Christopher St. John "Sinjin" Smith (born May 7, 1957, in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

) is a

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players 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 of the ...

player. He won one U.S. championship and two World championships with

Randy Stoklos Randy Stoklos (born December 13, 1960) is a retired professional beach volleyball player. He is the first player to earn $1,000,000 playing competitive beach volleyball. He won one U.S. championship and Five World championships with Sinjin Smith. ...

. He began to compete as a professional in the two man beach volleyball tournaments of Southern California at age fifteen. He went to college at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, where he played setter and outside hitter in head coach

Al Scates Allen Edward Scates (born June 9, 1939) is a former American volleyball player and volleyball coach, who was head coach of the UCLA Bruins for 48 years. Scates is the winningest volleyball coach in the history of the NCAA, and the 19 NCAA titles ...

' 6-2 system. The UCLA Bruins 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. The following year the Bruins did not make the final four, but as a junior the team again reached the

finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

before losing to

Pepperdine Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and ...

. Smith was selected to the all tournament team. In his senior year in 1979 the Bruins again reached the

, defeating cross town rival

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

to win the national championship. 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 won his first beach tournament with former UCLA teammate "Stormin" Mike Normand. His first

Manhattan Beach Open The Manhattan Beach Open is a beach volleyball tournament held annually during the summer in Manhattan Beach, California. Held on the south side of the Manhattan Beach Pier, the Open is the only professional volleyball tournament in which amat ...

was won in 1979 teaming with another UCLA alum,

Jim Menges James Menges (born January 10, 1951) is an American former volleyball player, coach, and Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tournament director. He played college volleyball for the UCLA Bruins under head coach Al Scates. His college ...

. In the early 1980s he made a successful beach team pairing with former UCLA teammate

Karch Kiraly Charles Frederick "Karch" Kiraly () (born November 3, 1960) is an American volleyball player, coach and broadcast announcer. In the 1980s he was a central part of the U.S National Team that won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games. He ...

. They split up when Karch committed full time to the US National Men's Volleyball Team. He moved on to partner with

, and the two became the most dominant pair in men's beach volleyball. Smith was the first player to reach 100 career open tournament wins. He was a primary force behind the growth of beach volleyball as a sport, and the development of the

Association of Volleyball Professionals The Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) is the biggest and longest-running professional beach volleyball tour in the United States. Founded in 1983, the AVP is headquartered in Newport Beach, California. The AVP operates as a 3-tiered ...

, which formalized the sport as a professional athletic competition. The pair of Smith and Stoklos was featured in the video game ''

Kings of the Beach ''Kings of the Beach'' is a beach volleyball computer game released by Electronic Arts in 1988 for the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS. A version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was produced by Konami (under the Ultra Games label) in 1990. Ga ...

'' released in 1988 for multiple computer platforms by

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

and in 1990 for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

Konami , is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

, and also appeared in the 1990 film

Side Out ''Side Out'' is a 1990 American comedy-drama sports film about a beach volleyball competition, featuring C. Thomas Howell, Peter Horton, Harley Jane Kozak and Courtney Thorne-Smith. It was the last film from Aurora Productions, Hollywood, Aurora ...

as the nemesis team of Rollo Vincent (Stoklos) and Billy Cross (Smith).

Acting

Smith had a brief career as a television actor, appearing most notably on an episode of ''

Magnum, P.I. ''Magnum, P.I.'' is an American crime drama television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator (P.I.) living on Oahu, Hawaii. The series ran from December 11, 1980 to May 8, 1988 during its first-run broadcast on ...

'' as Magnum's volleyball partner who winds up dead under suspicious circumstances.

References

External links

* *
Sinjin Smith
biography from Volleyball World Wide

biography from the Volleyball Hall of Fame 1957 births Living people American men's beach volleyball players Beach volleyball players at the 1996 Summer Olympics Olympic beach volleyball players of 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 {{US-volleyball-bio-stub