Haley Gibson, days removed from her sophomore year at Bishop\u2019s, has an icy, even steely glare as she converses with a stranger about volleyball on a deserted campus on an overcast Saturday morning.
\n“I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t have to face you across the net,” says the interviewer to the 5-foot 9 \u00bd-inch tall sand volleyball assassin, who sits in her chair opposite, her entire length seemingly coiled to strike like a cobra.
\nVolleyball opponents are saved the menacing look, because Gibson now wears sunglasses in competition. “People look where they\u2019re going to serve,” she explains. “That\u2019s part of the reason I wear glasses, so that they can\u2019t see my eyes. But I\u2019ve started wearing a hat, too, because of the sun. I have a lot of freckles, and I was bad at wearing sunscreen.”
\nBut in the Lady Knight\u2019s cutthroat net attack on the sand, opposing teams aren\u2019t saved the competitiveness. “I get that from my dad, William,” the rising junior says. “Definitely. He\u2019s loud. He has an incredible work ethic.”
\nHer mother Marnell is no slouch, either. She\u2019s somewhat of a trailblazer. Haley says that in working for the City of San Diego, her mother took a position that had never been held by a woman before.
\nShe\u2019s also the parent who played beach, or sand, volleyball first, according to her intense daughter, then taught Bill. Then it was passed on to their elder daughter.
\n“Actually, I didn\u2019t want to do it,” Haley confesses now. She loved the ocean. As her skill in multiple sports developed, her parents made her make a choice, and she chose beach volleyball.
\n“My mother grew up in Lake Tahoe, my dad in Sun Valley, Idaho. They met at San Diego State. We used to go up to Lake Tahoe for a ski trip, but now with beach volleyball, it\u2019s a little more serious and harder to fit in trips.”
\n“My dad loves to ski,” she says.”He uses the old, skinny skis, but he\u2019s really good on them. It\u2019s really funny.”
\n“My sister Simone (finishing the sixth grade at Muirlands) and I both swam. I ran into the water when I was little. My parents got freaked out. They said, \u2018If we\u2019re going to live this close to the beach, we better put her in swim lessons.\u2019”
\nGibson verbally committed to Tulane University June 3, literally days after finishing the 10th grade. In the sometimes dog-eat-dog world of college athletic scholarships, colleges will over-recruit at one position, then rescind an individual\u2019s scholarship a short time before the school year starts. On the other side, athletes can revoke their verbal commitments, which Gibson has no intention of doing. But still, with two full years of school and two summers left to play in the nearly year-round training schedule, Tulane already has influence over the young student\u2019s life.
\nThe seriousness of the scholarship pursuit, while playing for the unofficial school team as well as for her club team, Wave Volleyball, has meant that annual summer trips to her beloved godmother Melissa Stokes\u2019 place in Missouri have had to go by the wayside. Stokes holds a special place in Gibson\u2019s life. She is the indoor women\u2019s volleyball head coach at Missouri State. Undoubtedly, she has lent her own competitive fire to her goddaughter and communicated a wily veteran\u2019s mindset on the court.
\nA favorite childhood memory is the two families\u2019 vacation together on Roatan, an island in the Caribbean off the coast of Honduras in Central America. “It was for my birthday,” says Gibson, when she turned 5 years old. “(Melissa) got a discount.” The Gibson family, including Simone, Haley\u2019s sister, went with Stokes, her parents and two sisters.
\n“It was so gorgeous,” remembers Gibson, for a moment wistful. “It was before everyone had discovered it. You got (scrumptious) food in the morning. The hotel was absolutely incredible. They had a place where you could swim with the dolphins.”
\nRegarding the annual trips to Missouri, she says, “We went every year. We did jet-skiing and cliff jumping. Some of my fondest memories are of Missouri.”
\nBut she has now focused her steely look on sand volleyball. Her involvement on the Elite team has led to an invitation to a Queen of the Beach event June 24-26 in Hermosa Beach. The inaugural event is founded by Eric Fonoimoana, a 2000 Olympic gold medalist. She will play in a round-robin format, in which each of the women rotates partners in the two-person competition. Included are top high school, as well as college, players in the U.S.
\nPreceding that, she will train and stay in Hermosa Beach for a separate tournament June 15-17 as part of the USA A1 High Performance Volleyball team she was selected for. Her coaches in La Jolla, Matt Olson, director of Wave Volleyball, and Mike Placek, her individual coach, can only be relishing the growth and confidence Haley will experience as a result of these competitions.
\nHer mental approach is scorched-earth: “I can\u2019t let any ball hit the floor,” she says. “You\u2019ll surprise yourself with the balls you can get to.”
\nLike her dad competitively, she says, “I\u2019m a very loud person. If you see me on the court, I\u2019m really loud. I tone it down in the school environment, but on the court it\u2019s all or nothing.”
\nHer focus on her volleyball is such that she tells friends who invite her to do things which conflict time-wise with training that she can\u2019t go. “They\u2019re used to that,” she says.
\n“I really like to hit. My setting is really good,” she allows.
\nOn her singular focus, she says, “You kind of just tune everything out. You focus on the moment. You can\u2019t focus on the score or (other circumstances).
\n“It\u2019s very in the moment. It doesn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019re 10 points up, or 10 points down. You don\u2019t notice the little things.” Do you notice spectators moving around? “If it\u2019s between points, maybe. But not during actual play.”
\nShe has already suffered a broken wrist and injured her ankle in her young sports career. “My fingers get cold,” she says, though it\u2019s not a result from her fracture. “You\u2019re in gyms at 7 a.m. There\u2019s no heat. You\u2019re on the beach, where\u2019s there no heat.”
\nGibson\u2019s sister Simone is on the fast track just behind her. “The day I started volleyball, my little sister started volleyball,” she says. “Everything I do, she does. It\u2019s hard sometimes. She\u2019s developing faster than me. I\u2019m really proud of her.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Haley Gibson, days removed from her sophomore year at Bishop\u2019s, has an icy, even steely glare as she converses with a stranger about volleyball on a deserted campus on an overcast Saturday morning. “I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t have to face you across the net,” says the interviewer to the 5-foot 9 \u00bd-inch tall sand volleyball […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":280813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Gibson selected for Queen of the Beach tourney","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}