Christopher St. John "Sinjin" Smith (born May 7, 1957) is an American former

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side o ...

player. He was the first player to win 100 career tournaments, and won numerous Manhattan Open titles with

Karch Kiraly Charles Frederick "Karch" Kiraly ( ; born November 3, 1960) is an American volleyball player, coach, and broadcast announcer. He was a central part of the United States men's national volleyball team, U.S National Team that won gold medals at t ...

and Randy Stoklos as partners.

College

Smith went to college at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, where he was a setter. UCLA won the

National Championship A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...

in Smith's freshman year. In his junior year, the team again reached the

finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

before losing to Pepperdine, and Smith was selected to the All-Tournament Team. In his senior year in 1979, the Bruins defeated cross-town rival

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

to win the

. Smith was again selected to the All-Tournament Team, and was voted the Championship's Most Outstanding Player. Smith was selected as an All-American in both his junior and senior years. Smith was inducted into the UCLA Hall of Fame in 1991.

Beach volleyball

Smith began to compete as a professional in the two-man beach volleyball tournaments of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

at age fifteen. When he started playing beach volleyball, players were motivated primarily by the prestige of winning tournaments rather than money, since winnings were relatively meager. He won his first beach tournament with former UCLA teammate "Stormin" Mike Normand. He won his first Manhattan Open in 1979 teaming with another UCLA alum, Jim Menges. In the early 1980s, he made a successful beach team pairing with former UCLA teammate Kiraly. They split up when Kiraly committed full-time to the U.S. national team. Smith moved on to partner with Stoklos, and the two became the most dominant pair in men's beach volleyball. Smith was selected as the Best Defensive Player by the AVP in 1990, 1991, and 1992. He won a bronze medal in beach volleyball at the 1994 Goodwill Games in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. By the time Smith announced his retirement in 2001, he had won 139 career tournaments. He had also amassed $1,700,000 in career prize money. As a primary force behind the growth of beach volleyball as a sport, he was inducted into the California Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2002 and the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2003.

Popular culture

The pair of Smith and Stoklos was featured in the video game '' Kings of the Beach'' released by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...

for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

in 1988 and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

in 1989, and in 1990 it was released for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

. The pair also appeared in the 1990 film '' Side Out'' as the nemesis team of Rollo Vincent (Stoklos) and Billy Cross (Smith). Smith had a brief career as a television actor, appearing most notably on an episode of '' Magnum, P.I.'' as Magnum's volleyball partner who winds up dead under suspicious circumstances. In 1990, Smith was selected as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by ''

People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

''.

Awards

* Two-time All-American 1978, 1979 * Two-time NCAA Champion 1976, 1979 * NCAA Championship Most Outstanding Player 1979 * AVP Best Defensive Player 1990, 1991, 1992 * UCLA Hall of Fame 1991 * Goodwill Games beach volleyball bronze medal 1994 * CBVA Hall of Fame 2002 * International Volleyball Hall of Fame 2003

References

External links

* * *
Sinjin Smith
biography from the International Volleyball Hall of Fame
Sinjin Smith
biography from the Southern California Indoor Volleyball Hall of Fame
UCLA Hall of Fame profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Sinjin 1957 births Living people American men's beach volleyball players Beach volleyball players at the 1996 Summer Olympics Olympic beach volleyball players for the United States Sportspeople from Santa Monica, California UCLA Bruins men's volleyball players Competitors at the 1994 Goodwill Games Goodwill Games medalists in beach volleyball International Volleyball Hall of Fame inductees 20th-century American sportsmen