The U.S. women's volleyball players have to lean in close to hear their new head coach speak.
The U.S. women's volleyball players, practicing in a gym at the Olympic Training Center, have to lean in close to hear their new head coach speak. The tone of Lang Ping's voice, lilting and tinged with a Chinese accent, belies the noise her presence here has made a half a world away.
Lang helped lead China's women's volleyball team as a player to unprecedented world-stage success in the early 1980s, including the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic gold medal, kindling a chronic national fervor for the sport and making her a relentlessly hounded icon. She also coached the Chinese women to a silver medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Saturday, she will coach the U.S. women for the first time - an exhibition against Brazil in Fort Collins, Colo.
