It's safe to say former professional volleyball star Gabrielle Reece has had quite a life so far.
Having grown up in the British Virgin Islands, Reece moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of 15 where she picked up volleyball and basketball. At that point, she was already 6ft3in, making her new school's decision to get her to try her hand at the two sports an easy one.
Then, fast forward to a few years later, and Reece found herself playing volleyball for collegiate powerhouse, Florida State University as a scholarship athlete. A booming net presence for the Seminoles, Reece would go on to play professional volleyball out in California, as well as working as a model too.
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Her modelling work eventually led her to pose nude for Playboy magazine back in January 2001 too. The now 53-year-old boasts an impressive following of 233,000 fans on Instagram, which she uses to promote her health, nutrition and fitness programmes. Reece, who was rumoured to be dating Tiger Woods at one point, also tried to turn her hand to professional golf too but was unsuccessful in her efforts to make it to the LPGA Tour.
And speaking to 'The American Athlete' back in 2019, Reece explained how her journey from the Caribbean to Florida led to her playing professional beach volleyball. "I started my first job really as a professional volleyball player," Reece said.
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"That was the beginning of my career. I have many other jobs at this point but I won't bore everyone.I grew up for the most part in the Virgin Islands, and we had a little bit of organised sports but not really and very few of us ever thought we were going to go on to college.
"Then my junior year of high school, I was sort of moved to St. Petersburg, Florida because there was quite a bit of idle time in the Caribbean and for a 15-year-old girl, that can spell trouble. And I happened to be 6ft3in, so they said you're going to play volleyball and basketball and I said ok.
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"So I chose Florida State [as her college] and I played four years. I started working in fashion to pay my own bills, and actually after my second year of competing on a scholarship, I actually gave up my own scholarship and I paid to play.
She then added: "So after college, I was living between New York City and Tallahassee and I moved to Miami and that's actually where I picked up the beach [volleyball] game. I had never played beach volleyball until I was about 21-years-old.
"And after about six months to maybe a year of living there and starting to learn the beach game, I had an older partner who had a real job in Miami and she said you should move to California and try to play professionally. And I did. And early on I thrived in that environment and became a professional athlete.
