Philip George, Spring 2009 Assistant Sports Editor
When Marv Dunphy steps onto the floor at Firestone Fieldhouse to begin his 26th season at the helm of the Pepperdine University Waves men’s volleyball team, it will be just another day at the office – at least to him.
Dunphy will have held practice with his latest squad, will have gotten reacquainted with his returning players and will have gotten to know his new recruits, just like all of his opposing coaches. But none of them will step onto the court as winners of an Olympic gold medal.
A former volleyball player at Pierce College in 1971 after attending Taft High School, Dunphy served as an assistant coach on the United States men’s volleyball team that took home the gold in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Team USA head coach Hugh McCutcheon had initially selected Dunphy to go to Beijing as a scout, but when McCutcheon was forced to leave the team for three matches after his wife’s parents were attacked in the August 9 Beijing Drum Tower stabbings, resulting in the murder of her father, Dunphy was promoted to assistant.
“I was not going to be on the bench,” Dunphy said. “I was going to be on the end-line with a computer, a chart and a scouting report, and then on a headset to the coaches.”
Instead, Dunphy stayed on the bench for the entire tournament, leading Team USA past Serbia in the quarterfinals, past Russia in the semifinals and past Brazil in the gold-medal round.
“Once we won our first quarterfinal match against Serbia, it was almost a little bit of a relief because I knew we would be playing for a medal and I liked our chances,” he said.
After the gold medal was secured, the feeling set in.
“It was just a real good, warm, lasting feeling that at this point in time, USA Men’s Volleyball is the best team in the world,” Dunphy said.
This was not the first time Dunphy had achieved Olympic glory. After taking over as head coach in 1985, he led Team USA to a gold medal in the 1988 games in Seoul, Korea.
“I inherited a gold medal team,” he said. “We had won a gold medal in 1984 when I wasn’t the coach. Basically, my job was not to screw up a gold-medal team.”
In fact, Dunphy could do no wrong in his time as head coach, winning the 1985 World Cup, the 1986 World Championship and the 1987 Pan American games, all leading up to the victory in Seoul.
As cherished as an Olympic gold is, however, Dunphy prefers to live in the present rather than dwell on his triumphs of the past, living by the philosophy of, “your most important match is your next one,” as he puts it.
“A lot of people, after we won it in 1988, they said ‘Is this the highlight of your life? Is this the highlight of your life?’ I guess I had a hard time answering that because life goes on,” Dunphy explained.
“My life didn’t end then, and even now it’s been a couple of weeks since the China thing. It was great, but it’s what I do. My life didn’t end after 1988, and my coaching life for sure didn’t end out in China,” he said.
Joining Dunphy for the Beijing games was Riley Salmon, Team USA’s starting outside hitter, and a member of the 1995 Brahma team.
“He was MVP of the league and he was injured for half [the season],” Brad Lyans, current Pierce assistant men’s and women’s volleyball coach. “He was that good.”
Although he only played one season for the Brahmas, Salmon, who came to Pierce from Texas, is credited as being a pioneer for those players making the same trek.
“He came out from Texas to play here, and a lot of people since he came out here have followed in his footsteps by coming from Texas to Pierce College to play volleyball,” Lyans said.
As a member of Team USA, Salmon was a pleasure to work with, according to Dunphy, who also coached Salmon on the 2004 team in Athens, Greece.
“He has the heart of a champion. He sees the game well and plays the game well,” Dunphy said.
While Dunphy says that being Pierce alumni was not something he and Salmon “walked around beating [their] chests about,” he certainly acknowledged that there was something special in being a Brahma.
“When you say you’re a Brahma, it means you play with and for your teammates and you’re tough, and not necessarily in that order.
“When you’re part of something good, there’s a little initial jumping up and down and hugging, but it’s much more so a warm, lasting feeling of a job well done,” Dunphy said. “You remember what you did, but more so, you remember who you did it with and how you did it.”
As Dunphy says, life will go on, and his focus will shift to the Waves’ next match, but while the calendar pages will turn, and the glory achieved in Beijing is left further behind, the memories will remain forever.
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