the blocking, the power, just man...  It's been 20 years and I still remember well, yeah, those guys were pretty good. ;)

# August 10, 2008 4:18 AM

Joshua Quinn said:

I would have to say that Bob "No Vowel" Ctvrlik, made me want to play this game at an early age and I continued through Club and HS. Played Football in college cause they paid for everything, another story for another day. My vote 1988 was pretty darn good.

# October 1, 2009 10:56 PM

William said:

I had to be one of the luckiest person's in the world in the mid 80's.  I was living and working in Kansas City in 1984 when my company asked me if I wanted to transfer to San Diego and take over that territory.  I will never forget the great times I had going to the Balboa Park gym and watching these great v'ball players practice everday in the public gym.  It was great to see how talanted these guys were and just to watch Marv coach the team.  I also remember the players coming in for practice and I still remember the cars having sponsors all over them as I guess they drove the cars at n/c as one of the benefits of being on the national team.  Truly a great time in my life.

# June 5, 2010 7:24 PM
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