[2] Her nickname at school was "Jolly green giant",[2] but her family and friends persuaded her to be proud of her height and to use it to her advantage.

[4] In January 1979, in an interview, Hyman said that she found the stares and questions about her height that she got from strangers irritating, but she had learned to live with it.

When Hyman was 12, and standing 6'2" (1.88 m) tall, she began playing two-on-two tournaments on the beach, usually with her sister Suzanne as a partner.

Hyman and her teammates looked forward to qualifying for and playing in the 1980 Olympics, but their dreams were curtailed when the United States boycotted the Moscow games.

[10] At the 1984 Olympics, Hyman, by now both the tallest and oldest member of the team, led the US to the silver medal, beaten by China in the final.

It found that Hyman had a very healthy heart, and instead it was determined that she had suffered from undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, which had caused a fatal aortic dissection.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy, Dr. Victor Rosen, said that Hyman physically had been in superb condition except for a dime-sized weak spot in her aorta.

[15] That small spot, less than an inch above her heart, had been there since her birth, and the artery had burst at that point as she sat on the sideline in Matsue.

There was a three-week-old blood clot around the tear, indicating that an earlier rip in the same spot had already begun to heal when the fatal second rupture occurred.

[16][17] Doctors later discovered Hyman's brother Michael had an enlarged aorta, though he was clear of Marfan syndrome, and he underwent an open heart surgery afterwards.

[18] Experts believed Hyman was lucky to have survived as long as she did, playing a physically demanding sport such as volleyball.