From The Salt Lake Tribune:
Jake Gibb had scarcely even picked up a volleyball before he was a senior in high school, after he was cut from the varsity basketball team at Bountiful High, and did not get serious about the sport until he returned from an LDS Church mission.
But look at him now.
Having blossomed into one of the best beach volleyball players in the world in an unusually short time, the 6-foot-7 Gibb is fighting for a spot at the 2008 Beijing Olympics that would represent such a monumental achievement that he can barely stand to talk about it.
“That’s why I work with a sports psychologist,” he said, only half-jokingly. “To be honest, I don’t love talking about it. . . . just because I don’t like looking past the present, because it is a huge, huge thing for us. It really is the pinnacle of our sport for us, but I don’t like talking about it, how would it feel to get there and stuff. It’s just a really exciting year for us.”
By “us,” Gibb means himself and his partner, Sean Rosenthal, the man with whom he has shared much of his remarkable ascent in the beach volleyball world. The duo is the second-ranked American team in the world, behind Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, and poised to make the U.S. Olympic Team for Beijing if they remain so over the next few months. Two other teams are within striking distance.
“We’re not comfortable at all,” Gibb said. (cont.)