Decades before he became Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold’s grandfather, Dick Hammer was pressed into a small, crowded volleyball arena in the middle of Tokyo, sweat rolling down into his numbered jersey. At 34, Hammer shouldn’t even have been there. The LA County kid had spent his entire life living locally, including college at the University of Southern California, and would later serve a job as a firefighter not far from his Long Beach hometown.

Besides, the Olympics are usually a younger person’s game.

But there he was, celebrating alongside his United States teammates, some more than a decade younger, as they toppled the Netherlands in three straight sets. It was a dominating mid-October performance for the American athletes, and just the kind of punctuating win the sport needed. After decades as a niche U.S. attraction, volleyball had grown to international prominence thanks in large part to host country Japan, whose legions of supporters advocated heavily for its Olympic inclusion. The International Olympic Committee ultimately relented, propelling volleyball to the 1964 Summer Olympics, held in Tokyo.

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Members of the United States volleyball team compete against the Soviet Union during the men’s Olympic volleyball tournament during the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

That U.S. drubbing of the Netherlands was the first Olympic volleyball match win in world history. And Richard Bernard “Dick” Hammer was there.

Now, more than 60 years later, Hammer’s grandson is the one in the........

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