Just read that my favorite beach volleyball player, Mike Whitmarsh, died in an apparent suicide.
He played on the AVP tour for many years and won the silver medal with Mike Dodd at the Atlanta Olympics.
I got to meet and take a picture with him when he played in a tournament in Orlando. The guy was huge. Super nice guy. We joked around for a bit when I told him I was exactly a day older than he was. I sure miss watching him play.

Reporting from San Diego -- Mike Whitmarsh, an Olympic silver medalist in beach volleyball and a star on the professional tour for 15 seasons, was found dead Tuesday morning in the garage of a friend's home in Solana Beach. He was 46.

The San Diego County medical examiner Wednesday afternoon listed the death as suicide from inhalation of carbon monoxide from car exhaust. Whitmarsh lived with his family in San Diego but occasionally stayed with the friend, the medical examiner said.
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He played professionally in Europe for three seasons, was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Assn. and later narrowly missed making the squad with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

It was in two-man beach volleyball that the 6-foot-7 Whitmarsh gained his greatest acclaim. He won 28 tournaments on the Los Angeles-based Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour and competed into his 40s in a sport that favors the young and lithe.