Gabby Reece
Gabrielle Reece : Gabby Reece
Her name is Gabrielle, but mostly she is called Gabby or Gab. Gabby Reece is 6-foot-3 and possesses a look that conveys both athleticism and feminine beauty. Gabby Reece Recently reunited with Nike as a spokesperson and she is a new expert and writer for Yahoo-Health , as well as on Gabby Reece's own site: www.gotogabby.com. Gabby Reece is also a producer of a health & fitness product; "The Primal System" with fitness expert Paul Chek and can be seen hosting a show for Fit Tv/Discovery, ÔInsider Training' where Gabby Reece profiles professional athletes about their training & conditioning regime's. Gabby Reece, formerly a pro beach volleyball player, her face can also be seen on the cover of magazines such as Sports Illustrated for Women, Travel & Leisure Golf, Women's Sports & Fitness, Outside, Elle, Shape, Self, Harpers' Bazaar, Volleyball, Fitness, and in Life, Vogue, People and other magazines. Gabby co-wrote a book with Karen Karbo about her life as a pro athlete entitled "Big Girl in the Middle," published by Crown (1997). Gabby Reece also wrote a column for Conde Nast's magazine Women's Sports & Fitness, and before that she was a contributing editor at Elle magazine. Gabby Reece can be seen featured on TV every year as a host on ESPN and NBC's "Gravity Games," and Gabby Reece won a huge number of fans by taking risks while road-lugging, white water kayaking, drag racing, surfing, sky diving, and more on "MTV Sports" (1993-95), and "The Extremists with Gabrielle Reece" (1995-96). Gabby Reece was also a commentator at the 1998 Goodwill Games. In Gabby Reece's theatrical work, Gabby Reece played the supporting role of a physical trainer in the film Gattaca (1997), a pro beach volleyball player in soon to be released ÔCloud Nine' with Bert Reynolds (2004); as well as guest starred in ÔNorth Shore' (2004) and Ô8 Simple Rules' on ABC (2005).
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In 1997, competing with the
best global beach volleyball players ever assembled, Gabby Reece's
4-person team took first place at the first-ever Beach Volleyball World
Championships staged at the UCLA Tennis Center. A Florida State star
turned pro, 1997 was Gabby Reece's fifth season as a team captain in the
4-person Women's Beach Volleyball League (WBVL), and Gabby Reece's
fourth captaining Team Nike, which shared League Co-Championship. Gabby
Reece was only a sophomore at Florida State University when Elle named
Gabby Reece "one of the five most beautiful Women in the world" in 1989,
the same year her coach said, "Gabby Reece likes to hit the ball hard
and put it back in somebody's face." The lure of the smash is still with
her: For four consecutive years, she was the WBVL kills leader in
1993-1996, she was named the Offensive Player of the Year in 1994-95,
and in 1993 the League blocks leader. "I enjoy getting the ball to go
exactly where I want it, at the speed I want it to go," says Gabby
Reece. Gabby Reece was training hard to hone her skills in 2-person
beach volleyball, and was competing domestically in the 1999-2000
Olympic Challenge Series, the 1999-2000 FIVB Beach Volleyball World
Tour, and other competition, when she was approached with an opportunity
to play golf.
California born, Gabby Reece is a mix of a mother from Long Island (her
height comes from mom), and a father from Trinidad who died when she was
five. Gabby Reece's trademark piece of jewelry (copied on a tattoo
inside her right ankle) is a stylized sterling silver cross he wore.
Raised on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, Gabby didn't take up
volleyball until Gabby Reece was in the 11th grade when Gabby Reece and
her mother moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. Gabby Reece won an athletic
scholarship to FSU where she majored in Communications, and played two
seasons of volleyball before accepting any offers from the modeling
world. In 1989, Gabby Reece took off to model in New York. Gabby Reece
returned for six weeks that summer to take classes, then flew to New
York for more modeling. In August, Gabby Reece was back on campus for
the season. It meant turning down five-figure jobs to earn
All-Tournament honors several times in her collegiate career. In 1997,
Gabby Reece was selected for induction into the Florida State University
Athletic Hall of Fame. Gabby Reece set two school volleyball records in
solo blocks (240) and total blocks (747). Both records still stand.
Gabby Reece is one of three athletes named in Women's Sport & Fitness' 20 Most Influential Women in Sports list (Aug/1997). Regarding their choice of Gabby Reece for that issue's cover, the magazine's editor wrote, "Because I believe Gabby Reece represents, finally, the answer to all the image-questing pendulum swinging of the decades gone by. Who is the female athlete? Gabby Reece is everything once thought to be an inherent contradiction. Gabby Reece is strong and beautiful, sweaty and feminine, tough and ladylike." In its first television spot with Gabby Reece in 1993, Nike introduced her as its female Bo Jackson in a tongue-in-cheek commercial that pokes fun at the differences between being an athlete and a model. The girl in the commercial "is me, just a bit extreme," says Gabby Reece who strongly believes being athletic is not unfeminine. Gabby Reece was Nike's first-ever female cross-training spokesperson (1993-99), and its first-ever female athlete to help design a shoe. Working with Tinker Hatfield, designer of the Air Jordan, Gabby Reece's shoe the Air Trainer Set was launched in 1994; the Air Patrol in 1995 (first-ever women's shoe that ever outsold men's and outsold Air Jordan in a certain Q.); the Air GR in 1997, and the Air GR II in 1998.