Newport Beach Fours spurs ideas for much-needed beach volleyball changes

I renewed my 50-year love affair with beach volleyball on Saturday.

In mid-October no less.

Not in Joao Pessoa, Brazil, for the Elite16 tournament, or in Puerto Cortes, Honduras, at the NORCECA stop. Or in Oceanside for the AVP League. This much beach volleyball in October, for Pete’s sake?!

Nope, I was at a place called Blackie’s Beach, which is not some small spit of sand in Scotland or some burial ground in the swamplands of New Jersey. That name does not necessarily conjure warm and fuzzy, but the vibes emanating from that small slice of heaven in Newport Beach were off the charts.

The occasion: The Newport Beach Four Man/Four Woman Invitational, simply the most entertaining beach tournament I have attended in years. And, I would say judging by the big smiles from the close to 5,000 spectators on site (on a college football Saturday!), as well as the players (Phil Dalhausser beaming … multiple times!), that may have been a sentiment shared by quite a few in attendance.

And the weekend left me with a lot to say to new USA Volleyball CEO John Speraw as we head into the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. My words for him follow.

The competition in Newport Beach was superb. That’s what happens when you have three Olympic gold medalists, seven of the eight players who represented the USA at last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, AND 12 past Manhattan Beach Open champions representing 26 titles in all. So while the AVP League was happening in Oceanside, this tournament had Alison Cerutti, Phil Dalhausser, Eric Fonoimoana, and Brandie Wilkerson.

The weather was in the mid-70’s on a spectacularly sunny day with no wind. Mixing with the crowd, the legends in full force: Smith/Stoklos/Menges/Don Shaw/Jon Lee/Sean Rosenthal/Jake Gibb AND the most colorful player to ever don a pair of Quiksilvers, Gary Hooper. To top it all off: Hall of Fame announcer Chris “Geeter” McGee, back on the mic, providing the soundtrack to a heavenly day. Is there a P.A. announcer in ANY sport better than Geeter? 

Who brought this impressive cast of characters all together? Co-impresarios Steve Obradovich, Kevin Martin (no, not the former beach great K-Mart), Mario Marovic and Fun Zone’s Henry Pyle. They were able to attract eight different local corporate sponsors. The result: A total purse of $250,000, the biggest one-day payout of any tournament in the WORLD for 2024. But more than that, the players were lodged at the five-star Balboa Bay Resort, and upon entering their room, each were greeted with a gift bag. It’s those little things that can, and do, make a big difference. 

One of the sponsors was Slunks. I have never met their CEO Chris Reames, but I can tell you that company has given more back to the game of beach volleyball in recent years than anyone else. In addition to sponsoring a variety of teams/players, Slunks virtually gave away their very distinctive hats. You could buy one for $5 at this tournament. It was 1970 all over again! Reason enough to fight L.A. traffic and hoof it to Newport Beach!

The four man/four woman game is an exceptional product. The rallies are longer, which engages spectators more. With four players and a couple of subs on each team, there is an esprit de corps you do not see in the two man/two woman. And the players seem to have more fun and it shows (see Dalhausser comment above). The matches from Newport Beach were all shown on VBTV, Volleyball World’s streaming service. And here is hoping that the FIVB gives this brand of volleyball a very, very close look in the future. 

The women’s tournament was exceptionally entertaining. And revelatory in many respects. The best player on the court Saturday?

Megan Rice.

Now, there are two players named Megan Rice who play professional beach volleyball. The one ripping it up on Saturday was (I believe) Megan J. Rice. The J should stand for jumping jack. She has got to have one of the two or three best vertical leaps in the world. And to top it off, she hits the stuffing out of the ball. The four-woman format played to all of her strengths. 

A couple of other shout outs to her winning teammates, Carli Lloyd and veteran Geena Urango. Lloyd, the former AVCA indoor national player of the year at Cal, now 35, won a bronze medal indoors in Rio in 2016. And she has some of the most beautiful hands, no matter the surface. She literally has the fastest flick-like release of any setter. If you are in Austin this winter you can see her play indoors for the LOVB franchise there. Urango would have won the “Hoover vacuum” defensive player of the tournament if there was one. She was in the pocket, digging for that winning Provenio Capital team that featured Lloyd, Rice, budding star Toni Rodriguez, Charlie Ekstrom and Betsi Flint, herself a Manhattan Beach champion.

Unequivocally, the best player on the sand Saturday was the appropriately named Taylor SANDer, who led his team, Citrus Ford, to a second consecutive men’s team title. He had the aforementioned five-time Manhattan Beach Open champion and two-time World titlist Jim Menges shaking his head in absolute wonderment at his termination skills. It was bombs away all day for Sander. It seemed as if he jacked every extreme angle that was possible on the court. It was as phenomenal a hitting display as I have ever seen. — anywhere. His team included 2008 Olympic gold-medalist Dalhausser, Nick Lucena, and Sander’s brother, Brendan, as well as the Crabb brothers, Taylor and Trevor.

It is really quite astounding when you think about it, that neither the Beach Pro Tour nor the AVP can get local (or national for that matter) sponsors at the level that a small community like Newport Beach can and did.

Obradovich, Martin and Marovic are all senior executives in unrelated businesses who worked this as a side hustle, and spent money out of their own pockets to help this event succeed. Their love of the game of beach volleyball, and their selflessness should hopefully inspire others so that players like Miles Partain, Andy Benesh and Trevor Crabb don’t have to jam down the 405 to get to Oceanside to play another tournament the same day.

Which leads me to my “Dear John” letter.

John Speraw is the newly hired president and CEO of USA Volleyball. I have met him once and he is an engaging personality who is smart, has a commanding presence, will listen and look you in the eye.

But he has a major task at hand — well a lot of tasks throughout the sport — and a major opportunity in beach volleyball.

Speraw is well-connected with some of the ex-volleyball-playing rainmakers in the business world. There are a LOT of very successful former players who make up his inner circle. In addition to the obvious need for more corporate sponsors, it is imperative that individual benefactors be recruited, whether via a foundation, or some other means to provide developmental money so that the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games can provide a springboard to the future growth of the sport.

Second, Speraw, the former UCLA and USA Olympic indoor coach, needs to prioritize the beach game in general, and the men’s side specifically. If it was me, I would back up the Brinks truck and hire German Jurgen Wagner or Brazilian Marcio Sicoli, or both, to lead the national program efforts in this crucial quadrennial leading up to a home country Olympics.

The German program has been stunningly successful, including Olympic gold-medalists Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst (2016) and Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann (2012), and the reigning silver medalists from Paris, Clemens Wickler and Nils Ehlers. Svenja Muller and Cinja Tillman won the most recent European Championship. The common denominator: Jurgen Wagner.

Sicoli is well known to American beach enthusiasts. He coached Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor to two of their Olympic gold medals. In Paris he mentored Wilkerson and Humana Paredes to a silver medal and way, way back in 2004 he was the coach to Brazilian legends Shelda and Adriana when that pair lost in the final to Walsh Jennings and Treanor at the Athens Games.

Third, Speraw needs to stimulate the development of a domestic USA beach volleyball circuit. One that works closely with the global Beach Pro Tour, so that there are not calendar conflicts, and the best domestic players are available to play on each. Also, USAV needs to host some international competitions in the USA, and not wait for the Beach Pro Tour to get its act together on that front. 

In September 2009, the AVP put on a compelling Davis Cup-like dual between Brazil and the USA in Glendale, Arizona. It was a sensational tournament with real drama. That’s what happens when you wear the Team USA singlet. The really good news is that now there are more nations than ever that can field five competitive teams in both genders. 

I truly believe Speraw has the unifier gene in him. No time is better than now to rally the troops and have a meeting of the minds. Get the most creative and elastic minds and thought leaders in beach volleyball together in one room.  There are a number of wildly successful people out there like Obradovich/Martin/Marovic/Pyle, who are altruistic, and care about the beach game, and want to see medals around the necks of USA beach stars in Santa Monica in 2028. 

New leaders in many businesses unfortunately become wallpaper after six months. They get mired in the bureaucratic sludge and spend time drowning in emails, meetings and protocols. But the first six months is when it has to happen:

There will never be a better time for John Speraw to effect change than NOW.

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