Volleyball Player

was born in Ica on 19 August 1951 into a family of athletes. Her father, Félix Fuentes, was a soccer player for the national team and also played for the popular soccer club Alianza Lima. Luisa Fuentes was on the track team during her school years, competing in the long jump and high jump, and she also played volleyball for the club Independiente in Ica, while she attended Colegio Antonia Moreno de Cáceres (Antonia Moreno of Cáceres High School).

In 1965 Akira Kato a Japanese volleyball coach arrived in Peru and took charge of the national team enforcing an extremely demanding training regimen that caused many players to quit the majority of them middle class and unable to endure the daily eight hour training schedule For this reason Kato had to travel to several different provinces of the country looking for young talented players to replace those who had ...

volleyball player, was born Flora Jean Hyman in Inglewood, California, to George W. Hyman, a railroad janitor and supervisor, and Warrene Hyman, the owner of the Pink Kitty Café. As a child Flo was self-conscious about her rapid growth—she stood six feet tall in junior high school—although her mother, who was also tall, encouraged her to be proud of her height and precocious athletic talent. Though she could have starred in basketball or track, in her sophomore year she took up volleyball, a game played primarily by affluent whites in nearby Redondo Beach, not by African Americans in working-class Inglewood.

In 1974 the strength and athleticism Hyman showed as a high schooler playing for the South Bay Spoilers earned her a place on the U.S. national volleyball team. That same year, the University of Houston volleyball coach Ruth N. Nelson awarded her the first athletic scholarship ...

was born Adriana Vitor Lessa on 1 February 1971 in São Paulo, Brazil. Her father, a blue-collar worker, and her mother, a schoolteacher, provided her and her only brother with the best education and opportunities they could afford, including athletic activities. The two children spent their adolescent years dedicated to sports, going to the ACM (the Brazilian YMCA); hence, an artistic career was not in Lessa’s plans for the future. Her ambition was to be a volleyball player as well as a track and field star. For a brief time, Lessa was a professional volleyball player with the Sport Club Corinthians Paulista based in the city of Guarulhos, São Paulo.

In 1986 a friend who worked as an actor invited Lessa to audition for a role in a play by Brazilian stage director Antunes Filho At first she turned down the invitation but ultimately auditioned on stage and was ...

was born on 2 May 1962 in the district of Miraflores in Lima, Peru. She attended grade school at the Colegio de Mujeres 6011 in Neuve Esperanza, a locality to the south of Lima in the district of Villa María del Triunfo, and continued her studies at Mariscal Eloy G. Ureta High School, completing them at Colegio Divino Maestro. She went on to study law at the National University Federico Villarreal. Called “the Golden Leftie,” she is regarded as one of the most outstanding Peruvian volleyball players of all time, and in 2005 she became the first South American woman to be inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She had a successful career playing at both the club level in Peru, Italy, Brazil, and Germany, and on her national team at the child, youth, and adult levels.

Tait s competition at the club level began ...

was born Annerys Victoria Vargas Valdez on 7 August 1981 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Vargas began her full-time volleyball career before her 16th birthday with the Dominican athletic club Simón Bolívar. Within two years, she participated in international tournaments with the Dominican national team. Her primary role on the team was as a middle blocker.

In 2003, while celebrating her 22nd birthday on the same day as she was participating in the 2003 Pan American Games she earned a gold medal as a member of the national team She also won individual distinctions in serving and blocking The event was held in her hometown of Santo Domingo A month later she added another medal to her accomplishments when her skills earned a bronze medal finish in the Continental Volleyball Tournament held by NORCECA the North Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Federation As a successful middle blocker she ...