Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen immediately come to mind as the premier duo in sports. Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are up there. Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, too.
Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor have as good a case as anyone to be included next to these sports icons. The beach volleyball dynamic duo ruled the sport for more than a decade. Their incredible run ended in 2012, but what have the volleyball players been up to since?
Kerri Walsh Jennings Early Life
Kerri Walsh excelled at volleyball and basketball as a youth in Santa Cruz, California. A stellar state championship-filled high school athletics career in both sports led to a volleyball scholarship to Stanford University.
The winning continued in Palo Alto, where Walsh steered the Cardinal to two NCAA National Championships and three Final Four appearances. She was a first-team All-American all four years.
Walsh made the U.S. Women's Indoor Volleyball Team for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A false positive drug test caused her to miss several matches. Team USA finished in fourth place.
Misty May-Treanor Early Life
Misty May was something of a volleyball prodigy herself in Southern California. Like Walsh Jennings, she led her high school team, Newport Harbor High School, to multiple state titles.
She went on to star at Long Beach State University, where she led the 49ers to an undefeated record and NCAA championship in 1998.
May-Treanor joined the U.S. Women's national volleyball team after college. She quit to focus on beach volleyball with partner Holly McPeak. She and McPeak finished fifth in beach volleyball at the 2000 Sydney games.
Olympic Dominance
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Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor teamed up on the AVP beach circuit and FIVB Tour in 2001. From there, they took over the volleyball world.
The pair accelerated to the No. 1 ranked team in the world, taking home several world championships and dominating from Austria to the Czech Republic to the Olympic games.
Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor cruised through qualifying, the preliminary rounds and semifinals to capture the Olympic gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics without losing a set. They defended their title at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and again at the 2012 London Olympics.
May-Treanor retired after the 2012 Summer Olympics, and Walsh-Jennings moved on to new partner April Ross.
Walsh-Jennings and Ross took home the bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Although the two didn't win gold in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Walsh-Jennings' medal made her the most decorated beach volleyball player in Olympic history.
All in all, Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor each won three Olympic beach volleyball gold medals and three FIVB world championships. The two won a record 112 consecutive matches and 19 straight tournaments from August 2007 to August 2008.
Kerri Walsh Jennings Now
The 42-year-old Walsh-Jennings is still at it on the beach. She and partner Brooke Sweat teamed up in hopes of representing USA Volleyball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The two failed to qualify, however. The four-time Olympian hasn't ruled out attempting to qualify for the 2024 games in Paris.
The volleyball icon married fellow beach volleyball player Casey Jennings in 2005. They have two sons and one daughter together, and she frequently posts about her family on social media.
When she's not going for Olympic gold, Walsh-Jennings and her husband run P1440—"a digital platform exclusively built around the sport and culture of beach volleyball."
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Kerri Walsh Jennings is worth an estimated $6 million in 2021.
Misty May-Treanor Now
May-Treanor married former Major League Baseball player Matt Treanor in 2004. They met after Matt was rehabbing an injury while in the minor leagues. The couple shares three daughters together.
After retiring, May-Treanor returned to school and earned her master's degree in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University Irvine in 2013.
The three-time Olympic gold medalist previously served as Director of Volleyball Operations at Long Beach State. Now, the 43-year-old works on the broadcast team for the AVP Beach Volleyball Tour.
Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor not only put beach volleyball on the map, they established themselves as one the greatest athletic duos of all time.
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