Misty: Digging Deep in Volleyball and Life

The Olympic Gold Medal-winning volleyball player discusses growing up with her Olympian father, how alcoholism plagued her home, and her mother's untimely death from cancer, and tells behind-the-scenes stories from her rise to volleyball stardom.

Misty May-Treanor was born in Los Angeles and grew up playing beach volleyball at the Santa Monica Pier with her father, Butch, a 1968 Olympian, and her mother Barbara. She graduated from Long Beach State, where she was a vital member of the 1998 NCAA Championship team and received the Honda-Broderick Award for the nation’s collegiate female athlete of the year. After a brief stint with the U.S. national indoor team, she went on to revolutionize the sport of beach volleyball, becoming the best women’s player ever. Misty currently splits time between California and Florida with her husband, Majoy League Baseball catcher Matt Treanor.

Jill Lieber Steeg has been an award-winning senior writer at Sports Illustrated and USA TODAY. In her more than three decades in journalism, she has established herself as one of the nation’s preeminent profile writers and investigative sports reporters. She lives in California with her husband Jim and their beloved golden retreiver Fenway.