Tonight I was honored to do the coin toss at the Sacrmaneto Optimus All Star Games. It was a great experience to see high school volleyball players in the Sacramento area compete, and to meet a volleyball legend Gary Colberg.

I had my first real taste of the Sacramento Volleyball scene. It was a fun one. Everyone knows the the volleyball community in general is a tight nit group. In a smaller city like Sacramento, its even tighter. You could see from the moment I got there that everyone knew each other well from all the local volleyball events and club teams in the area.

My role was to do the coin toss before the start of both games. It was a real honor to be announced as a gold medalist in front of what I now call my home town. But more than anything, it was a neat experience to see all the aspirations of kids to give their best in these matches and play well. Both the matches had all players concentrating and working hard.

It was not like most the All Star matches I am used to seeing or being a part of. In this last season in Russia, for example, I played along side Brazil greats like Giba, Dante, our setter was Lloy Ball, Ried Priddy, Kevin Hansen, and Sean Rooney (there were six of us americans in Russia). But the funny thing was nobody took it seriously and really played poor volleyball. In fact, I know for a fact a number of the players on both teams went out all before the match! This kind of thing is only ok at the all star matches.

Getting back to Sacramento, I also was fortunate to run into a great man: Gary Colberg. He was a big reason that volleyball grew in Northern California, especially this area. And to his success, volleyball for boys was finally made a high school league sport this year in the region. I know he is still very involved in USA Volleyball as well and is a wonderful man to talk to. Thanks Gary for all you've done for the game we love.