by Kevin Cody
This year’s California Beach Volleyball Association Hall of Fame honorees covered the spectrum of players who make up what emcee Jim Arico calls “The Tribe.”
At one end was Kerri Walsh-Jennings. Her three Olympic gold medals, four FIVB Beach World Championships and seven Manhattan Beach Open championships make her the undisputed Greatest Of All Time women beach volleyball player.
Or in the words of her husband, former top ranked AVP player Casey Jennings, who introduced her at the inductions, “A bad MF.”
On the other end of the spectrum was inductee Phil Stutzel, the backbone of beach volleyball during his years as CBVA president.
Stutzel said friends told him to remind the audience of his contributions to the sport “because people probably won’t know who you are.”
Which wasn’t true. Since the founding of the CBVA in 1962, just about every American professional beach volleyball player has qualified for the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) by earning his or her AAA rating on the CBVA tour.
Casey Jennings, before introducing his wife, told the crowd at the Hermosa Beach Community Theater Saturday night, November 2, “I love how home grown CBVA is, and that we’re holding these inductions in this little theater. This is where it all started.”
Saturday night’s pre induction party was held at the Hermosa Museum, which houses the CBVA Hall of Fame collection.
Symbolizing the heart of beach volleyball was inductee Jim Menges, a dominant player through the 1970s when he earned 48 open victories. Among his wins were six Hermosa Beach Opens with five different partners, and five Manhattan Beach Opens, with four different partners. (Menges was inducted in 1994, but honored Saturday night because because induction ceremonies didn’t begin until 2012. Each year since then, early inductees have been recognized.)
“We played for pride. We didn’t play for money because there wasn’t any. Matt Gage (1994 HOF) and I got a pitcher of beer at the Poop Deck for winning the 1980 Hermosa Beach Open,” Menges said.
Menges’ earnings during his 12 year career totaled $16,000.
In 1990, the first year the Hermosa Open was broadcast on NBC, the prize money was $100,000. Winners Randy Stoklos (1999 HOF) and Sinjin Smith (2002 HOF) would become the first AVP players to earn over $1 million in prize money.
In 1981, Menges won his fifth Manhattan Beach Open with Stoklos, who introduced him Saturday night.
“What I learned from Jim was intensity. He had a fire in him. When things didn’t go well you could hear him scream into his hands, ‘Jimmeeee!’ He would take it out on the water cooler next to the court. And that was during mid-week practice,” Stoklos said.
“We played for pride,” Menges said. “There were people you wanted to beat. I won’t say who they were.” But then he called out to the packed auditorium, “Hov, are you here?” There was a shout from the back of the auditorium, presumably from Tim Hovland (2000 HOF). “Hov, you were the only one of the really good players I never lost to,” Menges said.
“I worked at night at the Chart House to make a little money. But my whole life was volleyball. That’s all I wanted to do,” Menges said. “During my first couple of years, I wasn’t into winning. I just wanted to go to the parties. You went to San Diego for Featherstone’s party, then Corona Del Mar for Woody Brook’s party, then to John Lee’s party in Santa Barbara.”
But soon the intensity Stoklos talked about kicked in. Menges earned the nickname “Ice Eyes’” and in 1973 set a still-unbroken record of 13 consecutive wins with partner Greg Lee.
Menges learned to play beach volleyball at Sorrento Beach in Santa Monica, between the pier and the Jonathan Club.
“I was 18 and had just graduated from high school. Everyone sat along the wall. I’d never seen so many good looking girls in my life. So I stayed down there that summer, and every other summer until 1981. We’d get there at 8:30 in the morning and play ‘til sunset and watch the sun go down. We’d play seven or eight games.
“It’s different today. All we did was play games. Now, the players don’t play games. They do drills. Everybody has a bag of balls. Back then, nobody had a ball. You had to go to Big Five and they cost $45. You’d spin them ‘til you found one that didn’t wobble,” he said.
Menges began his talk, ended his talk, and interjected throughout his talk how much “I just love volleyball.”
“Even today, I get a lot of joy out of going to the beach. I play a four-man game and run in the water afterwards,” he said.
Earlier in the evening, CBVA Juniors title winners were recognized.
“I hope all you young kids get as much joy out of playing as I did,” Menges said.
Then he shared with them a warning a friend shared with him when he was young.
“The beach is the graveyard of ambition,” he said.
But then added, “What a way to go. I love beach volleyball.”
The CBVA was formed in 1962. Today it has over 8,000 players and hosts over 1,000 tournaments annually, from San Diego to Santa Cruz.
Stutzel served as its fourth president, from 1995 until 2005, and continues to serve as an assistant tournament director at the Manhattan Beach Six-Man tournament.
His father, Harry, introduced him to beach volleyball shortly after their family moved to Playa del Rey in the early 1960s. His dad helped then-CBVA president Gene Popko (1992 HOF) with tournament setups and teardowns.
“Most people talk about movie stars and athletes as their role models. Mine was my dad. He taught us to work hard, have fun, do not sleep and every day try to make someone else’s day better.”
“Every Sunday, after helping to break down a tournament, he’d disappear for 15 minutes, and then come back with two cases of beer for the crew,” Stutzel said.
Stutzel said he followed his father’s example. “I’ve bought players over 3,000 beers at the Shack,” he said.
Stutzel entered his first CBVA tournament when he was 13.
“There were 90 teams in the tournament. It was the greatest feeling to be accepted. We played our first game and got smoked. I went back to Mr. Popov and told him we lost. He said, no problem, go back and ref the court you lost on. The players saw a 13-year-old punk with a pint of ice cream sitting by the post, and weren’t happy. They were playing for their B rating and were serious. One of them asked me, ‘Are you going to eat that ice cream while you’re reffing?’ We became best friends.”
The video of Stutzel shown during his inductions included a photo of two dozen river rafters standing on a rock in the Grand Canyon.
“You’re probably wondering why a river rafting photo taken in 2015 is in a video about beach volleyball in the ‘70. It’s because we’ve all remained friends,” Stutzel said.
Casey Jennings traced the reason he introduced his wife as a bad MF back to a night in Chicago when Kerri and partner Misty May had won that weekend’s Women’s AVP tournament and Casey had placed third in the Men’s. (Twice during their marriage, the two won AVP tournaments on the same weekend).
While they were celebrating a man walked by with his hat pulled down low, smoking a large cigar.
“I think that’s Michael Jordan,” Kerri said.
Casey yelled out, “Hey GOAT.” He yelled it a second, then a third time before the man stopped. “You’re a bad MF,” Casey told him. Michael Jackson smiled and gave Casey a high five.
After Jackson continued on his way, Kerri said to her husband, “I hope someone calls me that someday.”
Jennings said his wife deserves the epithet.
“People say, ‘Your wife’s had six shoulder surgeries and three kids, and she just bounces back. She’s got that kind of body. I want to smack them,” he said. “The trainer told her after giving birth, no exercise for five weeks. Next thing, I’d be woken up at 3 in the morning to see her doing lunges with three pound dumbbells between nursing.”
Walsh-Jennings was five weeks pregnant with her third child when she and May-Treanor won gold at the 2012 London Olympics.
“I thought I worked hard and I was a killer. But Kerri is at another level that very few get to.
I’m like, when are we going to kick back and get fat? It’s not going to happen,” her husband said.
Walsh-Jennings began her remarks by echoing what Menges said about beach volleyball.
“The thing that comes to mind when I think of Misty May and when I think of the sport is pure, unconditional love,” she said.
“This game has given me everything, and I’ve given so much of myself to it. But I loved every single bit of it. I was willing to forego high school parties and college parties and AVP parties. Friday nights in high school I’d play pepper in the backyard with a friend because I loved volleyball so much.
“There are so many people to thank. My trainers are not just my trainers. It’s not an adequate word for people who help you become champions. I always wanted to be a fearless athlete, until I realized that it’s impossible to be fearless. But they taught me you can get braver. And they have made me braver.”
She thanked her parents, Margery and Timothy, who taught her to emulate the best, beginning with introducing her to Misty May. Their parents were friends.
When talking about the GOAT in beach volleyball, her husband had noted, “You can’t mention Kerri without Misty. They are peanut butter and honey.”
“Kerri was Rambo on the front lines, cussing like a sailor and firing a big machine gun. Misty was Conan the Barbarian, humming ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider,’ before calmly taking out the enemy.”
At the start of the evening CBVA President Chris Brown interviewed Walsh-Jennings and Dane Selznick (2003 HOF). Sezlnick coached Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor to their 2004 Athens Olympics gold medal. (The interview was recorded for distribution on the multimedia platform Ions.com.)
Selznick described the teammates as complementary opposites.
“The word for Misty is stable. You couldn’t shake her. She didn’t show emotion. Today, players wear sunglasses. But in this period, players didn’t wear sunglasses. You could see your opponents emotions in their eyes and play off them.
“Misty got most of the serves, so stability was important. She couldn’t let the other team see they were getting to her. She was the best side-out player I’ve ever seen.
“Kerry was a ball of fire. She loved to celebrate great plays,” Selznick said.
Walsh-Jennings’ nickname was “Six Feet of Sunshine.” (She’s listed as 6-foot-3, as is her husband. “I’m really taller, but we don’t talk about it,” she quipped.)
At the end of the Ions interview, Brown thanked Walsh-Jennings for her unwavering support of the CBVA.
Walsh-Jennings returned the compliment.
“Casey cut his teeth on the CBVA tour. He earned his AAA rating there,” she said.
She and May-Treanor also earned their AAA rating on the CBVA tour.
“It was a little tournament and I swear to God it was the most stressful tournament I ever played in in my life,” the three-time Olympic gold medalist said. ER
