Gabrielle Reece (born January 6, 1970) is an American professional volleyball player, sports presenter and former fashion model.

Reece was born in La Jolla, California, and spent her early years living in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Her father, from Trinidad, died when she was five years old; Reece's trademark piece of jewelry (copied on a tattoo inside her right ankle) is a stylized sterling silver cross that was worn by her father. In high school, Reece excelled at basketball and played volleyball on the side. Many colleges started recruiting her due to her abilities in sports. She accepted a volleyball scholarship from Florida State University (FSU) where she majored in communications and led the league in kills four times and blocks once. In 1989, she took off to model in New York. She returned for six weeks that summer to take classes, then flew to New York for more modeling.

Since graduation, Reece has played on professional volleyball tours. FSU inducted Reece into the Florida State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1997. Reece set two still standing school volleyball records in solo blocks (240) and total blocks (747).

In 1997, competing with the best global beach volleyball players ever assembled, 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 Reece's fifth season as a team captain in the 4-person Women's Beach Volleyball League (WBVL), and her fourth captaining Team Nike, which shared League Co-Championship.

For four consecutive years, Reece was the WBVL kills leader from 1993-1996. She was named the Offensive Player of the Year in 1994-95, and the League blocks leader in 1993. She also competed domestically in the 1999-2000 Olympic Challenge Series, the 1999-2000 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, and other competitions.

Reece began her modeling career while attending FSU. In 1989 she was named by ELLE magazine as one of the five most beautiful Women in the World.

Reece has appeared on the covers of several magazines including Shape, Women's Sports & Fitness, Outside, ELLE, and Life, Travel & Leisure Golf, Women's Sports & Fitness, Vogue, People and many other. She also appeared on the cover of Playboy, with an accompanying nude pictorial, in January 2001. Ironically, when appearing as herself the year before on the HBO series Arliss, she angrily chastised her agent for bringing her an offer to pose nude for Playboy.

Reece co-wrote a book with Karen Karbo about her life as a pro athlete entitled "Big Girl in the Middle," published by Crown (1997). She also wrote a column for Conde Nast's magazine Women's Sports & Fitness, and has been a contributing editor at ELLE magazine.

Reece can be seen featured on TV every year as a host on ESPN and NBC's "Gravity Games," where she participated in the daredevil sports of 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). She was also a commentator at the 1998 Goodwill Games.

Reece recently reunited with Nike as a spokesperson and she is a new expert and writer for Yahoo-Health. 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, ‘Insider Training' where she profiles professional athletes about their training & conditioning regimens.

In film, Reece played the supporting role of a physical trainer in the film Gattaca (1997) and a pro beach volleyball player in 'Cloud Nine' with Bert Reynolds (2004). She has also guest starred on the television shows 'North Shore' (2004) and '8 Simple Rules' on ABC (2005), and has appeared as a guest on Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

In 2007, Reece, along with her husband Laird Hamilton, appeared in the ABC reality television series Fast Cars and Superstars: The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race, featuring a dozen celebrities in a stock car racing competition. In the first round of competition, Reece matched up against former NFL coach Bill Cowher and actor William Shatner.

In November 1997, Reece married Hawaiian big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton. They have one child together, daughter Reece Viola Hamilton, who was born in October 2003. In June 2007 Reece announced on the TODAY show that she is expecting another child, due on Jan 2nd, 2008.

* GoToGabby.com official site * * Images of Gabrielle Reece via Google search * AskMen.com A short bio