The California Beach Volleyball Association will induct four new members into its Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame on Saturday, Nov. 4 — during its first induction ceremony since 2019.
Beach volleyball stars Jake Gibb, Nicole Branagh, Stein Metzger and former Association of Volleyball Professionals announcer Sam Lagana will be inducted as the class of 2023 at the Hermosa Beach Museum, 710 Pier Ave. The event will include a social hour at 5 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session at 6 p.m. and the induction ceremony at 7 p.m.
Hall-of-famer Misty May-Treanor, who won more than 100 tournaments, as well as three Olympic gold medals and World Championships, will also be honored during the ceremony.
Kevin Cleary, an inductee in 2010 and CBVA Committee member, said in an email that May-Treanor will be a “special honoree” because she “was inducted into the Hall of Fame years ago but was not able to make the event, so she was never honored.”
Cleary said he predicts a “great event.”
“We’re honoring four Olympians with nine appearances between them,” Cleary said in an email.
Gibb, who retired in 2021 following 21 seasons, won three Manhattan Beach Opens — known as the “granddaddy” of beach volleyball tournaments — was in the Olympics four times and won more than 40 tournaments with his partners, according to a biography from the CBVA.
Branagh, who was the AVP’s MVP in 2009, finished fifth at the 2008 Summer Olympics with partner Elaine Youngs, with whom she also won 15 tournaments from 2007 to 2009.
Metzger teamed with Dax Holdren to finish fifth in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and earned a silver medal at the World Championships the previous year. Metzger went on to team with Gibb and Jeff Nygaard, with whom he had nine AVP wins.
Lagana, who was the the voice of the AVP from 1985 to 2005, is known as the “MC of the party that was beach volleyball in the 1980s and 1990s,” according to his CBVA biography. He has been the stadium announcer for the Los Angeles Rams since 2016.
The first CBVA Hall of Fame induction took place in 1992 and since then, nearly 100 beach volleyball legends and those who have influenced the sport have been inducted.
The Q&A session will feature Ron Lang, Jim Menges, Butch May and May-Treanor in the adjacent Hermosa Beach Community Theatre.
Tickets for the event are $10. For more information, visit cbva.com.
