AVP Tour beach volleyball players hoping for swift, safe return

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If life were going according to plan, the AVP Tour would have been kicking up sand in Southern California on May 1 with the Huntington Beach Open.

“And it was such a gorgeous weekend, so that added salt to the wound,” said professional beach volleyball player Emily Day by phone from her Torrance home. “I would’ve been waking up early, driving there, meeting my team, figuring out our game plans.

“Instead, I’m home.”

Professional beach volleyballers, like athletes everywhere, are stuck at home trying to maintain their competitive edge despite the social distancing guidelines meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

They’d rather be competing, of course, but some of them sense an opportunity to grow – for their sport and themselves – during the shutdown that abruptly and at least temporarily halted the start of their season.

Now, if only their tour can get started safely – and swiftly, preferably before all of America’s most popular sports again crowd onto center stage.

“We need an opening like that,” said two-time Olympian April Ross, a Costa Mesa resident who hasn’t touched the sand in two months. “Beach volleyball can be overshadowed by some bigger sports, but I’ve never heard anyone not like their experience at an AVP event or watching it on Amazon; everyone is always super-entertained. So if we could reach a bigger audience by coming back in a safe way, that would be a great opportunity for our sport.”

“I think America is fiending for sports right now,” said Day, noting the massive attention being paid to “The Last Dance,” the ESPN docuseries chronicling Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

Maddison McKibbin – who teams with brother Riley as the popular pairing known as the “Bearded Brothers” –  said he thinks the AVP is dexterous enough to nail a quick comeback. It’s smaller, it’s played outdoors and it’s not exactly a contact sport.

Day agreed: “I don’t know the intricacies of the AVP with what it takes to run a tournament, but I’d be willing to play with no fans. I know that we could stream all of our matches (on Amazon Prime) and have people watching from home. And I’d be willing for a tournament to take place for a week instead of three days, if there’s only have a limited number of courts. There’d be different protocol with changing the balls out or hand sanitizing, wiping down benches … and it could all be in Southern California, because the majority of us do (live locally).

“I’m very flexible and I’m grateful for whatever the AVP is able to (do),” Day said. “We’re ready to rock and roll.”

The AVP Tour has communicated clearly with its players that it is set on staging as much of the season as possible. Donald Sun, the tour’s owner and CEO, expressed as much in an email.

“We are committed to giving our athletes and fans around the world AVP programming in 2020,” Sun said. “While we are all still in uncharted waters, and understand most of this is outside of our control, the dedication to keep this sport on the map in 2020 is unwavering.”

Although the Austin Open and Seattle Open were canceled, the  Huntington Beach Open was rescheduled for Oct. 2-4, and the NYC Open, which was slated to take place initially in June in Hudson River Park, wasn’t canceled but postponed to a date to be determined.

The Hermosa Beach Open, scheduled for July 24-26, and the Manhattan Beach Open, set for Aug. 14-16, remain a go, for now.

With the Olympics pushed back until 2021 and international play called off for the year, having events to train for is providing valuable motivation for AVP athletes, whose workplaces have been made off limits by the state’s beach closures.

And the AVP’s determination to return this season is easing some of the stress on pros who depend on tournaments for prize money and as a platform to represent their sponsors – brands that now are banking on stars’ social media reach.

“I’ve had to transform from playing into creating video content,” said Ross, whose series of backyard training tips – which she records on her iPhone, with the help of a tripod, before editing and posting them herself on Instagram – have become a hit with fans.

She’s also been reading and meditating, trying – like so many of her colleagues – to find a way to make good use of the unexpected time off, all the hours she’d normally be immersed in the trappings of the season.

For the McKibbin brothers, that’s meant a lot of time spent on video production. In addition to training at home and making it a point to touch a volleyball every so often, they’re producing a series of videos, in partnership with Wilson and coming soon to their YouTube channel, about their AVP colleagues.

“We’re just trying to find the silver lining in this whole situation,” Maddison McKibbin said by phone from Hermosa Beach. “And if we weren’t given all this free time, we wouldn’t be able to make all this content.”

Day – who, with partner Brittany Hochevar, will be among the hopefuls gunning for the final available U.S. Olympic spot when qualifying resumes – said she’s experimented with TikTok, baked sourdough bread and played many competitive games of cards and chess with her boyfriend. And, with schools in distance-learning mode, she’s also seen her math tutoring service grow a bit.

“I’ve been seeing all my students via Zoom,” Day said. “Usually, I’m like, ‘Gotta go, students, I’m competing somewhere in the world.’ Now I’m here tutoring them.

She’s thankful to have the stable income, she said, and also to have something productive to do to kill the time: “It’s not, ‘What am I gonna do all day?’ I know I have three or four students and that keeps my schedule strong.”

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