Jake Gibb

We are thrilled to have one of the top talents of the AVP Tour on the Shaka Laka team!  He is the only player to finish ranked in the top 5 in each of the past four seasons.  Recently, he wond the AVP’s most prized event – the Manhattan Beach Open!  He also competed in the most recent Olympic Summer Games where he was seeded as the No. 2 men’s team with partner Sean Rosenthal.

Gibb got an especially late start in volleyball, as he didn’t begin playing regularly until he was 21 years old. Gibb says he originally thought volleyball was a girl’s sport, but after playing in a recreation league his senior year of high school, he began to like it. While on a two-year church mission after high school, Gibb grew about four inches to 6-foot-6, and started playing extensively in his backyard with his twin brother Coleman when he returned home. Jake never took up the sport while attending the University of Utah, but in 2000 he competed in some AVP events with a friend, Mike Daniel, who paid his expenses to help him qualify for the AVP Tour, which they did. However, Gibb returned to school, graduated in 2002 with a degree in business and was working at a bank training to become a commercial loan officer before he decided give beach volleyball a real try. With $1,600 in his pocket, Gibb and his wife Jane moved to California later in 2002.

In 2000, Gibb married his wife Jane, a former volleyball player who also graduated from Utah in 2002. Gibb says she supported him from the get-go with his desire to try professional beach volleyball. “We didn’t have any money but we had like first month’s rent, and Jane, my wife, took up two jobs and said, ‘Hey, go try this beach volleyball thing for a while.’ Kind of a testament to her; that’s a pretty gnarly wife, that she just gave me the go ahead.” Jake promised to be ranked among the AVP’s top 20 within two years, or he’d quit. After his first season, 2003, Gibb ranked 19th; following his second season, he ranked third with partner Adam Jewell; and with Metzger in 2005, Gibb ranked No. 1 in the AVP. He was named the AVP’s Most Valuable Player in 2005.

The youngest of 11 children (six boys, five girls), Gibb’s legal middle name is Spiker, which was the maiden name of his mother, Saundra. Though his brother Coleman is Jake’s twin, they are not identical and Coleman stands just 6-1. A huge Utah Jazz fan, Jake grew up hoping to use his height to play basketball. But as a 6-2 senior at Bountiful High, he was cut from the team.

For more information about Jake, visit: http://jakegibb.com/

Check out Jake's Video

Jake Gibb

Age: 33

Hometown: Bountiful, Utah

Years playing: 12

Favorite Spot: