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# Local Olympians test their mettle in Athens
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/local-olympians-test-their-mettle-in-athens/
- Published: 2004-08-25T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:55:52.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Environment, Pier, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

While two Santa Monicans have already seen success in Athens, another is still awaiting his turn to make a bid for Olympic glory.

Misty May and her partner Kerri Walsh captured the gold medal in women’s beach volleyball on Tuesday with a victory over Brazil. May spent her formative years living in Santa Monica with her late mother, Barbara May, and her father, Robert “Butch” May — a member of the 1968 U.S. volleyball team. The family owned the “Hot Dog on a Stick” stand south of the pier and a nearby pizza place before relocating down the coast in Costa Mesa.

May, 27, entered the 2000 Sydney games but faltered in the quarterfinals, losing with her former partner Holly McPeak to the same Brazilian team she helped fell on Tuesday. As a child, she spent hours on “Muscle Beach” and at Will Rogers State Beach, along with her parents and early beach volleyball players who have since been etched in legend, according to family friend and longtime resident Bunny Olds.

May entered millions of American homes during Super Bowl XXXVIII, when she and Walsh appeared in a Visa commercial that showed the pair playing volleyball on a snowy beach and playing “rock, paper, scissors” to decide who would have to retrieve a ball from the icy ocean water.

Rousey, who spent much of the year training for the games in Massachusetts, saw her Olympic teammate and training partner Jimmy Pedro take home a bronze medal. Rousey has recently been under the instruction of Pedro’s father. She left Santa Monica High School in the middle of her sophomore year for an online home-schooling program that could better accommodate her training and travel schedules.

Rousey’s mother, AnnMaria Rousey, became the first American woman to win the Judo World Championships in 1984, four years before judo became an Olympic sport for women. Rousey first tried judo six years ago when she was just 11.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 25, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/082504.pdf?ref=smdp.com)