Kent Steffes

Kent Steffes and his partner, Karch Kiraly, won the first Olympic gold medal for beach volleyball at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The next year, Steffes added a bronze medal at the beach volleyball World Championships.

Steffes was named National High School Player of the Year in 1986 and started school at Stanford but transferred after one year to UCLA. However, he redshirted at UCLA and then turned professional to play on the AVP Tour. He and Kiraly teamed to become a dominant force on the beach for the next several years. Over the ensuing decade Steffes won 110 beach tournaments, including 102 on the AVP Tour. Between 1992-94 Steffes won 53 tournaments, winning 18, 18, and 17 in consecutive years, and at one time, won 13 consecutive tournaments. He stopped playing competitively in 1998, but was named the greatest beach volleyball player of the 1990s.

Steffes did return to UCLA and earned a degree in economics in 1993. He later attended Stanford Business School and graduated with an MBA in 2002. Steffes had served on the AVP Board of Directors and was also its secretary. He later settled near DC with his family and worked in the financial services industry.