USA Volleyball to Honor 1980 Women's Olympic Volleyball Team
May 12, 2005 | Volleyball
May 12, 2005
The 1980 USA Women's Olympic Volleyball Team will be honored at USA Volleyball's 60th Annual Dorothy C. Boyce Annual Awards and Recognitions Banquet on May 26, 2005, it was announced Wednesday.
The team, including Laurie (Flachmeier) Corbelli who is now the head volleyball coach at Texas A&M, will be recognized during the "Boyce Moment" at the banquet in the Plaza Ballroom at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Denver, Colo.
"There are two very appropriate reasons for honoring this team," said USA Volleyball Chief Executive Officer, Doug Beal. "One, 25 years after the team played is a significant milestone and we ought to acknowledge their silver anniversary. The fact that we have such a wonderful percentage of the team returning is a great statement about the family atmosphere of that team and their on-going relationships with each other.
"Secondly, it was a team that was very much a favorite for a medal in 1980," Beal added. "That team could have easily been the first Olympic medal team in USA Volleyball history. Unfortunately we had to wait for another four years because of a boycott that perhaps made sense to a lot of people at the time. But given a little historical context it doesn't have the same strength of moral character that it perhaps did in 1980. The fact that the Olympics were used for a number of successive Games as kind of a political hot potato was a very dark period for the Olympic Games.
"I am looking forward to the banquet where we will recognize this very special team in our history."
Twenty-five years ago, the Arie Selinger-coached Americans-Janet Baier, Carolyn Becker, Rita Crockett, Patty Dowdell, Laurie Flachmeier, Debbie Green, Flo Hyman, Laurel Brassey, Debbie Landreth, Diane McCormick, Terry Place and Sue Woodstra-were considered a favorite to win the volleyball gold medal at those Summer Games.
But the USA women had their Olympic dreams shattered when the U.S. Olympic Committee's House of Delegates-at the urging of President Jimmy Carter-voted to boycott the 1980 Olympiad in Moscow to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
"The Arie Selinger-led USA National Volleyball Team that emerged in the late 1970s, with such stars as Patty Dowdell, Flo Hyman, Debbie Green, Diane McCormick, Debbie Brown and Sue Woodstra, entered USA Women's Volleyball into the world arena from which it has never retired," recalled USA Volleyball President, Al Monaco.
"When the team finished fifth at the 1978 World Championships at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in Russia (then the Soviet Union), the international volleyball world was surprised and those at home were thrilled and excited," Monaco added. "That team changed the face of U.S. volleyball forever and deserves to be always remembered and honored for being the special group that it was."
Baier, Becker, Brassey, Dowdell, Flachmeier, Green, Landreth, McCormick, Woodstra and Selinger-along with 1980 Olympic alternates Sharon Moore and Julie Vollertsen-are all scheduled to be in Denver for the banquet.
On Friday, May 27, the 1980 team will travel to Colorado Springs to visit their old "stomping grounds" at the United States Olympic Complex and to meet with the USA women's head coach "Jenny" Lang Ping and the current members of the national team.
(Artilce ourtesy of USA Volleyball)
