Every worthwhile institution has its watering hole of debauchery. It’s a place where individuals with a shared interest coalesce because, well, nobody wants to go home just quite yet. For volleyball players in the South Bay, that honor is held by no other than Sangria on a Sunday night following a tournament.
Though the social energy remains amped from before the first round starts up until the final whistle, everyone seems to have special reserves for continued action. Think dessert after dinner. It certainly helps that the beach (i.e. venue of competition) is accessible to everyone, making it the ideal playground for spectators whether their athleticism peaks at picnic volley or borders along the line of, “you pull off the block and I’ll knock those $200 Oakleys off your deer-in-the-headlights face.”
But we’ll get back to that later, for before every after-party there is the party. Unfortunately, I’m a far cry away from any sort of party, unless you consider scones made from scratch a celebration of sorts. That’s what my mother was doing in my parents’ North Carolina kitchen as we awaited what was expected of Mrs. Irene.
Thanks to Twitter and Facebook I was able to keep a virtual tab on volleyball happenings. I was disappointed to hear that Irene forced the National Volleyball League (NVL) to cancel its Virginia Beach event for I knew several friends hoping to cash in. What I was really interested in, however, was taking place 3,000 miles away on the stretch of sand that I call home. The first of a series of three Jose Cuervo Professional Beach Volleyball events came to Manhattan Beach with a chance for the victors to have their names etched on the Manhattan Pier for all to see for years to come.
You may be thinking right now that the person writing this column is an utter idiot for traveling cross-country on such a weekend, and my sources say that you are entirely correct. But have you seen what they charge for cancellation flights? Money aside, I couldn’t seriously entertain the idea of bagging the trip because I didn’t have somebody to compete with. All I could do was enjoy the time with my family and let the fire burning inside of me grow uncontrollably.
While social media sites helped me feel in the loop with the tournament (mechanical bull – er, I mean lime, anyone?) I also couldn’t help but express some shock at what I was reading…what I thought were “committed” player relationships turned out to be “open,” an odd revelation to me considering how late in the season it is. The tournament brackets revealed teams broken up all over the place; either playing without their steady partner, swapping partners with another duo, or crawling back to their exes. Is August just one big swinger’s party?
Since large tournaments — prize money in the tens of thousands — are few and far between this season, when they roll into town, like the CLWO or Jose Cuervo Series, players get pretty excited…and not just for the competition and liveliness on the court but also for the interactions that take place just about everywhere else. Underneath the protection of the Oakley tent. Among the lounge chairs surrounding center court. Basically any inch of sand outside any one rectangular playing field.
People are genuinely happy to see and greet one another, which was evident on the morning of the CLWO tournament just the other weekend. My partner Iwona Lodzik and I were walking over to the north side of the Hermosa pier when it became clear that no one was overly concerned about professionalism. Just a bunch of barefoot kids on recess if you ask me, Iwona and me included.
We simply couldn’t make it from the pier to the player board to our assigned court without engaging in some pre-game banter. Hey, Angela Lewis…Priscilla Lima…Sara Stratton…girls from San Diego…girls from Florida…girls from Chicago. Hey, Kevin Wong…did you snag those trunks from Don Draper’s California-bound suitcase? That’s a compliment, by the way…retro is so hot right now. And I’ve been hanging out with enough Brazilians to know that an exchange with Carlos Jacko and Fred Souza requires nothing short of a kiss on the check.
Wait a second, shouldn’t we be warming up? Stretching, running to the water’s edge, something!? At one point I was getting a little annoyed because peppering with yourself is just, well, shoot me. Some of these girls I didn’t even know yet my Polish partner (bless her heart) sure did and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Beach volleyball breeds an extremely sociable environment. Which brings us back to the fine establishment that is Sangria, where you know a big tournament must’ve come to town because the average height increased by about two feet.
We may have dragged some sand into the bar but we left all our worries at the door. Bottoms up.
Katrina Zawojski lives in Hermosa Beach and is chasing her dream of a career in professional beach volleyball. Follow her on Twitter at sandinmysuit1.
