John Lee’s Volleyball Legacy Lives On at East Beach and Beyond

Few men have ever endeavored to intertwine beach volleyball and advanced-placement English into a single discipline, but Jon Lee managed to encapsulate those seemingly divergent objectives into summer fun year after year.

For more than three decades, Lee ran summer beach volleyball camps at East Beach and touched many lives in the process. He instilled generations of young people with skills on the court and life lessons that have undoubtedly lasted a lifetime.

“I got a summer job. For teachers, you are always trying to come up with some way to support your family in the summertime,” said Lee of his summer beach volleyball camps. “I got a summer job doing something that I was born to do. I’ve always liked the competitive aspect of a sport and found that I was able to inspire kids to take it seriously, to try hard, and to get in shape.”

On October 5, the Friends of East Beach Association inducted Lee into its unofficial Hall of Fame by dedicating Court 11 in his honor. The event brought the Santa Barbara volleyball community together in celebration, including legendary figures that Lee influenced on their paths to greatness such as Olympians Todd Rogers (2008, 2012), Dax Holdren (2004), and Miles Evans (2024). Rogers and Holdren played indoor volleyball for Lee at San Marcos High, while Evans was a counselor at Lee’s beach volleyball camp.

Lee’s longtime friend, beach volleyball partner, and legendary Stanford indoor volleyball coach Don Shaw perfectly summed up Lee’s persona at the ceremony with his favorite quote by James A. Michener: “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he’s always doing both.”

At his core, Lee is a teacher. He taught English at San Marcos High. His parents were teachers; his brothers Greg and Chris were teachers. The ability to communicate in a way that is easy to digest, combined with the insatiable desire for competition, which is also synonymous with the Lee family, has been a recipe for an incredible life in volleyball as a player and a coach.

Lee grew up in the San Fernando Valley and moved to Santa Barbara to play indoor volleyball at UCSB. In his four years as a Gaucho, Lee experienced tremendous success and won a national indoor championship in 1969, beating UCLA in the U.S. Volleyball Association final. He earned All-American honors three times.

At the conclusion of his collegiate career, Lee played professionally for two years in Spain, culminating in a National Championship in 1974.

Over the next few years, Lee gradually turned his competitive attention to beach volleyball, where he experienced tremendous success, even at times teaming up with his brother Greg, who was better known as an All-American and two-time NCAA champion basketball player at UCLA.

“In the past, you weren’t an indoor player or a beach player; you were a volleyball player,” Lee said. “We’d play three games in the sand and then go over into the gym and play another three hours.

“Not everybody is equally good in both places, but they complement each other. There was never really a division between indoor and outdoor in my skill acquisition; it was just enjoying the things that I could do on the volleyball court.”

In his later years, Lee won three consecutive age-60-plus Beach National Championships and won nine division championships at the Motherlode Volleyball Classic in Aspen. 

Lee’s coaching success at San Marcos High from 1986 to 2009 nearly matched his success as a player, as he won several Channel League Championships and three CIF Championships while mentoring legendary players such as Rodgers, Holdren, current San Marcos High head boys’ volleyball coach Dave Goss, and countless other players who thrived at the collegiate level. 

“You don’t coach just for the best athletes,” Lee said. “Those are the ones that get the headlines, and it’s easy to point to the inspirational effect you had on someone who ends up being an Olympic performer or who earns a college scholarship. But there’s lots of other people that just enjoy this sport for the rest of their lives, as I have.”

Lee was proud of the fact that he could go watch two of his former protégés coach against each other in Jason Donnelly and Dillan Bennett, who coach volleyball at Laguna Blanca and Bishop Diego, respectively.

Among his many interests, Lee is an avid traveler, having made trips all over Mexico, South America, Europe, and even Cuba as a player, journalist, and ambassador of the game. Later in life, he made four trips to Uganda to spread the game of volleyball: building courts, distributing equipment, and teaching the fundamentals of the game, among other endeavors.

“I lived in Spain for a couple years and had a real privilege to look at that culture just because I was a prominent athlete,” said Lee. “The sports community undercuts cultural, political, and racial differences. It makes you something more than just a tourist.”

At the heart of Lee’s exploits in volleyball and in life is a willingness to give his time, talent, and intellect to make things a little bit better for those that follow. Whether it’s at the beach, in the gym, or in some far-off land, this master in the art of living leaves a legacy to be admired.