Even in this, the most collaborative of sports, one player stands out, shining like a 6-foot-1 ray of high-noon sun.
She is Logan Tom, the 19-year-old Highland High School alumna and member of the U.S. Olympic women's volleyball team, which battled but lost to Brazil in bronze-medal competition in Sydney on Saturday (Friday night in Utah).
As they've followed the team's progress at the Games, Utahns have been enjoying playing the "remember when" game.
Remember when Logan Tom was named national prep player of the year after a standout career and two MVP seasons at Highland High — less than two years ago?
Remember when she led the Rams to back-to-back state titles as a sophomore and junior and barely missed a third after suffering a leg injury in the state tournament her senior year?
And remember how she excelled in more than just volleyball — as an all-state player in basketball, with a third-place state finish in the javelin throw and as a student with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average?
Medal or not, Tom may have the stuff to do for women's volleyball what Mia Hamm did for women's soccer, according to Highland volleyball coach Kim Norman. And Norman really remembers when: the day Tom's volleyball dream began.
"She came into our gym at 13, having never played volleyball in her life," Norman said. "She was wearing baseball cleats and had played on the boys' baseball team.
"She jumped up and took a big walloping sweep." The coach blinked — and saw a star.
A dream-team player
Norman watched Tom develop into a coach's dream-team player, even as her skills caught the eyes of talent scouts from the nation's top universities.
"The entire country was recruiting Logan from the start," Norman said. But "she never let all the hoopla go to her head."
Most people don't know that
Tom had a standing invitation to eschew her high school days, move to Colorado Springs and join the U.S. national program. USA Volleyball national team director Bob Gambardella has described her as "a talent we haven't seen since Karch Kiraly."
The 19-year-old outside hitter, who serves up plenty of heat from the left side of the court, long ago attracted the attention of U.S. national team coach Mick Haley.
"Ever since I saw her in 1996, I knew she was going to be on this team," Haley said. "She brings velocity and explosiveness. She's a leaper, a penetrating blocker and a dynamic player."
Tom trained with the national team in 1997, quickly becoming a star of the U.S. junior squad and getting her first taste of international competition in Brazil. But she turned down USA Volleyball's invitation to join the program full time, opting instead to return to Highland.
"Logan knows herself as much as any athlete," Haley said. "She wanted to be a kid still."
Four years later, "All her hard work to stay in the program has paid off. Logan is very patient and has made some excellent decisions."
Her dominance in high school, setting state records in kills and service aces, made her the nation's most sought-after recruit, and it continued in college. As a freshman at Stanford last fall, she helped lead the Cardinals to the NCAA championship game. Besides getting national freshman of the year honors, she became only the fourth first-year collegian ever to be named All-American.
She finally accepted a persistent plea to join the U.S. team, leaving Stanford for Colorado Springs, putting her studies on hold this spring to prepare for her current trip to Sydney.
"This is a lifetime opportunity," she said of the Olympics. "This is the highest level anyone can compete at, and I am very excited to be here."
At the Sydney Games, she has been among the team leaders in kills, blocks, aces and digs. Averaging double-digit attacks each game, she has reached a 10-plus total in all but one game.
"Despite what people said or what rumors we heard," said Tom, who is one of 10 first-time Olympians on the 12-member U.S. roster, "we knew we were a good team, and we could come here and do this."
Norman and Highland's varsity squad watched Tom's Olympic team defeat Korea earlier this week.
"She's still playing with that real innocence. She's real giggly and smiley," Norman said. When Tom kills a shot, she still jumps up and down the way she did at Highland. Back when she was the Rams' star outside hitter, she was the 1998-99 Gatorade national high school volleyball Player of the Year, a straight-A student and even the prom queen.
Still, her former coach emphasized, Tom was no prima donna on the court.
"If we lost, (Tom saw it as) her fault. If we won, it was everybody else's fault," Norman said.
At the Junior National Championships in Louisville, Ky., this summer, Tom met up with her Salt Lake home girls — "and she took time to be with her friends," Norman said. "There was none of that 'get in line with my public' attitude."
In the aftermath
After Sydney, Tom could fly to Italy and sign a $500,000 pro contract, "easy," Norman added. But she doesn't believe it will happen. Norman predicts Tom will finish up at Stanford University before going to Athens for the 2004 Olympics.
"Volleyball is one of her many options . . . , and Logan is a tremendous role model for young women," she said.
This week on Utah's volleyball courts, Tom's influence is palpable. Her former teammates, just warming up for their game against the Bountiful High School Braves, dig, spring, dive and hand-slide for every ball.
"Yeah, I think we're pushing harder," said Nicole Bruschke, 17, who was a freshman when she met Tom. A month into their season, Highland's varsity Rams are 6-1.
Emilie Niederhauser, like Nicole, played alongside Tom for three years. She said that as Tom becomes even more revered as a player, even if she gets rich via endorsements, "it won't go to her head. She loves the game — it's all she cares about."
"It's almost a different game, the way she plays," said setter Katie Theurer, also 17.
Women's volleyball just might step into the American spotlight — with Tom leading the way, said Atlantic Sports Management agent Sal DiFazio .
"What's happening in the Olympics, with as much excitement as there has been, is a good kickoff spot for the sport," DiFazio said. "Look, women's volleyball is not affected by negativity the way football and some other sports have been. . . . Volleyball has a wholesome image."
Tom is the "go-to girl" that her sport needs, said Lincoln Combs, director of volleyball operations at Arizona State University. "At the next Olympics, she'll have a chance at the gold medal," he said. "You need one of those to break through to the American sporting consciousness."
Tom's ties to Utah have decreased for the Napa, Calif., native. About the only connection she has still to the state of her youth is her brother, Brandon, who attends Westminster College. Her mother, Kristine, has moved back to California; her father, Melvyn — a former NFL defensive end in the late 1960s and early '70s with the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears — resides in Hawaii. Tom herself will likely shuttle back and forth between Stanford and U.S. training facilities in Colorado.
Wherever she goes, Utahns can say they caught the world's first glimpses of Logan Tom.
E-mail: durbani@desnews.com or taylor@desnews.com