5 Things I learned in May playing on the AVP Tour!

After a grueling May that featured four tournaments, including a three week stretch that saw us play in Houston, Huntington, then Atlanta, I finally have time to reflect. In doing so, here are the five things I learned in the month of May playing on the AVP Tour:

1. The men's side is as deep as it has ever been. We had three different teams win tournaments in May: Mayer/Nygaard, Dalhausser/Rogers, Hyden/Scott. Two of the top 8 seeds finished outside the top ten in ATL. We saw Loomis/Patterson and Allen/Halverson both finish in the top 7 in Huntington. Medel/Stolfus, an 8 seed in Houston, took a third and beat the previous Riverside tournament winner Mayer/Nygaard . You have 6'8" guys like Duncan Budinger (brother of soon-to-be NBA forward Chase Budinger) coming out of the qualifer and taking 13th's! It's crazy deep and the athleticism and training going into the sport is inspiring. While the tour does not feature the same number of dynamic indoor players making the conversion like we saw in the 90's, the level of "beach volleyball" has risen drastically just in the last four years. Should make for a great summer!

2. Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh are ridiculous. Let me give you a little insight into just how dominating this team has been in the absence of May/Walsh: 5 wins out of 6 tournaments; both in the top 6 in aces per game and hitting %, and have a 35-1 match record while only dropping 6 GAMES the whole month. Come on, that's just not fair.

3. Sex sells. Every year there seems to be a buzz about some hot young player making his/her way on tour. What I have come to realize is that the "buzz" is rarely about the men and this year is no different. Say hello to Jessica Gysin and Crystal Morrison. Does anybody remember the splash Michelle More and Suzanne Stonebarger made, both very attractive young ladies who became the marketing mavens known only as "Team Gorgeous"? Well guess what, the next generation of franchise faces will once again emerge from the women's tour so long as they have a decent level of success. Oh the fickle world we live in...who am I kidding, whatever it takes to get more butts in the stands I'm all for it!

4. I love winning, it's better than losing. After getting dumped by my former partner Adam Jewell after consecutive 13th place finishes, we squared off in Atlanta. I teamed up with Evie Matthews, a squirrely Canuck from Calgary, while Adam had volleyball icon Albert Hanneman, former Hermosa Open winner, by his side. To say it got a little testy is putting it mild. After taking a number of fist pumps, flex downs, "oooosshh" and jeers from our opponents and their legion of fans, I had enough. I proceeded to stare down Adam and Albert after every crushing hit and even gave them a taste of their own medicine with an emphatic "ooooosshh" after a particularly hard hit off Adam's block out of bounds. That was the tipping point I guess. I was then called a di*% and a few other names before putting the final dagger in their hearts: after shanking the serve and making my partner work extra hard to give me a set, I calmly slapped the ball middle and ended the match. Apparently there is no love lost between Adam and I which I find amusing. I liked playing with Adam a lot. Fact is, it should be alright to have emotion from BOTH teams, not just the one with the larger fan base! After watching Albert give me us the flex down and fist pumps I thought "hey, guess it's like that." The final nail though was Adam kicking sand at me during a side change while I wasn't looking. To me, that says "prison rules" and if you dish it out you better be willing to take it, win or lose. I'm just glad we won. Which brings me to my final thought...

5. It is really tough to keep it all going at a high level! Running my business, managing my clients and employees, playing and training for the AVP, keeping my beautifully pregnant wife happy with twins on the way in December, and writing this blog is a little taxing...particularly when trying to accomplish these activities at a high level. I know I won't ever make it to an AVP final four with all these things on my plate, but I do know that having a purpose and sucking every last drop out of life is my passion. And my hope for all humanity is that we live life with purpose, passion, and an insatiable pursuit of what makes us and the those around us happy.

I read a story recently about Tom Avery, one of only 41 people to have ever traveled on foot to both the North and South poles. The 33-year old Englishman has an absolute passion for treacherous, snowy expeditions:

Avery and his four man team were on a 413-nautical-mile journey across one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth-the frozen Artic Ocean. Perilously thin ice, blizzards, temperatures of -40F, hunger and exhaustion were among the challenges faced by the men and their teams of dogs pulling 650 lb sleds loaded with provisions. Throughout the final leg of the journey, the team has to negotiate areas of open water called leads, caused by temperature rises that break up the ice. To make things even more complicated, the ice pack was drifting seven miles a day away from the pole.

But Avery, a former accountant, was up to those challenges: "My expeditions are about finding something people think is impossible and then going and doing it. It's about pushing the boundaries and doing something nobody has done before."

So come on, whatever you want, "it's possible". People have been telling me for years I can't have a "real job", a family, AND play volleyball at the highest level. To that I say,"If some desk jockey can make it to both poles on foot, then finding the time to run around in the sand with my shirt off a few days a month is a piece of cake!" I say we all get off our butts and do something we love and a whole lot of it! See you on the beach!

So what did you learn in the month of May?