 Welcome to the National Archives Museum presentation on the story of America's first Olympic gold medal in volleyball. I'm Sean Murray, the author of a book about the 1984 US men's Olympic volleyball team, the team that won the first Olympic gold medal in volleyball for the United States of America. And joining me is the head coach from that team, Doug Beale. Hi everybody. Sean, it's great to be here. I don't think I'll ever get tired talking about this story and our path to the gold medal in Los Angeles in 1984. Well, it's an incredible story. It's one worthy of the history books. And I'm just thankful to the National Archives for producing this event. And we have about 45 minutes or so to get through the story. So let's kind of get into it. The book I wrote recently of gold is our destiny. It came out in July. It tells the story of the team. We're going to kind of follow along. I do have a personal connection to the team that I just want to sort of talk to the audience about. You might wonder, well, how did I get so interested in this team? And so, you know, my father, Don Murray, was the team psychologist. He worked as the, along with a partner of his, Chuck Johnson. He helps Doug and the coaching staff, not so much around volleyball. He wasn't a big volleyball player, but he helped the team develop the dynamics and the culture and bring them together as a team. How they related to each other, relationships, trust, all that kind of stuff. And I was 11 years old, actually 13 years old at the Olympics in 84 and sort of watched my father kind of helping Doug. I knew Doug at the time. I was just a young boy. But I, and I've got a picture here. I can kind of forward this. Let's see if we can get that going. There we go. That's a picture of my father, Don Murray, who was kind of helping out in the 1984 Olympics again around the team building aspect of it. And about that same time, this is a picture of me, 13 years old with Mark Miller that the team, what was he? The team stat guy. Yeah, the team stat guy. We have a new concept back in those days. Now it's pretty popular. All the teams have kind of an analyst, but we sort of pioneered that and Mark was a pretty good player and later played on the national team and a fairly tall guy. Yeah, and I was a fairly short guy at that time. So actual size right there. So that's kind of my personal interest in the story. And about five years ago, I got really interested in writing this book and really telling the story. And so I'm going to, I'm going to stop sharing just the pictures for a second. We're going to come back to some pictures. It's going to be a really fun part of today is going to be going through some pictures. But I thought we'd start with, you know, this team in Doug, maybe you could talk a little bit about this team in 1980. There was this golden generation of talent that sort of came on to the scene. And if you want to talk a little bit about the history before that, too, that would be helpful kind of what was going on. And we should mention volleyball was invented in America by William Morgan in the late 1890s. So this is an American sport. We had never won Olympic gold medal. You were the coach at the time, maybe give the audience a little sense of what was going on and volleyball in the United States at that time. Yeah, that's that's a great intro, Sean to sort of an interesting side story. So this sport is an American sport. It was invented in Holyoke, Massachusetts, literally just down the road from Springfield, Massachusetts and Springfield College where basketball was also invented. So these two wonderful team sports were invented within a couple of years of each other in a real small area. William Morgan, as you mentioned, invented volleyball and and sort of the development of the sport took place far outside the United States. So we invented it and then we kind of forgot about it for quite a long time. It became really popular in Europe and in Asia and then kind of came back to the United States in a way that sort of separated it from a high level competitive activity. And it took a while for us to catch up to lots of the world and our national teams had a few sort of random moments of greatness. And in 1968, the first, the first moderately successful Olympic team, you know, one of a really unique match against the later gold medal team but then lost pretty much everybody else. So we hadn't even qualified a men's team for the Olympic Games until we hosted in 1984 till we were the host of the Los Angeles Games. So from 1968 to 1984, no participation and frankly, no real moments of glory, no real moments of success. And I know the sport was kind of miring in a limbo of not great popularity and no really media attention and not much activity in any really interesting level. And college volleyball for men was a secondary sport, I guess, and I'm probably being generous a little bit in calling it that. But I don't know, fate maybe or just randomness produced a generation of really remarkably talented athletes. And I got lucky enough to be selected as the coach. I had played a few years on our national team during a period that I described, you know, as sort of we were in the wilderness. But I came along, you know, at a time when, boy, there were some really terrific talents. Yeah, and most people wouldn't recognize that as me, but yeah, there I am back. I'm glad you mentioned that, yeah, because we have a picture of you as during your playing days, you were on the national team. This was a time when my father started working with the team, you were still a player. One of the things that I really was fascinated with when I did the research on USA Volleyball in the 1970s was the way that the USA would bring a group of all stars together, usually in Los Angeles. Very hot bed for the sport every spring. And this team would practice for a few weeks. There'd be a tryout, you bring the all stars together, then they'd go off to Europe or whether the international tournaments were and generally lost wasn't it wasn't real successful. And one of the one of the elements that I believe was missing at that time was just allowing time for the team to come together to gel to become a team to learn how to play together cohesively on the court. And that was obviously something my father was helping the team with and it became sort of a theme that I think led to the 84 gold medal. In addition to this golden generation of talent, you and your coaching staff were able to bring a group of people together in a way that they played their very best collective volleyball on the court. And so that's a part of the journey of this team. Yeah, I think there's lots of ways to describe how we were sort of trying to compete internationally at that time. All of them unsuccessful. Yeah. And as you mentioned, really what we were doing was kind of reinventing the wheel every year. There was no continuity in coaching there was no continuity and who the national team players were. You just get selected at a national championships, which was at that time, the highest level of volleyball, but it even that event was kind of random and not all the best players could afford even to participate in the national championships. And so it really took sort of a group of people pretty visionary to set up something that we were calling a national training center. And we actually started that within USA volleyball at the time US volleyball association with the women's team. And they set up a training center in the mid 1970s in a small suburb of Houston, Texas, and there were different iterations of that and then eventually the men's team did something like that in Dayton, Ohio. At the time, neither of those locations were particularly unique to to the sport, but we learned a lot about what it took to be good and how we were going to compete with at the time the best teams were either from Asia or Europe, and, and develop a team that had some opportunities to be successful. And the team that you know I wound up coaching I started in Dayton, as I say we learned a lot, we moved the program to San Diego, and in large measure because of what you mentioned earlier Sean that was at the time, really the concentration of where the best players happened to be playing whether it was collegiate or or or club volleyball and moving to San Diego was important for us because it was not hard to attract the best players to be part of the program and these this wonderful group of talented players. Really, from the late 70s, maybe about 1978 on, we're playing at UCLA USC Pepperdine and a few at some other schools in the Midwest Ohio State and Penn State principally. And they were kind of graduating at about the right time for us and it, you know, serendipitously worked out really well, obviously for me and for for the USA volleyball and for our success international. Let's talk about that time because in the early 80s, you had this this talented group of players, we can name a few of them just so we get them out there, one big name, Karch Karai, was still in college at the time at UCLA. Karch recently coached the US women to their first gold medal in the Japan Games just a couple years ago. And Dusty Dvorak was a very talented setter on that team. We had Steve Sammons, Craig Buck, Steve Timmons, just to name a few of Mark Walde, we could go on Paul Sunderland. So this incredible group, incredibly talented group was there, but it wasn't like you were just immediately winning. I mean, one point I found was fascinating around your development was this trip that you took for the World Cup in Argentina in 1982. And the team, this was two years before the Olympics and you went to Argentina, went up against a very talented Bulgaria team, you really need to beat that team to get to the medal round. You were up 12 to 5 in the fifth and decisive match and you lost 16 to 14. So the team really had the medal round in the grasp and didn't make it. And this was sort of, there'd be one thing if that was just a one off, but that was sort of happening more than you would have wanted at the time. And so you and the coaches decided that something needed to happen. And this is where my father got a little involved too, and Chuck Johnson, the team psychologist, where you decided that you wanted what the team needed was a shared, significant life experience, something that would bring them together, maybe outside of the court, outside of volleyball, and allow them to develop relationships and see each other as people, not just as competitors for getting on the roster or the starting lineup. And talk a little bit about that because that led to kind of an important chapter in their development. Yeah, I think at that time we were still experiencing what had been going on with our national program for a long time. These sort of randomized peaks and valleys of performance. Occasionally the team would sort of rise up and win a match or even play well in a tournament, but most of the time they didn't. And we would lose the teams that we shouldn't have or lose big leads as you referenced here. And at that time that world championships was a really disappointing performance. And coaches love to talk about the sum being greater than the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. We thought we had all the right pieces, but something was missing. We weren't playing together. We weren't maximizing the talent that we had. And I think your dad and another individual that was pretty influential with him, Chuck Johnson, were really impactful in getting us to think about how do we create a team? How do we get all these really talented individuals to understand their role, understand how they can contribute to this bigger part than their individual, this whole that we're trying to create? And today we talk a lot about sports psychology. We were really talking about team building. We were talking about how your ego has to be sublimated to the objectives of the team. And I thought Chuck and Don did a great job to try to help us create that. And so we talked a lot about how we play the game and how we develop activities off the court that might be significant to get this group to see themselves and see each other in a little different way. We developed a significant life experience that I think you're alluding to. And so we created an opportunity for the team pretty close to the Olympics, closer than perhaps we would have liked in today's world to take this experience and create this outward bound adventure for us. And you can set it up maybe better than being outside the group itself here. Yeah, why don't we talk about that? Because the team looked at some various organizations and settled on this organization called Outward Bound to take the group on a three week outward bound course. So this is not a picture of volleyball right here. This is really fascinating because I remember at the time being, I was 13 and my dad telling me that the team was going to go on this outward bound. And I remember thinking, well, how is the team going to get better volleyball, snowshoeing and hiking through the mountains? And I think there was some of that pushback from the players at the time. Doug, how are we going to get better at volleyball? Shouldn't we be in the court? Shouldn't we be practicing hitting and spiking and setting and passing? And so it's interesting. You took the step to, well, we know we need to get better at that, but to really have the sum greater than the parts, we've got to learn how to work together. And so this organization, Outward Bound, creates these experiences where you bring a group of people together, you put them through some challenging experiences where there's some adversity that has to be overcome. And really the only way to overcome that adversity is to work together as a team. And you start to, as I interviewed the players and the instructors at Outward Bound, what I learned is players started to see each other maybe in a different light and they were required to work together. This is a picture of the players hiking up probably in the Abajo Mountains and I don't know the exact elevation. You can see there's quite a bit of snow, but they did get up. You guys did get up to over 11,000 feet at one point. The temperatures got to five degrees one night. The packs were weighing over 70 pounds. You can see them there on the picture. They're not light. All the materials that supplies that you'd need for this adventure were on your back, including tents and sleeping bags and the food that you would need. I mean, this was over 100 miles in three weeks going up and over the Abajo Mountains down to the Canyonlands National Park. So this was an intense experience. Tell us a little bit about it. Maybe what were you thinking here? This is early on I know when you were in the Abajo Mountains, but what did you see during this experience? I'm looking at the faces of this picture now and I'm not seeing a smile there. We should mention that's Steve Timmons and Pat Powers, right? Yeah, Steve Timmons in the middle, Pat Powers with the vinyl shirt. Far left. Yeah, I think that's John Roberts maybe on the right. Yeah, some players on the team. So I guess we as a staff got really committed to this. We thought this was an idea that had legs and had real value. And we thought the team needed to view each other in a different light than what they saw every day in the volleyball community in the volleyball world that they knew. And as you mentioned, we looked at a number of different options and this became the most attractive to us for lots of reasons. But yeah, it was hard to get the players to buy in. And I think even up to the day we left, it was hard to get the players to buy in. And you know, in today's world, you probably have to sell things like this in a little different way. We had a fair amount of leverage. Let's let me put it to that way, I guess. And the players really had no option. And so that helped frankly to get the players to buy into this and to agree to do this. And as you mentioned, it was three weeks really uncomfortable, completely, you know, as far from volleyball as I think an activity could possibly be. And we were we were hoping that what we'd find is as we develop small group activities within the three weeks and the outward bound staff, you know, gave us activities every night, every time you're building, you know, your campsite and you're cooking and you're, you know, you're orienteering and you're having some solo experiences and a whole range of activities that are just completely outside of the world that you know that the players would create this sort of different hierarchy of who's got value and how that value gets spread through the activities that you're doing, we did rock climbing, we did belaying, you know, we did orienteering, map reading, all kinds of activities that were really new to almost everybody involved, you know, including including the staff who was going on on this trip. And I love to tell this one story, you know, one of our really key players was it was a wonderful middle blocker for us and, you know, in the gym, a pretty quiet guy and that didn't have a lot of status but he was, you know, by his abilities and his role that he played pretty important. And we thought, you know, this is a great example of how we could change players' perceptions of each other. And so, on this trip, on outward bound, you know, Craig Buck is the name, became remarkably skilled at rock climbing and belaying his partner. And all of a sudden, this is a guy who maybe is near the middle of the pack or sometimes even in the in terms of his impact in the gym becomes the most significant, the most trusted, the most, in a sense, revered player on the team in a different setting. And all of a sudden, players see each other differently. They start to acknowledge abilities and components of their personality and their talents that changes how they're seen. And it sort of levels the playing field a little bit. And the best player might not be the best person to build the campfire at night or set up the tents at night or carry the heaviest pack. You know, a couple of times, we had staff on the trip and they needed help and who helps them and which player reaches out and is willing to do a little more. Sometimes we got lost because we didn't find, I don't know, we didn't have the greatest skill in reading a map. And we were in a couple of groups and who gets us back to the right place at night that we needed to be at. So, I don't know, you know, there's so many elements to this that really are directly involved in team building and how you trust each other and how that trust, you know, outlasts this experience and becomes a part of how tough you are on the court. You talked about the match with Bulgaria at the 1982 World Championships that we lost that you should never lose that match when you're that far ahead at that point. I don't think there was a magic switch that we all of a sudden turned on and turned off and we never did that again. But this was a much more resilient team. This was a much different team coming out of outward bound. And for sure it took a little time for everybody to understand the value, the impact and sort of just integrate the experience in their own way. I thought, for example, one of the most impactful parts of it was the solo experience where everyone went off for two nights on their own, had some assignments in their journals, and then, you know, found their way back to the group. I think it just made the team different in a good way, I think. And for some players, significantly different. And for others, not as much. Yeah. So, yeah, we probably talk about it forever here. There's a great insight there. By the way, this picture you're looking at is a picture of that's Doug Beal on the right and Aldous Bursons in the middle and Peter O'Neill on the left was one of the instructors. I turned to this when you were talking about orienteering and map finding because you sometimes have this idea when you're outward bound that there's guides out there that are showing you where to go. To a certain extent, that was the case. But really, as quickly as they could, these instructors tried to teach the skills to you and the players so that it was no longer the instructors that were leading the way. It was up to the team to figure out how to get from point A to point B. And your point about thinking about others, outward bound makes an objective of these course to get people to not just think about themselves, but how do I help others survive? It's a sort of, having compassion and empathy for those around you is an important element that they tried to engender through the experience that they worked you through there. And there was one point, a chapter in the book I called Breaking Point. There was a one player who was Dusty Dvorak who decided he was done halfway through outward bound. He just said wasn't really understanding why he was there. It wasn't seeing the big picture. And Dusty thought he'd decided he was going to take a hitchhike out with that it was happening to be a supply truck that came in. And you and your coaching staff said, you know, Dusty, you're free to go. If you want to go, you can go. But, you know, I think you had two requirements. One was you asked Dusty to get in front of the team and tell them why he was leaving. And then you said, you know, Dusty, when we all get back to San Diego, there's no guarantee you're going to be on this team. There's no guarantee. And that made him think, and I interviewed Dusty about that moment and he said that, you know, he could have left. He thought he might. But then he said, you know, when I came back and he figured that you might let him back on the team. He was like the quarterback. He was so important. But he said, you know, I probably wouldn't have to trust and respect to the players. I probably wouldn't have been able to be as effective as I needed to be. And I knew that to be a part of the team, I had to really sacrifice and push through. And so he said he dug deep. He looked into himself and he said, you know what? I'm going to do this. I want to be in LA. I want to be a part of the team. And that I call it the breaking point is kind of a turning point. It wasn't like a flip, just flip the switch. But here's a picture later in Outward Bound. You can see maybe a few more smiles. You know, maybe by this time there's been a little gelling. You did talk about the solo experience too. I think that was important. There was one player, Chris Marlow, who kept a journal and wrote down some of the questions that were asked were things like, why do you want to play volleyball? Why do you want to be a part of this team? What is it that is driving you? What is your motivation? What's your role on this team? How can you help others? So there's a lot of introspection. But let's move past Outward Bound. So you go through Outward Bound, you come back and all of a sudden the team, like you said, wasn't a switch that flipped necessarily, but definitely things were on the upward trend. And the system was developed pretty rapidly after Outward Bound, which came to be known as the American system. And this was generally, the players led to more specialization. And without getting into too much detail, maybe we could talk about one aspect of the American system, which was this idea that you'd have two players receiving the serve, two players passing, which had never been done before. So this is sort of a radical step. My theory is that the trust and respect, the foundation that sort of was built upon an Outward Bound gave the environment and the culture where some radical innovation creativity like this could emerge. So talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I think one of the things that Outward Bound did was it convinced the players that these coaches, maybe me, more particularly than anybody else, that they're willing to do almost anything. They're a little bit crazy. And it allowed us to rethink the game in a way that I thought was also pretty impactful. I suspect there are lots of coaches out there in tons of different sports who understand that it's pretty hard to copy something that another team does and expect to be better than that team at that tactic or that system or those skills. It doesn't mean you're always reinventing every sport, and that's the only way to be good. But, you know, rethinking how do I fit a system to the skills of the players we have is an important issue, I think, and at least to think that way. And part of the results of earlier tournaments indicated to us that, you know, if we're going to still play the game the way most of the teams in the world are playing the game, we're probably going to continue to have these up-and-down random swings, wild swings in performance, and maybe we ought to think of the game in a different way. And so we did that, and you mentioned the two-passer system. You know, we sort of took the idea that, gosh, why do we ask everybody on the court to basically perform in all kinds of different skills? Let's try to figure out a scheme of how to play this game where the players who are good at one or two or hopefully more than that parts of the game can use those skills, those abilities, as much as possible. And one of the obvious ones is receiving serve or handling the ball. You know, everybody who's in volleyball understands that you don't ask everybody to be a setter. Somebody's pretty good with the touch on the ball and has played in that role, so that's a pretty specialized skill. Why can't we do that with other parts of the game? We thought it seems like a pretty simple concept these days, but back in the day, it wasn't quite so obvious. And we changed a lot. The most obvious one is instead of having four players receive serve in an era when that was pretty common, we said two players are going to do it because they're really good at it, and the rest of you aren't so good at it. And so we're not going to ask you to do things. And, you know, how you present things is important to get player buy-in. But having been on outward bound, it was easier to get buy-in because, I don't know, we had built up this level of either anxiety or trust that we were kind of off the wall in some respects. But we changed a lot. We changed our blocking scheme. We changed the kind of how we ran our offense. And, you know, I talk about that a lot to coaches even today. I think playing volleyball in a pretty confined space and asking players to only do one or two things, you know, I'm always going to play on the left side. I'm always going to block in the middle. I'm always going to receive in a certain position is kind of limiting, I think. And so we asked our hitters to hit in lots of different spots. And we started calling it a swing offense. We did something we called a matchup blocking scheme. So we didn't always have the biggest best blocker who normally blocks in the middle, stay in the middle. And we wanted to give them the freedom to make some decisions about where they thought the other team might attack. And so part of the value, I think, of that scheme is that everybody, almost everybody on the court had some role to play that was pretty impactful. And they got some value, some worth. And so they were accountable in some areas. And I thought that was a really significant byproduct of the structure that we put together and helped that team not only achieve at a higher level, but play at that higher level over a longer period of time. And greatness, I think, is always measured over time. There's lots of teams and lots of sports that jump up and even win a championship one time and then don't maintain that level. This team that we feel pretty good about having developed from about late 1983 till almost 1990, dominated the world. And one event after event after event and a couple of gold medals and probably would have won a third if we could have somehow kept that group together better than we did. So I think we developed that dominance and that consistency. Dominance and consistency are similar and we're delighted. And one of the, again, a byproduct, sorry, I'm using the same term a lot, but one of the byproducts for today's USA volleyball, I think is that our expectations are really high, which is great because it raises the level of what players demand of themselves and what coaches and the staff and the general public for the U.S. and having carts sort of carry on that legacy for our U.S. women's team and finally winning a gold medal for our women after we'd won several on the men's side, I think is a part of that legacy. And we hold ourselves to that high standard in the sport. And again, a byproduct right now is the stunning growth really and wonderful success that volleyball, maybe a little bit more on the women's side, but I think volleyball in general is just demonstrating spectacular growth and it's almost like people are waking up and discovering this wonderful sport that combines power and grace and is probably more suited in a really significant way between men's and women's game where the net is lower. And so it's got, it's a unique game that fits both genders and really does a great job of being suitable and attractive to the public and television, et cetera. So it's really coming into its own. Well, yeah, it's definitely a growth spurt right now. And I think this team had a, you know, it was a while ago, but it certainly put the sport on the map in many respects, especially on the men's side. So a couple of things about that American system you developed. And here's a picture of Karch Karai, player at the time. He was one of the two players that was receiving sort of one of all these versions. You know, what that American system did is it, it allowed the unique talents that you had in this golden generation to really flourish. It allowed some of the creative approaches to volleyball that your players had developed, a lot of them developing on the beach, growing up in Southern California. They learned the game, they had lots of touches and they learned the game different ways, playing kind of unstructured on the beach. And then you had this, this talented group that was sort of, we call them Mavericks in the title of the book, you know, they had a very strong will and independent thinking and all this, had unique way to approach the game. And so you developed a system that allowed for that. I remember interviewing Mark Waldy, who was a player on the team. And Mark, when this American system went in, he self-described himself as more of a generalist, someone who was pretty good at all the different aspects of the game. And when this idea of the specialization came in with the American system, he had less playing time. And I asked him how he felt about that. And he said it was very hard, it was difficult, it wasn't easy for him to take, but he also knew that the team was better in this new system. And that was a validation of what you just talked about earlier around what makes a great team, where the players place the success of the team above themselves and above their own ego. And so Mark was able to do that. I think the other players were too. And so all of a sudden with this American system, you tried something different. One of my favorite quotes from the book that you said to me was, we weren't afraid to look foolish. We tried different things, not all of them worked. You didn't impose this American system from on high, drawing it up on some whiteboard and saying, hey guys, here's how we're going to do it. It was this what if sort of evolutionary, we're going to try this, we're going to try that. And sometimes the ideas came from the players, sometimes from the coaches. So this team uses this system to start winning at a higher percentage. It approaches the Olympics. You get up to close to the Olympics in 1984. They're going to be in Los Angeles. We should mention that nine of the 12 players on the team were from pretty much the greater Los Angeles area. So this was a, in American history, as far as a team that was having the Olympics in their home country, this was a team that was having an Olympics in their home city. And that was kind of special. Right in the players backyard in front of, yeah. In front of their family. Yeah, really hundreds of family and friends. And that puts a really unique microscope on the team and a lot more pressure, frankly, I think, to perform. And probably the first time in the history of volleyball in our country that we were at home for a major event and the arena was packed every time we played. And the team had these wonderful personalities and individuals who were really stars in that sport. But that got expanded dramatically. And we became sort of the late night show for the Olympics almost every night. Yeah, they were stars in volleyball, but after that or during that Olympics, they became stars in America. Now, here's a picture of Steve Timmons going up for a hit and Dusty Dvorak setting. And you can see just the drama in this picture. It looks like it's going to be a pretty good hit from the way things are lining up. You're playing Brazil in this picture. Brazil ended up being a team that beat the United States in the early rounds of the Olympics. And we should mention the U.S. had never meddled in a major international tournament. We're not just talking about not meddling in the Olympics, but through the 60s and 70s, this was a sport, again, it was invented in the United States. The U.S. had never meddled in a major international tournament. You're now in line to get into the medal round and you lose to Brazil that did not prevent you from getting into the medal round, but you did lose to Brazil early in the Olympics, worked your way back towards a gold medal match. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah. You know, not only did we lose to Brazil in the pool play of the games, but it was the first match that we had lost, I think, in 20-plus matches leading up to the start of the Olympics. So we put together a streak and I talked earlier about consistency and high standards and success over time and performance over time. So I think that was the first match we lost in something like, I don't know, four or five months. We had really developed that ability to play at a high level. And even though we lost, so I guess it carries a lot of weight. All of a sudden, your bubble gets burst and you're not invincible anymore and so you have to recover from that. I honestly wasn't that concerned about it at the time and of course that's easy for me to say now, 100 years later, but first of all, those of you that follow volleyball know that we were playing side out volleyball at the time. So games and matches tended to be pretty long compared to today's game. The first two sets of that match were the two longest individual sets in the entire Olympics. So it was, yeah, we lost 3-0, but they were really tough fights. And secondly, Brazil had to win that match or they don't even make the playoffs. So there was a pretty big shift in motivation. And then third, and it doesn't get talked about too much, but we actually entered the Olympics, not 100% sure that we had a fixed starting lineup. And we played two different lineups, maybe three actually in the pool play of the games, which is unusual, I think even today, to have a team with that kind of depth where you could play nine or 10 players as starting players. And so I guess the loss to Brazil sort of crystallized the team that we really wanted on the floor for the playoffs and we played really well in the playoffs and ultimately got to play Brazil again in the gold medal match. And the U.S. and Brazil probably since 1984, maybe a little before that, have had a wonderful rivalry. And frankly, I think in many respects have dominated the world of volleyball, international volleyball from that point on. And in probably beach too, I think the U.S. and Brazil are great competitors. So we played a different lineup against Brazil in the gold medal match. And we played about as well as any coach could ever hope that his team would play and won in a pretty dominant fashion. So that was one of the most dominant, if not the most dominant gold medal matches for men's Olympic volleyball. And since it became Olympic sport. At least on the men's side. I'm not so sure Karch didn't have his dominant performance in Tokyo with the women, especially in the middle round, pretty impressive. But certainly up to that moment and for a couple of Olympics afterwards, nobody dominated by the way we did in that match. I think the 88 team did a pretty impressive job also. And we really, I guess, elevated the quality of our team, the expectations of our team. And I'm really pleased that that's carried over and is now sort of our expectation. We expect to be good and we are good and we expect to be competitive for medals in every major international event, whether it's the Olympics or World Championships or now the VNL, the volleyball nation's league competition. So I think that helps grow the sport. That helps to attract young kids who want to participate because you're successful and they want to be part of something that has a legacy and it has tradition. And I feel great about playing a role in starting that legacy for USA volleyball. You know, that's a wonderful story and we're kind of getting to the end. I want to put a picture up here of the standing on the medal stand. Again, the first gold medal for Olympic volleyball for the United States, the first medal for the men's. And prior to this match, this was August of 1984. Prior to this match, you had a team captain, Chris Marlowe. Wonderful character, the oldest player. Yeah, in front of the line of players. You're right. Yes, he's the very first player on the left there, isn't he? And then behind him is Dusty Dvorak. But Chris Marlowe was the team captain. And Chris, before the match, asked if he could address the team. And you and the assistant coaches allowed him to address the team. And I talk about this in the book. He wanted to just remind the players of their journey that they'd been on. And he reminded them of the sacrifice that they had made. And there had been a lot of sacrifices. People delaying having kids, people delaying careers, maybe even some marriages. And just, you know, because they were so dedicated, you said no beach volleyball. So they couldn't play beach volleyball. You said no European volleyball. So they really dedicated themselves. And he said, you know, we've worked hard. We deserve this. This country has worked hard to volleyball. This team has worked hard. We deserve this medal. And if gold is our destiny, so be it. And that was his final words as you came together, you ran out and like we said, you had one of the all time dominant Olympic gold medal matches. What do you want to say about this, this enclosing kind of this, this moment and what it means meant for this team and for volleyball in America. You know, that's a great story. And I think Chris's story, like lots of the individuals on this team is pretty unique and pretty special. And, you know, he was off the team for a while. Then he, you know, got back on the team and was immediately almost immediately selected by the team as the captain. And that's a little bit unusual for somebody who's not the big star of the team or even a starter to be the captain. He's that impactful, I think as a personality. And gosh, one of the things that occurs to me is that I think Chris epitomizes is there's a natural evolution for almost any team. And when the team gains sort of ownership of how good they want to be, how much they're willing to commit to being good, you've got something really special. Doesn't mean you always win. There's lots of randomness, I think, to sport. But it certainly was true for this team. You know, they really took hold of ownership of this team and were willing to make remarkable sacrifices and were willing to sublimate their ego and, you know, maybe what they would have preferred to do for what was best for this team. And gosh, it was looking back on it, maybe one of the most heartwarming parts of my engagement with this team and my role, and Chris perhaps epitomizes that as much as anybody. His story is pretty special. So, you know, I love looking at that picture. I think those are perhaps some of the ugliest uniforms I've ever seen. But at that time, that was the U.S. Olympic sponsor and seeing every player acknowledging the crowd and, you know, the success. And, you know, the very far right there is Karch. And, you know, Craig Buck has got his arms kind of in the middle. So, yeah, it's just, it's wonderful to see that picture and to know the, you know, the accomplishment and the journey that we were on together to reach that moment. Yeah, it really captures a moment of recognizing the release of victory, right? And the sacrifices that were made and the acknowledgement that they had become the best team that they could be. And it happened to be also the best team at that tournament and become the best team in the world. We did get a question. And if anyone else has questions on YouTube here, be sure to drop them in the chat. Looks like we got a question here, Doug. What would it take to get a professional volleyball league here in the U.S.? You know, with teams in several cities, you know, throughout the country. And we sort of do on the women's side, right? And I talk about that. You know, I think we're likely to find out here in the next year or so what it takes and whether volleyball has evolved to that point. I'm really optimistic. I think volleyball is, I don't know, sort of shockingly in my mind being discovered, I guess, because I think it's always been there, of course. So those of us more on the inside think, gee, this is about time that the general public sees this sport for the athleticism and the entertainment value and, I don't know, the components that make it pretty special and unique all around the world. So I believe the sport can sustain a viable professional league, certainly on the women's side. It's the number one or number two participant sport and the growth has been dramatic. And I think the same is true on the men's side. There's a little bit more competition with American football on the men's side, but it's remarkable how many states are adding boys volleyball as a high school championship sport and collegiately it's growing. So almost every way you measure it, this is kind of the sport of the mid-21st century, I guess. And I think pro volleyball is a natural extension and I think we're very likely to see that in the next year or so. Yeah, we're in the midst of a growth spurt. It's a renaissance. There's an increased interest in the sport. So this book, If Gold is Our Destiny, it's available on Amazon anywhere. You want to pick up a book on a bookstore or online and there's a lot more stories in there than what we were able to cover in an hour. I feel like it's hard to do justice to the journey for this team, the epic quest that these players participated in for Olympic glory. I want to thank, again, the National Archives for having us on. Thank you for being in the audience for your question and for just, Doug, thank you for taking the time to be a part of this discussion. Yeah, and Sean, thank you for taking two, three years of your life to research this and put together this great story. Gosh, I tell this a lot, but Sean reached out to every single player on the team. I think everyone responded. You got each person's perspective. For me, it's, of course, really special, but I think it'll resonate to the broader audience, whether you're a volleyball fan, a sports fan, or just a fan of pursuing a goal and seeing how you get there. I think it's great, so thanks, Sean. Thanks, Doug.