U.S. Volleyball Team ‘Stronger’ Now Than in ’84

The captain of the American volleyball team that will play the Soviets in three West Coast matches this month says this U.S. squad is stronger than the one that won the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Chris Marlowe, the retired Olympic captain, said the current U.S. squad has been strengthened by several younger and more talented players.

“The athletes just keep getting better and better,” Marlowe said. “The guys who have replaced the players who either retired or went pro after L.A. are younger, stronger, quicker and can jump higher.”

The meeting will not be the first against the Soviets since the Summer Games. An American team traveled to the Soviet Union in November 1984 and lost 3-2.

“It wasn’t really a very good match,” Marlowe said. “The Soviets billed it as their Olympics but our players were suffering from a letdown after winning the medal. A lot of players were out and the team just didn’t have the depth it has now.”

The tour is scheduled to begin today in Seattle and move to Portland, Ore., on Aug. 21. It concludes in San Francisco Aug. 23.

Marlowe was named to the U.S. Olympic squad in 1976 but that team failed to qualify for the Montreal Games. In 1978 he began training for the 1980 Olympics but the U.S. boycott prevented him from competing.

“I couldn’t believe it when they announced the boycott,” he said, referring to President Carter’s response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.