Laganà Headed to Hall of Fame

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Lifelong Palisadian Sam Laganà—whose gift for gab helped popularize the sport of beach volleyball in the 1980s and 1990s—has been chosen as one of the inductees into the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023.

Laganà will be inducted in the “contributor” category. Joining him are former AVP Tour partners Jake Gibb and Stein Metzger, along with 2008 Olympian Nicole Branagh. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Misty May Treanor will also be honored at a ceremony to take place Saturday, November 4, in Hermosa Beach.

“I’m humbled and honored to be selected with this Class of 2023,” Laganà tweeted upon hearing the news. “Thank you to the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame committee for this recognition.”

Laganà, the President and CEO at Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks, lives in Marquez Knolls with his wife Eileen. He announced the Palisades Will Rogers 5 & 10K run on July 4 (a race he has run himself many times) and has served on the boards of the Palisades-Malibu YMCA, Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce and American Legion Ronald Reagan-Palisades Post 283.

In 2007 he won the Mort Farberow Award as “Businessman of the Year” in the Palisades, and in 2011 he received Pacific Palisades Community Council’s annual Golden Sparkplug Award for his work with city officials to replace clogged curbside storm drains in his neighborhood.

He has a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University and a master’s degree from Pepperdine. The 1980 Palisades High School graduate is the stadium voice for the Los Angeles Rams—a dream job for a football fan who rooted passionately for his hometown team as a kid. Before joining the Notre Dame family, Laganà served as associate vice chancellor at Pepperdine University.

In the 1980s, Laganà managed numerous sporting events while directing promotions and public relations for the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour. He was known as the “voice of beach volleyball” into the 2000s, and was an announcer for Davis Cup tennis, Cal State Northridge football and the LA Avengers of the Arena Football League for 10 years.

He served as executive director of the prestigious John R. Wooden Award from 1996 to 2001, and spent one term as national director of sports at the renowned Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles in 2002.

Laganà credited Kevin Cleary, who posted the announcement of this year’s BVHOF inductees on Twitter, with getting him the AVP announcing gig.

“Kevin had stepped in as head coach at Loyola Marymount and was really active, so thanks to him, as the AVP was being formed in 1984, I was able to get on board and take a 20-year ride with the AVP and the sport overall,” Laganà said. “He said, ‘Hey, you can do this!’ They were looking for someone who could do marketing and public relations, which is kind of what I was doing in college, but it wasn’t a full-time thing because it was a start up.”

Laganà described the experience as a good time, that being on the sand and talking about beach volleyball was fun.

“Those were great days, and the talent we got to see was unbelievable,” Laganà continued. “The characters too … Sinjin Smith tied in with Randy Stoklos as a team, then you also had Mike Dodd, Tim Hovland and Jon Stevenson.”

The Class of 2022 featured Annett Davis, Jon Lee and Sean Rosenthal. There were no inductees in 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the past inductees with ties to the Palisades are Mike O’Hara, Gene and Dane Selznick, Chris Marlowe, Stoklos, Kent Steffes, Smith, John Hanley, Ricci Luyties, and Dain Blanton.