Bob grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Bob has a family, a wife and 3 girls. His compassion for others keeps him on the road across the country getting out the message that you too can “Beat the Odds”. He really wasn’t much of an athlete. In fact, Bob was a very shy person. He never played volleyball in high school or college. Bob did a lot of traveling which caused him to develop a bad back. His doctor recommended that he get more exercise and it was at that time that Bob began playing volleyball with a friend in their backyard. “We played 3 or 4 times a week, usually after evening programs. After watching the famed Globetrotters entertain a crowd and seeing the joy they brought to young people, I came up with the idea of a one-man volleyball team. This way, I could demonstrate to people that they can beat the odds just as I was doing on the court.” At the age of 29, Bob called a high school principal in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. “I had a meeting planned there and asked if I could play a few games, just by myself, against the kids and another game against the faculty. No doubt, the principal thought that I wouldn’t have a chance, so he said yes. I played the students and the faculty, had a lot of fun and won. After that, I called another school and before I knew it, I had 11 schools lined up.” As of April 2018 he has been in over 6000 gymnasiums and has performed in front of and spoken to over 6,000,000 teenagers and adults. Bob has been traveling around the country helping the teens and adults of our country see that they can “Beat the Odds”. When the One Man Volleyball team passes off the scene he wants the epitaph to read: It wasn’t the volleyball, but the message that kept me going, and that message is billions of times more important than my game.
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