By Ed Piper
Madeleine Gates, a La Jolla High Class of 2016 grad, helped Dresden DSC win the league championship in German pro volleyball last year, as meanwhile she worked for an economic/policy "think-and-do" organization. The German league has 12 teams.
Gates, a 6'3" hitter/blocker who starred for the Vikings before playing her college career at UCLA, then Stanford as a grad student, completed two seasons as a vital cog for the Dresden team on the front line.
She returns to Europe, where pro volleyball opportunities are far beyond anything available in the States, and is now playing for RC Cannes, the pro team in Cannes, France.
What makes the situation more relational is the fact that Jenna Gray, the outstanding setter from Madeleine's Stanford team, has followed the same pro volleyball career path as Gates so far: the last two years at Dresden, this year at Cannes.
Madeleine, who earned a Master's degree in Statistics at Stanford (she completed it via distance learning during her two years for Dresden), is working virtually in a job employing her statistics skills.
Between Dresden and Cannes seasons, Gates has played for the USA Volleyball team in international tournaments in the Dominican Republic and Mexico. She has also been able to work at camps at Stanford and at Coast Volleyball locally.
She gets her athletic ability and her height from her mother, Amy Randel, and father, Michael Gates, a 6'7" giant who used to film the Vikings' matches. (Randel retains her name professionally.) Amy has been an invaluable resource for all of this information. Any errors are my fault.
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