Team Usa

Corona del Mar High product Jeff Carlson and Will Montgomery, who redshirted as a freshman with the UC Irvine men’s volleyball team last season, have been named to the national beach training team by USA Volleyball. Carlson, a 6-foot-3 setter, collected 25 assists in three matches for USC in 2009, helping the Trojans reach the NCAA title match, where they fell to UCI. Carlson and Montgomery have begun training for the Junior World Championships (for players ages 21 and under)

UC Irvine women’s volleyball coach Paula Weishoff will be an assistant coach for the United States women’s national team in the Pan American Cup that begins Friday in Miami, Fla. Weishoff, entering her first season at UCI, will assist head coach Hugh McCutcheon. Other assistant coaches will be Karch Kiraly and Troy Tanner. The event is a qualifying tournament for the 2010 Federation Internationale de Volleyball World Grand Prix. Team USA, part of Pool A, plays Costa Rica Friday, Guatemala Saturday, Mexico Sunday, Peru Monday and finishes pool play June 30 against Puerto Rico.

A 6-foot-8, 225-pound world-class athlete stood up in front of a third-grade class at the Newport Sports Museum Friday morning and asked a question almost everyone gets wrong. “How many know what sport I play?” Genai Kerr said. “Basketball!” one boy yelled. “Football!” a girl screamed. “Golf!” said a boy, putting a shocked look on Kerr’s face. C’mon, Kerr is way more ripped than your average pro golfer.

BEIJING, China — Kevin Hansen, a Corona del Mar High product, helped the steadfast U.S. men’s volleyball team win in the return of its head coach Hugh McCutcheon this morning in China. McCutcheon missed three matches with the team following an attack on his in-laws, who were visiting a popular Beijing tourist site. Assistant Ron Larsen was interim head coach in McCutcheon’s absence, and John Speraw, the UC Irvine men’s volleyball coach, remained the lone assistant.

Eleven individuals with UC Irvine ties will participate at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China that began Friday. The Anteater contingent consists of five former student-athletes, two current students, two former students, a current coach and a former coach. Former All-American water polo players Ryan Bailey, Tim Hutten, Rick Merlo and Jeff Powers will compete for Team USA in water polo. UC Irvine has had at least one men’s water polo player in each of the seven Olympic Games.

As one of the leaders on the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, Kobe Bryant plans to use the same line he does with the Lakers when times get rough. The line he told reporters recently in Las Vegas he would use was “get your [butt] in gear.” For Bryant’s sake, he has the players around him capable of getting out of ruts, unlike his Lakers teammates showed in the NBA Finals. Team USA is counting on Bryant to help the country reclaim its global dominance in a sport it invented more than 100 years ago. The Newport Coast resident admits it won’t be easy next month at the Beijing Games.

Kevin Hansen is headed to China for the 2008 Olympics, a dream come true, and a truly remarkable feat, considering he was told that an athletic career would be challenging. Hansen, the former Corona del Mar High standout, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 10 years old and was told that sports would be difficult to pursue, Hansen’s bio reads. “I shoot up with needles at least four times a day,” Hansen said. Hansen was one of 12 athletes named to the U.S. Men’s Olympic Indoor Volleyball Team that will compete in Beijing, pending confirmation by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

GENOVA, Italy — The USA men’s senior national water polo team fell to Italy, 15-14, in a shootout Monday on the first day of the FINA World League Super Final. Each team hit its first four penalty shots, but Team USA was stopped on its fifth try and Italy converted. Former UC Irvine stars Ryan Bailey and Rick Merlo each scored twice for Team USA, and Jeff Powers scored once. Tim Hutten, the UC Irvine senior who recently won the Peter J. Cutino award, also scored twice for the Americans.

The USA men’s senior national water polo team cut its roster from 24 to 18 Wednesday, and John Mann is still on the team. But surviving the cut is not what it’s all about for the former Corona del Mar High star. “It feels good,” Mann, a two-meter player, said of remaining on the team. “But that’s not my goal. It’s my goal to go to the Olympics and medal. I’m shooting to make this team. I’m not looking at it as, ‘Hey, I made it past this cut.’ It’s a rough process and to see some of my teammates taken off the team is tough, but for me it’s one step closer.

There is no Olympic trinket, no tiny flag emblazoned with those trademark five rings, no poster with a motivational phrase in big letters to remind Kevin Hansen of his dream. For the former Corona del Mar High two-sport standout, now competing for one of 12 spots on the U.S. men’s national volleyball team, the alarm clock is enough to remind him that his four-year Olympic quest has been a daily grind. That journey began in 2005, after a stellar career at Stanford, where he was a two-time All-American.