Flo

The USA women's indoor volleyball team has never won a gold medal.

They came close in 1984 - with a team comprised of one of the best female athletes in the world,  Flo Hyman.

As a 14 year old kid I was lucky enough to orbit around Flo, and much of that team.  The club I played for was closely tied to the US team, and on more than one occasion Flo and the girls would come in our gym to scrimmage.

I can even remember being in a practice run by the then head coach, an Israeli immigrant chain smoker named Ari Selinger.  He ran us through the paces, with Olympian Debbie Green standing in as the setter, and I think Flo stood around shagging balls.

It was the hardest work out of my life.  I was terrified and exhilarated the entire time.

We idolized that team.

They were the first team to live and practice full time at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs - starting in 1979.  At the time the gym was yet to be completed, so they traveled all around Colorado looking for gyms to work out in.

When the US boycotted the 1980 games, the majority of the team decided that they would remain together, training up to 8 hours a day, until the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Don't forget, this was a time when the Olympics was for armatures only.  These women could have set their sights on the only paying game in town, professional leagues in Asia and Europe, but instead they gave it all up for a chance at a Gold Medal.

I have never cared so much for a team to win a game in my entire life.  We were on pins and needles in my Huntington Beach childhood home.

China beat the US in 3. After a close first  game, we sort of fell apart.

The players devastation is still there for you to see on YouTube. 

After that most of the team went on to play overseas. 

And 17 months later, Flo Hyman would die on a volleyball court in Japan.  The victim of a dissecting aortic aneurysm. Hyman had Marfan's Syndrome, which manifests itself in very tall, thin individuals, and  can make them prone to weakness of the walls of the major arteries.

The volleyball community was crushed.  The Michael Jordan of our sport gone.

I watch our current team with the same enthesuiasum as I did in 1984.

I just wish Flo was still alive to see it all.