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Winners of the 1999 event, after taking first at the 2000 Olympics, hope to continue their streak.
By BRUCE LOWITT
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 20, 2001
They can't sneak up on anybody anymore. Not that Eric Fonoimoana and Dain Blanton are unknown to the local beach volleyball cognoscente.
In 1999, the last time they played at Clearwater Beach, they won a gold medal. Then the two Californians won gold at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
"There wasn't really any pressure going into Sydney," Fonoimoana (pronounced FOE-NO-E-MOW-AH-NA) said as he and Blanton prepared for today's start of the Clearwater Beach volleyball tournament. "It's as though everybody was saying "anybody but you.' That probably was a good thing. We didn't have the media bothering us. We didn't have to deal with high expectations."
The pressure was in the Olympic qualifying. It came down to the last tournament. They needed to finish fourth. They finished third.
Blanton and Fonoimoana were the No. 9 seed at Sydney. No one expected much of them. They had never won an international event.
When they wound up in the gold-medal match, Brazil's Ze Marco de Melo and Ricardo Santos were prohibitive favorites, ranked No. 1 on the pro tour with five tournament titles in 2000. Blanton and Fonoimoana were ranked 10th and hadn't placed higher than third in a tournament all season.
"I knew this was the event that mattered," Blanton said. They had lost four times to the Brazilians, but all were close. "We knew we could beat them; we just hadn't done it yet. Knowing you can beat someone and doing it are two different things. ... I could lose all those other events but I knew this was the event I wanted to win."
The Americans took the first set 12-11. "Now the team with all the expectations was down a game and facing elimination," Blanton said, "and a team like us, not expected to do anything, was one away from winning the biggest event that exists for volleyball. Once we snuck that set out, we just rolled from there," taking the second set 12-9 to win the gold.
"You can't improve upon that," Fonoimoana said. "You can only match it. It's probably the biggest thing you can do, to perform in that kind of atmosphere at the highest level possible. To represent your country, in my opinion, it's a gift."
Three weeks later Blanton and Fonoimoana played the Brazilians again. "They were ready to show how the Olympics had been a fluke," Blanton said. The Americans won again. "We haven't competed since then; we're itching to get out on that court."
The court will be smaller -- each side 8 by 8 instead of 9 by 9. "That doesn't bother us," Blanton said. "It just makes the game more precise. But the big thing -- I don't know any players that like it -- is rally scoring," in which a point is awarded after every rally, not just to the serving team.
"That changes the entire game. It makes an average team a lot better because you don't have to earn your points. If you can just side out and can receive the serve and put the ball away, you're going to equal that other team. So no really big points will be scored, meaning when you serve and win the rally. Basically you'll just go back and forth."
Fonoimoana, 31, lives in Hermosa Beach, Calif., and Blanton, 29, is about a half hour up the coastline in Santa Monica. Each in his own way is trying to have an impact on youngsters.
Fonoimoana created the Digs for Kids Foundation that runs a 10-week after-school program to help low-income inner-city youth from fifth to 12 grades. Wednesdays he and other volleyballers spend 90 minutes helping the kids with their homework and another 90 teaching them indoor volleyball.
"I saw how the NFL had the United Way and the NBA had Reading is Fundamental," he said. "I thought beach volleyball was missing something."
He has no official support from beach volleyball's sanctioning bodies. "As of now I have the support of a lot of players," Fonoimoana said. "A lot of them are college graduates, pretty good tutors."
In 1997 Blanton became the first African-American male to win a pro beach volleyball tournament, teaming with Canyon Ceman to beat Kent Steffes and Jose Loiola at the Hermosa Beach Grand Slam.
"It was a big deal for me," he said, "because by winning a tournament I'd have much more of an impact. I could be the only African-American playing the tour, but if I don't do anything it'd be like, "Oh, yeah, he's the only one but he's just an average player.' When you start winning, beating the best players in the world, people take notice. ... Showing kids that I did something no other African-American man had ever done might ingrain in their heads that maybe they're able to pursue their dreams, whatever field it may be."
He could be his sport's Tiger Woods but acknowledges that limited accessibility, exposure and prize money make beach volleyball a tougher sell.
"Golf's a country club sport with a lot of money in it. Beach volleyball is more of a lifestyle sport with a lot less visibility," Blanton said. "Tiger has gotten people to the golf course, and golf is everywhere. If you want to, you can go to the range and hit balls, and if you become a good golfer the payoff can be huge. There's less of an opportunity to make a lot of money (in beach volleyball). You need to be one of the top players, and you've got to be able to get to the beach."
WHAT: BVA Volleyhut Clearwater Beach Invitational.
WHEN: Today-Sunday, beginning at 8 a.m.; qualifying today; main draw Saturday-Sunday.
WHERE: Clearwater Beach, south of Pier 60.
PURSE: $150,000; men's and women's championship teams each receive $15,000.
TICKETS: Free.
PARKING: The lot at Pier 60 and on Gulfview Drive (fees subject to change); limited metered parking on Gulfview Drive.
FORMAT: Qualification tournament, single elimination; up to 32 teams per gender, four teams advance to main draw along with 10 preseeded teams and up to two additional wild-card teams; main draw tournament, double elimination.
RULES CHANGES: Rally Point System (a point is awarded on every rally regardless of which team is serving); two sets of 21 points and, if needed, a 15-point third set; two-point advantage required to win a game; no scoring caps; court size reduced, each side 8 by 8 instead of 9 by 9.
PRINCIPAL COMPETITORS: Men's 2000 Olympic gold medalists Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana; women's 2000 Olympians Misty May and Holly McPeak; men's 2000 Olympians Rob Heidger and Kevin Wong; 1996 men's Olympians Sinjin Smith and Carl Henkel; Jeff Nygaard, Dan Landry, Chip McCaw, Tom Sorensen, Jim Van Zwieten, Gaston Macau, Chad Turner, Adam Roberts, Brian Soldano, Bill Maik, Jennifer Johnson Jordan, Barbra Fontana, Lisa Arce, Leanne Schuster, Katy Eldridge, Stephanie Cox, Carrie Busch, Jennifer Meredith, Nancy Mason and Rachel Wacholder.
-- Compiled by Bruce Lowitt.