Four-time American Olympic volleyball star Logan Tom. Photo / Gettys
Harbour Raiders have extra star power in their campaign at this week's national volleyball championships in Wellington.
Their team has been boosted by the presence of four-time United States Olympian Logan Tom.
Tom is no stranger to New Zealand, having holidayed, coached and given talks on the sport here and played in two Masters events earlier in the year.
The connection was made with Harbour and they started the championships yesterday with a pair of wins over the Dunedin Scorpions and Waitakere Rebels, both three sets to nil and followed that with a 3-0 win over the Institute of Sport today.
Tom was a sporty teenager, played basketball and volleyball and competed in track and field at high school.
"Volleyball was the last sport I picked up and honestly it kind of chose me I guess," she said.
"I think they saw a kid who was raw but athletic, could jump high and was coordinated at a young age."
To cut the story short, in Tom's words "it engulfed the rest of my life".
At 19 she went to the Sydney Olympics, the youngest woman ever selected for an American volleyball team, and collected silver medals at Beijing in 2008 and London five years ago.
"Every Olympic experience is different. In my first Olympics everything was bright, new and shiny and you don't really understand the pressures, you're just excited to be there.
"As you get older it's just different. Sydney is still pretty fresh in my head."
Born in Napa, California, Tom moved to Utah at nine and has spent much of her life in Hawaii, her father's home state.
So at 36, does the sense of enjoyment still remain for someone for whom volleyball has been her life for 18 years? Tom believes there are two sides to it.
"It's not the same but the enjoyment is still there. People see you on court and they see fun, but they don't see the lifestyle of it, which is very different.
"There's lots of travelling, missing holidays, birthdays, being away from family for a long time. But the actual aspect of playing is still fun for me."
The sport has taken the 1.86m outside hitter around the world many times. Tom has played in Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Japan, China, Brazil and Indonesia, clocking up the air miles.
There have been a pile of honours, such as best scorer at the 2008 Olympics, she was inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame in 2014 and named Pac 12 (the top 12 universities competition in the US) player of the century two years ago.
Tom spent four years at Stanford University studying international relations, and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2013. But she's not sure what the future holds once she steps away from the volleyball court. That is a work in progress.
"I'm trying to figure that out. There's different things I think I would like to dabble in."
Volleyball is big in the American college system, but Tom believes any advice she'd give to young volleyball hopefuls would also apply other sports, or career lifestyles.
"You need hard work, but that doesn't guarantee you anything. You can work your arse off but still get beat in the end.
"Self accountability is huge, learning how to be competitive in a positive way. Sometimes women look at being competitive as being too hard, or harsh. Competitiveness is strength."
Tom used to be among the bigger players going around. That's changing.
"Before you'd get tall girls, but they were beanpoles. Now they're big and have muscles," she said.
Raiders coach Rhys van Stipriaan has high praise for the qualities Tom adds to the squad.
"She brings a new level of professionalism to the team. She's had experiences which the girls can learn from, she has a full range of skills and everything is done at 100 percent," he said.
Several of the team are young; indeed Tom helps bring the average age up to just 22.
The national finals are on Saturday.