It’s induction week at the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The ceremony is Saturday. Six inductees will join the previous 161 players, coaches, administrators and leaders from 25 countries who have already been enshrined in the museum at the birthplace of volleyball:
One match changed everything in the life of Phil Dalhausser.
And the residual effect of that one three-setter altered the course of beach volleyball forever.
It was Friday July 23, 2004, in Hermosa Beach, California. The second round of the winners bracket in the eponymously named Open. Beach volleyball royalty Karch Kiraly and his partner Mike Lambert on one side of the net and the upstarts, Dalhausser and Nick Lucena, both just 24, and relatively unknown, especially along the California coast, on the other.
It was the 2004 AVP team of the year, the No. 1 seed, against the 16th. A layup if there ever was one.
Only someone forget to tell the kids from Florida.
They lost the first set 21-16, but were undeterred. They rebounded in the second. Suddenly, a crowd started forming and distinct murmurs could be heard. Who is that giant? The skinny bald guy? He can do everything, he’s coordinated! What, he’s from Florida??? No way! And the murmurs became a roar that could be heard all the way from Hermosa to the world over as Dalhausser and Lucena toppled Kiraly and Lambo 15-9 in the decisive third set.
The tectonic plates of beach volleyball shifted that day in Hermosa, and the resulting earthquake was felt from sea to shining sea.
“It hit me that I can make a career out of this,” Dalhausser reflected 19 years later. “We beat Stein (Metzger) and Dax (Holdren) and Jeff (Nygaard) and Dain (Blanton) in that tournament. Those two teams represented the USA in the Olympics later that summer. And we beat the great Karch Kiraly.”
Dalhausser changed the game in so many ways. Never had a man of his size (6-foot-9) possessed the repertoire of skills that he displayed. He could pass nails (that is on the few times he ever got served). His setting was butter, even with the ball spinning like a dreidel, the sun in his eyes, the wind in his face and the ball slippery wet from sweat. Nobody could block his hits, and in turn, he put up a wall, despite his skinny frame, that was the hardest to penetrate of any protagonist in the world on the sand. His jump serve was…
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