Who wore number 1 in volleyball?

Athletes in every team sport have a number on their jersey to identify them. In professional volleyball, players are given numbers between 1 and 20. Sometimes, players get to choose their own number and other times, they’re just assigned a number by the team.

Kerri Walsh Jennings

Kerri Lee Walsh Jennings is an American professional beach volleyball player, multiple-time Olympic gold medalist, and an Olympic bronze medalist. She is one of the beach volleyball career leaders in both career victories and career winnings.

Walsh Jennings and teammate Misty May-Treanor were the gold medalists in beach volleyball at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. They also won the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in 2003, 2005 and 2007. They have been called “the greatest beach volleyball team of all time”.

Lang Ping

“Jenny” Lang Ping is a former Chinese volleyball player, also known as the head coach of China women’s national volleyball team. She was the former head coach of the United States women’s national volleyball team, herself being the MVP of women volleyball in 1984 Olympics.

In 2002, she became an inductee of the Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She coached the U.S. National team to a silver medal in at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in her home country and the gold medal Chinese team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, became the first person in volleyball history, male or female, to have won gold at the Olympics both as a player and as a coach.

Lang Ping is the female lead in the 2020 biographical film Leap, played by actress Gong Li.

Sinjin Smith

Christopher St. John “Sinjin” Smith is a professional beach volleyball player. He won U.S. championship and World championships with Randy Stoklos.

He began to compete as a professional in the two man beach volleyball tournaments of Southern California at age fifteen. He went to college at UCLA, where he played setter and outside hitter in head coach Al Scates’ 6-2 system. The UCLA Bruins won the national championship in Smith’s freshman year. The following year the Bruins did not make the final four, but as a junior the team again reached the finals before losing to Pepperdine. Smith was selected to the all-tournament team. In his senior year in 1979 the Bruins again reached the finals, defeating cross town rival USC to win the national championship. Smith was again selected to the all-tournament team, and was voted the championship’s most outstanding player. Smith was selected as an All American in both his junior and senior years.

Smith won his first beach tournament with former UCLA teammate “Stormin” Mike Normand. His first Manhattan Beach Open was won in 1979 teaming with another UCLA alum, Jim Menges. In the early 1980s he made a successful beach team pairing with former UCLA teammate Karch Kiraly. They split up when Karch committed full time to the US National Men’s Volleyball Team. He moved on to partner with Randy Stoklos, and the two became the most dominant pair in men’s beach volleyball. Smith was the first player to reach 100 career open tournament wins. He was a primary force behind the growth of beach volleyball as a sport, and the development of the Association of Volleyball Professionals, which formalized the sport as a professional athletic competition.

The pair of Smith and Stoklos was featured in the video game Kings of the Beach released in 1988 for multiple computer platforms by Electronic Arts and in 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Konami, and also appeared in the 1990 film Side Out as the nemesis team of Rollo Vincent (Stoklos) and Billy Cross (Smith).

Phil Dalhausser

Philip “Phil” Peter Dalhausser is a retired Swiss-born American professional beach volleyball player, playing as a blocker. He and his former playing partner, Todd Rogers, were the 2007 AVP Tour and FIVB world champions.

Dalhausser and Rogers dominated both the domestic US tour and the FIVB international tour winning #1 team honors on both tours in 2010. Dalhausser and Rogers were Olympic gold medalists at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

Laura Ludwig

Laura Ludwig is a German professional beach volleyball player, playing as a defender. Previously forming a pair with compatriot Kira Walkenhorst, she decided to represent Hamburger SV and has won multiple European championships. She won the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She added another medal, Gold, at the 2016 World Tour Finals in Toronto. In 2017, she and Walkenhorst won the World Championship in Vienna.

Yumilka Ruiz Luaces

Yumilka Daysi Ruíz Luaces is a retired volleyball player from Cuba, who represented her native country in four consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1996. She twice won a gold medal with the national team in 1996 and 2000; she also claimed the bronze at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

Bruno Rezende

Bruno Mossa de Rezende is a Brazilian volleyball player, known as a member of Brazil men’s national volleyball team and Italian club Funvic. He is a gold 2016 Olympic Champion, double silver medalist of the Olympic Games (Beijing 2008, London 2012), 2010 World Champion, double gold medalist of the World Grand Champions Cup (2009, 2013), South American Champion (2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2021), multimedalist of the World League, Pan American Games, Brazilian Champion (2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013), Italian Champion (2016, 2019).

Lloy Ball

Lloy James Ball is an American volleyball player. He is known as a member of American national team in 1993–2008, a participant of the Olympic Games (Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004) and gold medalist of Olympics Beijing 2008, gold medalist of the NORCECA Championship 2007 and World League 2008, silver medalist of the Pan American 1995, bronze medalist of the World Championship 1994 and 2015 inductee to the International Hall of Game. Ball also began operating Team Pineapple, a volleyball clinic, with his father Arnie Ball.

Matt Anderson

Matthew John Anderson is an American volleyball player. He is known as a member of the United States men’s national volleyball team, with whom he was a participant of the Olympic Games (London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020), 2014 World League and 2015 World Cup.

Andrea Gardini

Andrea Gardini is an Italian volleyball coach and former volleyball player, silver (Atlanta 1996) and bronze (Sydney 2000) Olympic Games medallist, three-time World Champion (1990, 1994, 1998), four-time European Champion (1989, 1993, 1995, 1999), seven-time Italian Champion. Gardini was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2007.

She’s also known as the head coach of Jastrzębski Węgiel, PlusLiga.

Luigi Mastrangelo

Luigi Mastrangelo is an Italian men’s volleyball player, known as a member of Italy men’s national volleyball team 1999-2012. Mastrangelo is a silver and bronze medalist of the Olympic Games, multiple winner of the European Championship and World League. He was the star of the Italian team in their course.

Marcos Milinkovic

Marcos Antonio Milinkovic is an Argentine volleyball player. Milinković is 203 cm tall and weighs 100 kg. He started playing the sport at age 17, a relatively late age. Milinkovic is of Croatian descent.

Milinkovic was granted the Platinum Konex Award in 2010 as the best Volleyball player of the last decade in Argentina. He speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.