Shaw sets up Stanford for possible national volleyball title
At home they would drape a towel between the chairs and volley balloons back and forth.
After shooting up six inches - to 6-foot-7 -- in his freshman year at St. Francis High in Mountain View and bidding farewell to both baseball and basketball, he became one of the best volleyball players in the country.
When he signed a letter of intent with Stanford, he says, it was the happiest moment of his life.
On Saturday night, after four years, 3,550 assists, many victories and enough injuries to rival Mayhem’’ on the car insurance commercials, he’ll play in his final home match.
Stanford is 18-3 overall and 16-3 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation - only three Pac-12 teams have men’s volleyball.
The Cardinal are gunning not only for the league title but their first national title since 2010.
The setter is the player who usually gets the second touch on the ball and sets up the hitters for the massive kills that make the game so thrilling.
In the 2014 NCAA semifinals, he had 59 assists, one short of his career high, in a victory over BYU.
When his son blasted a shot about eight feet out of bounds against UCLA this year, he fumed, Oh my God, what was that?!’’ Unfortunately, he was broadcasting the match as the analyst for Pac-12 Networks at the time.
While training with the U.S. national team in the summer of 2014, he couldn’t stand the pain anymore and had surgery to rectify the tendinosis.
Shaw’s sister is the beach volleyball coach and indoor team assistant at St. Mary’s, and he would love to be a coach.’’