The long lulls of ads between games made it more difficult to keep my attention span, but nonetheless I watched a majority of the games because after all it was fix for volleyball that Saturday. It was then as I was perusing about facebook, when a couple photos (below) resurfaced and I had a brief epiphany.
The pictures above are those of the brackets for both the men's and women's tournaments. What stood out most when casually glazing over the two was that Summer Ross, a 20 year old, was listed as the #1 seed with her partner Morgan Miller. I still expect BIG (and I mean REALLY big) things from her in the future but I'll save that for another post. What next stood out was the lack of "marquee" players, but there are a few in mind that inspired this post.
I'm not trying to take anything away from any of these players, and I have the utmost respect for all of them to pursue a passion like beach volleyball. I don't relegate them to a "lower tier" because what I've heard numerous times in other sports and seems to hold up everywhere is that once you get to the professional level, everyone is basically as good as you and there isn't much difference talent wise from top to bottom. With that said, it is undeniable that beach volleyball has its star darlings that is will unabashedly force into the spotlight whenever the opportunity presents itself. Thanks to the Olympics, athletes Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh are still household names, and I have even caught the casual fan name dropping Rogers and Dalhausser. I don't shun beach volleyball for putting their brightest stars on display, it just makes good business sense. What got my scratching my head was the lack of player support for the NVL this past weekend.
During the most recent beach volleyball recession I watched every YouTube video there was and probably many of them multiple times. I watched these same marquee players give thanks to the NVL for stepping in when financially unstable AVP went belly up. Pros like Ty Tramblie and Casey Patterson who have been as close to poster childs for the NVL since its inception were strangely absent this weekend.
Maybe the fact that Jake Gibb, who likely has a contract with the AVP, who has partnered with Casey Patterson, prevented Casey from playing this weekend. Maybe Ty is battling an injury and was a late scratch. Maybe since the prize money was never disclosed to the public, hints that it wasn't substantial enough to bring out the top ranked pros. Maybe it's all of these things and maybe it's none of these things, but given my collection of sports knowledge over years of rabid and obsessive fandom, this can end in two ways.
The old saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention, so the first possible outcome in my mind is that in this financially strapped situation that we the state of beach volleyball in, will force the creme of the crop to rise even higher and faster. Greater pressure to perform to compete for table scraps exposes the American athletes to more stress forcing an evolution, where those who are able to adapt survive, and those who aren't become a thing of the past.
That is the optimistic approach. The gloomy perspective and what I fear might be more of the reality rather than just a paranoid delusion, is that a rift will form among players resulting in the lowering of talent and play due to the fracture of the talent pool. To be the best you have to compete against the best, and having those who have already gained success to this point in tour separate from those who are still hungry to realize their goals, does neither side any good.
I know I rag on the AVP a lot on this blog but I feel it is mostly justified. What is going to happen in the not so distant future when the player they are keeping to themselves are past their prime or retire? Who will take their place? Where will the next crop of young talent come from? With no consolidation of talent, the next generation of young talent will never get those bitter sweet opportunities to be hardened while getting beat senseless in first round match ups against seasoned veterans, and conversely the top pros may not be held at the ready against the mid-level players, like the ones who competed in the NVL this past weekend.
You could probably call me a pessimist since my opinions of the current state of beach volleyball have not been very rosy of late but I really think that this is just the reality of the situation. When it comes to other sports I only complain about my team's losses, trades, contracts, or officiating, but never that the sport as a whole is being managed poorly or is degenerating to sub-par quality. Call me crazy but when the best news about beach volleyball of late is that the NVL got a new ball, it doesn't look good going forward.
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