3 Siblings Have Ties to National Team : Family Hopes to Volley Its Way to Seoul

It is not hard to understand why Elissa and Ted Sato of Culver City have become known as “the volleyball family” on the Westside.

Three of their six children are expected to be among the contingent of men and women athletes and coaches on the national volleyball team in this summer’s Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. The Satos also are hoping to be there to cheer them on.

“We never dreamed they would be going to the Olympics; we always told them to just have fun, and that whatever they did, we would try to support them,” said Ted Sato.

Gary, 33, the eldest son, is the assistant coach of the U. S. men’s national volleyball team. Eric, 21, is a back-row specialist and setter on the team and Liane, 22, is competing for a spot as a back-row specialist on the women’s national team. All three live in San Diego, where the national team is based.

Elissa and Ted Sato said they are hoping to make the trip to Seoul to see the Games. However, raising money has been difficult. She holds part-time jobs as a teacher’s aide in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and a clerk at Santa Monica College. He is a maintenance worker for an aeronautics company at Santa Monica Airport.

Sold Cans to Raise Money

So far, Elissa Sato said, she has saved nearly $1,000, some of which was raised by exchanging aluminum cans she collected around Santa Monica High School. “I thought I could do it by exchanging cans, but it has not really brought in that much money,” she added.

If there is not enough money for both of them to go, she said her husband will go because work has prevented him from attending many of the tournaments. Sato said she has traveled to tournaments around the country as a chaperon for a team Liane belonged to.

She said one of the reasons her children have excelled in the sport is because she and her husband made it a point to go to the games.

“It didn’t matter whether they won or lost. What mattered is that we were all there at the games,” Sato said. “Whenever there was a game, we would all pile in the car and go to see it.”

Liane said her mother and father behave differently than usual when they are seated in the stands in a game where she or her brothers are playing.

Mother ‘Going Crazy’

“My father is the low-keyed one, while my mother is the one who is screaming and going crazy at the games,” she said. “It is nice to hear her voice in the background when you are playing, but if you are sitting next to her, it startles you.”

Gary Sato became the first to take up the game of volleyball when he joined the Santa Monica High School team in his senior year. He was a top player at the University of California, Santa Barbara, played professionally and served as an assistant coach under Marv Dumphy when Pepperdine University won the national championship in 1978. He is Dumphy’s assistant on the Olympic team and was named outstanding coach of the 1985 World Cup in Japan when he led the U. S. men’s team to victory in Dumphy’s absence.

“They are considered an institution in volleyball; everybody in the school is pulling for them,” said Santa Monica High School’s vice principal, Harold Connolly, himself a four-time Olympic competitor who won the gold medal in hammer throwing at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.

Both Eric and Liane, also graduates of Santa Monica High School, said they grew up in the sport because of the frequent trips to Santa Barbara to see their brother play.

“When we were little, we would have to go to my brother’s games,” Liane said. “We handed out towels and water to the players. We did all the things you see kids do in games now.”

12-Member Women’s Team

Liane, who utilizes quickness and defensive skills to overcome the disadvantages of being 5 feet, 3 inches tall, joined the women’s national team in December after graduating from San Diego State, where she was a star player. She is competing for one of the final slots on the 12-member women’s team.

Since joining the men’s national team in 1986, Eric has participated in a number of competitions, including the world championships in France, where the U. S. team won the title. At 5 feet, 11 inches, Eric is the shortest player on the team. The next shortest is 6 feet, 2 inches tall. “I give 110% when I’m in a game,” he said.

During the 1986 USA Cup competition at the Forum in Inglewood, Eric said he hit a shot to the corner that was a game-winning point against the Soviet team.

“It was my first international kill,” he said. “We were ahead, but the Russians were coming back. When the ball came, I jumped up and hit it to the back corner. That was . . . the match. The crowd went wild. It felt great; my family was in the audience.”

Ken Grosse, a spokesman for the national team, said: “It is unusual to have three members of one family involved at this level of competition. Gary is real good about separating the fact that he is coaching his brother. If Eric screws up, he reacts to him like any other player.”