Volleyball Pioneer Don Philips: Setting the Stage for the 2024 Paris Olympics

In 1964, the minimum wage was $1.15 an hour, a new Surgeon General report first declared that smoking could be hazardous to your health, The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” topped the charts, and “Mary Poppins” could only be seen in a movie theater. 

Also in 1964, men’s and women’s volleyball debuted as an Olympic sport in the Tokyo Summer Games. When some 92,000 fans attended the University of Nebraska’s record-smashing volleyball match in 2023, volleyball pioneers remembered the trailblazing days of the sport more than a half-century earlier. 

Donald R. Philips was one such pioneer. A 1963 All-American outside hitter on the 1962 and 1963 national championship teams, Philips still exudes pride defeating UCLA to propel his team to the national championship in Philadelphia in ’62 and then in San Antonio in ’63. 

“We were the best in the nation, and we beat UCLA and USC every time we played them,” Philips recalls. “The confidence, teamwork, and leadership I learned on the volleyball court helped me for 30 years in my career at Xerox.” 

Philips fondly remembers, at the age of 12, scampering down the Southern California Pacific Palisades’ cliffs every Sunday to go watch his dad play volleyball on the beach. Eventually, Philips and his friends got into games themselves, and his love of volleyball was secured. 

He attended University High in West Los Angeles near UCLA, now a charter school. At “Uni High,” Philips played mostly basketball as the high school had a hard time establishing volleyball as a sport. He graduated in June 1961 and attended Santa Monica City College intending to transfer to USC. 

“There was a great volleyball coach named Edward ‘Burt’ De Groot at Santa Monica College that led us to unparalleled victories against top teams,” Philips said. Indeed, Santa Monica College is the only community college ever to win a men’s volleyball national championship. Beginning in 1961, the college won four consecutive national titles, and Philips was there for two of the four. Altogether, Santa Monica College won seven national titles. 

Only UCLA to date has won more national championships in volleyball than Santa Monica College, this despite the NAIA and NCAA establishing championship rules in 1970 locking out two-year colleges. Sportswriters at the time speculated that the rule was created to stop Santa Monica from winning more titles. 

“We learned so much about the game on the sand—we could dive freely—that we transferred to indoors and hardwood floors,” Philips said. “There were different rules between the two games, but we honed our skills on the beach.” 

In 1964, Philips was invited to play for the U.S. Olympic team, but he and his wife, Diane, already had the first of their two daughters, Debra. Five years later, they had Christen, and he simply couldn’t afford to play in the Olympics. Philips enjoyed years of recreational volleyball with his daughters, both as a player and a coach. 

“Teamwork brought so many people together,” Philips said. “We worked to learn what we had to do to reach our goal and how we would support each other as a team. We worked as hard as we could, and we met so many good people.” 

The Philips now live in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and are enjoying retirement. 

Since 1976, Sports Imports has been the industry leader in designing, engineering, and manufacturing volleyball equipment. Once again, in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Sports Imports’ equipment will be used for the Olympic volleyball championships. 

“We look back at pioneers like Don Philips and owe a huge debt of gratitude to them for helping to establish volleyball across the world as an Olympic sport,” said Sports Imports CEO Danielle Martine. “Sports Imports is so honored to be part of high school and collegiate national championships, and the Olympic Games, thanks to pioneering hard work and dedication to the sport.” 

Volleyball matches at the Paris games will run from July 27 to August 11, 2024.