May ~ Walsh
Kerri Lee Walsh and Misty May-Treanor
Olympic Gold Medallist Volley Ball Players
U.S. President George W. Bush visits May-Treanor (left)
and Walsh (right) while at the 2008 Olympics
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Kerri Lee Walsh (born August 15, 1978) is an American professional beach volleyball player.
Misty E. May-Treanor (born July 30, 1977) is an American professional beach volleyball player.Misty E. May-Treanor (born July 30, 1977) is an American professional beach volleyball player. She has won more tournaments than any other female player with 103 career wins.
May-Treanor and teammate, Keri Walsh, are the gold medalists in beach volleyball at both the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics. They have been called "the greatest beach volleyball team of all time".
Born Misty E. May in Los Angeles, California in 1977. She grew up playing beach volleyball at the Santa Monica Pier with her parents, Butch and Barbara, both volleyball players. At age eight, she played her first volleyball tournament with her father. May-Treanor played other sports like soccer and tennis, as well as participating in dance.
May-Treanor spent her high school years in Costa Mesa, California.
May-Treanor attended Newport Harbor High School from 1991 to 1995, she began on the Freshman B team and continued moving up a level each year and her final year in high school she played on Varsity. There, she helped her team win two state championships in indoor volleyball in 1992 and 1994. [4]
In 1993, May-Treanor was named the Division I All-CIF team Player of the Year.
In 1994, she was named by USA Today as the best girl's volleyball player in the nation.
May-Treanor played Division I volleyball at California State University, Long Beach from 1995 to 1999. She graduated with a BA in kinesiology/fitness in 2002 and was inducted into the Long Beach State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.
During her tenure there, she racked up numerous Big West Conference and NCAA awards and honors (see below).
In 1998, as the starting setter, May-Treanor led the 49ers to a 36-0 record and helped them win the Division I NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship. She shared the NCAA Championship Most Outstanding Player award after setting a tournament record with 20 service aces.
In both 1997 and 1998, May-Treanor was also awarded:
She also received the Honda-Broderick Cup as the top female college athlete in 1998.
Misty May-Treanor played her first professional match on the AVP tour in May 1999,while still a college senior.
After graduation from Long Beach State, May-Treanor joined the U.S. Women's National Volleyball Team in the summer of 1999, only to quit soon after because "volleyball was not fun anymore".Instead, she chose to pursue a beach volleyball career and teamed with Holly McPeak, a skilled beach player looking to win a medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics after a disappointing 5th in 1996 with partner Nancy Reno.
The pair played their first tournament together on the FIVB tour in Salvador, Brazil in November 1999. Seeded 22nd, McPeak/May-Treanor finished 9th.
Nearly a year behind in the Olympic qualification process, May-Treanor/McPeak found quick success in international as well as domestic play in the 2000 season. They won their first tournament together in April at a USAV event, followed by two wins on the FIVB tour, and one on the now-defunct BVA.
With three FIVB tournament wins and no finishes lower than 5th, the pair qualified for one of two US Olympic berths, paving their way to the Sydney Games. The duo, however, managed only a 5th place finish at Sydney.
After completing the 2000 season with McPeak, May-Treanor teamed up with Kerri Walsh. For two years, the pair avoided playing on the AVP tour, which had recently emerged from bankruptcy. Instead, the duo played on the international FIVB tour.They were the FIVB tour champions in 2002.
In 2003, they signed with the AVP and were named the Team of the Year after having an undefeated season at 39-0, winning eight tournaments.
Since teaming up, May-Treanor and Walsh have dominated both the AVP and FIVB beach volleyball tours. Before the start of the 2008 Olympics, they were riding a win streak of 101 matches and 18 tournaments that began in June 2007.
For five years - two during college and three during her pro career - May-Treanor suffered a torn PCL that nearly led her to quit volleyball. With encouragement from her father, however, she continued playingand after surgery in September 2002, has managed a complete recovery.
Since 2001, May-Treanor has worked as an assistant women's volleyball coach at Irvine Valley College in Irvine, California.
May-Treanor finished in 5th place with her partner Holly McPeak at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A May-Treanor abdominal strain likely kept the duo from winning a medal.
The team of Misty May and Kerri Walsh won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics by defeating the Brazilian team in the finals. In the semi-final, May and Walsh beat Holly McPeak and her partner Elaine Youngs, who went on to win the bronze medal. May and Walsh did not lose a single game in their seven matches at the 2004 Olympics.
On August 21, May-Treanor and Walsh repeated as Olympic gold medalists, defeating the first-seeded Chinese team in two games.They are the only beach volleyball team to repeat as gold medalists.
May-Treanor is the daughter of Bob "Butch" May, a member of the 1968 US volleyball team and prominent beach player, and Barbara May, a nationally-ranked tennis player who later transitioned to beach volleyball. Barbara died of cancer in 2002. A prominent tattoo on Misty's shoulder, an angel with the initials "B.M.", is a reminder of her mother.
She has two brothers, Brack and Scott, and her first cousin is tennis player, Taylor Dent.
In January 2004, she began dating Florida Marlins baseball player Matt Treanor and the two were engaged in March 2004.They wed in November 2004.
May-Treanor is listed as currently residing in Coral Springs, Florida though she and her husband also own a home in Long Beach, California.
She is a fan of, and friends with, basketball star Jason Kidd. The tattoo of a roman numeral five on her lower back is a tribute to Kidd, who wore #5 on his jersey for most of his career.
Kerri Lee Walsh
Walsh and teammate, Misty May-Treanor, are the gold medalists in beach volleyball at both the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics. They have been called "the greatest beach volleyball team of all time".
Kerri Lee Walsh was born in Santa Clara, California and grew up in Saratoga, California.
As a high school student, Walsh played indoor volleyball at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, California. She graduated in 1996.
In high school competition, she played against her current partner, Misty May-Treanor.
Walsh continued on to Stanford University, where she won national titles in 1996 and 1997 and was a four-year first-team All-American,Final Four MVP in 1996and co-National Player of the Year in 1999.She graduated from Stanford in 1999 with a B.A. in American Studies.
Kerri Walsh plays professional beach volleyball on the U.S. AVP Tour and internationally on the FIVB World Tour.
On July 23, 2006, Walsh topped $1 million in career earnings.
Walsh played in the 2000 Summer Olympics on the U.S. women's indoor team, earning a fourth-place finish.
She missed several of her first games due to a false positive on a drug test, which indicated a suspicious epitestosterone to testosterone ratio. After being retested, Walsh was cleared of any wrongdoing and allowed to continue playing.
At the 2004 Summer Olympics, Walsh and Misty May won the gold medal in women's beach volleyball without losing a game.
Walsh and May-Treanor won Gold representing the U.S. at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.At the Beijing Olympics Walsh wore therapeutic kinesio tape on her shoulder during their matches due to arthroscopic surgery she had in November 2007 to repair an injury to the rotator cuff.On August 21, they won the gold medal for their second Olympics in a row by defeating the Chinese #1 seeded team of Wang Jie and Tian Jia in straight sets, 21-18, 21-18. May-Treanor and Walsh did not lose a single set in either of the past two Olympics. Their final matched extended their unbeaten streak to 108 matches.
She is the daughter of Tim and Margie Walsh. Walsh's father, who is six feet, eight inches in height, played minor league baseball with the Oakland A's organization, as well as semi-pro basketball. Her mother was a volleyball MVP at Santa Clara University. Walsh has an older brother, Marte, and two younger sisters, Kelli and KC.
Walsh met her husband, Casey Jennings, in 2000 on the day Misty May-Treanor "auditioned" Walsh as her new partner. They were married on December 4, 2005 in Palm Springs, California.
Walsh currently resides in Hermosa Beach, California.
Walsh has appeared in several television commercials, and has been a guest on a number of popular talk shows as a result.[citation needed] In February 2006, Walsh had a guest-starring role in an episode of CSI: Miami along with several other AVP Volleyball players.
Walsh hosts a weekly, one-hour radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio's Faction 28 station. It airs every Sunday morning at 9 AM Eastern time.
Kerri Walsh appeared in the Game Show Network television show Extreme Dodgeball. She was a member of the Detroit Spoilers, who lost all ten games they played.