U.S. Volleyball Team Has Little Trouble With Cuba

Nearly 10 months after winning the gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the U.S. men’s volleyball team took the floor Saturday night at the UC Santa Barbara Events Center to prove the gold wasn’t tainted, and the memory hasn’t tarnished.

The opponent was Cuba, one of the Communist Bloc countries absent from the Games last summer. The match, the first of a series of four against the Cubans, marked the debut of Marv Dunphy as the U.S. coach. It also provided the United States with an opportunity to prove it didn’t rise to world prominence in this sport by default.

At least that’s the way it was billed.

The United States breezed to a 15-13, 15-8, 15-7 win, but afterward, there were no U.S. players talking of “showing those Cubans.”

Karch Kiraly, a member of the gold medal-winning team, went right to the heart of the pre-match hype.

“I think we were looking at it more as if we don’t have anything to prove,” he said. “We’re confident that we were the best team in the world at that time. But it’s a good way to bill it . . . a good way to promote the thing.

“I’m sure when the Russians come over, they’ll be saying we’re putting our gold medals on the line.”

Dunphy has only been directing the U.S. team since last Tuesday, but he’s seen enough to gain an understanding of what his players are feeling in their new role as the team to beat.

“My guess is that they feel real good about themselves.