New York University

Since Manhattan Beach is already upon us, this will be the shortest recap of two tournaments in history. Away we go… Oh, by the way, did anybody see that movie, “Away We Go?” It’s written by Dave Eggers, author of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” so it’s got to be good right? Unless it’s beyond pretentious and the whole point is to try and teach you something about what’s really important. You tell me, if you saw it.

Damn, there I go again. This recap is already longer than I planned and I haven’t even gotten to the recap yet. Okay, here we go…

Ocean City had a lot of positives and a lot of negatives. As far as the site and city go, it seemed like a cross between Coney Island, New York and Seaside Heights, New Jersey; which isn’t really a good thing. What’s bizarre about these types of venues is how expensive accommodations are and how shanty the hotel rooms turn out in relation to the price. Also, eating healthy in places that remind you of the movie, “Lost Boys,” has got to be the most difficult thing to do on this planet. I saw a young Keifer Sutherland twice sitting atop carnival rides that were much too high for him to just climb the exterior. So, aside from that, the sand was deep, the fan turnout was respectable, and the weather only turned on us a couple of times; or in other words, Ocean City managed to become a half decent weekend.

As far as our play was concerned, we finished at 7th place and lost to two highly competitive squads. Some guys named Phil and Todd in the winner’s bracket (13-15 in the 3rd, and at 13-14, I blocked Phil’s angle hit only to watch him cover himself with his left hand behind his body and then terminate over me down the line), and then Wong and Olson in the loser’s bracket. Our wins were against McColloch/Mihalic, Halverson/Allen and Morrison/Zimet. The only real low point was how poorly we played in our last match of the tournament against Matt and Kevin. They usually serve me every point and when they decided to switch it up, Anthony wasn’t quite ready for it. Good news is, next time we play them, I’m pretty sure we’ll both be ready to sideout. Especially considering they can still beat you even when you’re fully prepared and on.

Before I stop talking about Maryland, I’ve got to say that Sean Scott’s performance in the finals against Todd was one of the best individual performances that I have ever seen. He sided out like a God and touched everything Todd hit at the net. It was a dismantling of the Gold Medalists that I had yet to witness. Congrats to Sean and John (or as I like to call them, P. Diddy) for their second consecutive AVP Championship.

On to the NYC. It wouldn’t really be “the NYC” would it? “The New York City?” Let’s backtrack; on to NYC. Okay, that’s better. I’m back.

NYC is arguably my favorite place on Earth. I love it. If you follow me on Twitter, you would already know how much I love the city by my nonstop Twitter diarrhea spread out over the entire 4th of July weekend. Every year I stay in the city, this time at the W New York on 49th and Lex, and take the train down to Coney Island. Frankly I do not understand why players, especially those that can afford it, stay out by the airport, or in south Brooklyn, so they are closer to the site. The city is a 45 minute ride on public transport and New York just happens to be the Rome of modern day. Why not enjoy it. There’s no argument here, JFK is terrible. I mean, seriously terrible. Flying in there is bad enough; I can’t even imagine staying at a hotel within a stone’s throw of there for an entire weekend. I would refer to it only as torture. So, now that you know my opinion on Jamaica, NY… why don’t I get back to the topic at hand, the tournament at Coney Island, and how close it is, relatively, to the beautiful island of Manhattan.

Let’s just say, we missed out on a golden opportunity in New York. Four of the best teams on the AVP competed internationally at the World Championships in Stavanger, Norway that weekend and left the Championship wide open for the taking. Granted, P. Diddy was still present, and they won the previous two events, so it’s hard to say whether America’s best beach volleyball team was actually absent; but generally speaking, Phil and Todd are still the reigning Olympic Gold Medal Champions and most formidable opponent on the globe, and they weren’t anywhere to be seen, so as far as the masses are concerned, it was anybody’s ball game. Back to our draw and how we blew it.

First round we beat a team from the qualifier and I collected my highest ace total (7) for one match in my career. The second set score was 21-9. It wasn’t that they were an awful team or anything, in fact I’ve seen both Daniel and Danko play very well, it was just that we were firing on all cylinders and everything was a go. Siding out, blocking, serving… It was a great way to start the event. Second round, we battled with John Moran and Mike Placek. The score was 21-16. 21-15, but it actually seemed much closer than those kind of numbers would indicate. Johnny blocked well and they put together some nice runs of points early in each set, but passing cost them in the end and we took advantage.

On Saturday, the sail ride wasn’t nearly as smooth. We played Halverson and Allen in the 3rd round to go to 5th and barely survived, 15-12 in the 3rd set. There were some controversial calls late in the match that went our way and preserved the victory. Granted, the ref gave them a free point early when the ball slipped out of my hand as I was about to serve and he called that I was in the motion of the service toss, so perhaps it all comes full circle in the end. Either way, I have to take back what I said earlier about losing to a team and then having that team go out and get absolutely smashed in the following round. Why? Because that’s what we did in Brooklyn. We beat Billy and Braidy, and then we played Hyden and Scott, and didn’t score 10 points in one of the sets. Seriously, I’m not kidding. Anthony struggled against Sean’s block, and anything he hit past him, John seemed to be there waiting for the fair catch and subsquent delivery in transition. Needless to say, they were way better than us during that match. Or, in general, however you want to look at it…

While all of this was going on, on our nation’s Independence Day, Kobayashi was busy eating 64 hot dogs and losing to Joey Chestnut (68) in the famous “Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.” I don’t even know how to respond to those numbers…

Sunday morning was the showdown we had been waiting for all weekend, Loomis/Patterson for 3rd place after they upset Wong/Olson the previous evening. Up 19-18 in both sets, I’m pretty sure we were more than a little disappointed we weren’t able to close, but they made some incredibly clutch plays down the stretch, including two untouchable aces by Ty and two monster angle stuff blocks by Casey, so in the end, they made it all happen. I couldn’t even get upset at Anthony following the swings to end game 1 and the match. He went in super aggressive and swung high, hard angle; unfortunately Casey got on top of both and made him pay. Bottom line, the Loomis/Patterson express train didn’t end there. They beat Nygaard/Mayer in the semi-finals, and took down two-time defending champions, Hyden/Scott, in the finals. What does that mean? It means an AVP Championship and a gigantic yellow check that pays out $34,000 to Ty and Casey. I sent both of them congratulatory texts Sunday evening, and I meant every word I said. We all have the same dream. We all want to win an AVP Tournament. I wasn’t angry because they were able to do it and I may never have the chance; I was elated that a couple of guys just like me were able to pull off the unimaginable, and live out that dream for all of us. In fact, I saw them the following week in Emerald Bay and there was nothing but smiles all around. Story time has never been better. Keep in mind, they earned that win. Ty sided out like a man possessed and their blitzkrieg serving put P. Diddy in so much trouble, it never seemed like Sean was able to find a rhythm the entire match. And if you haven’t seen the last two swings by Loomis, get a copy of the match on NBC, he goes straight OT on Scott into the angle. It’s ridiculous.

So, New York was New York. We finished in 5th place but somehow felt incredibly let down by our performance. I spent Sunday evening in Central Park, ate dinner with Reid Priddy and his wonderful wife Lindsey at a fantastic steak house, and took a photo of The Palace Hotel with my Blackberry; xoxo. On Monday, I ate breakfast at Sarabeth’s, and then caught the #6 train down to Astor Place so I could check out NYU; and stop in to see their volleyball coach if he was around. Why, you ask? So that I could make his acquaintance in case there is a Graduate Assistant position somewhere in my future within his glorious program on their glorious campus, if you want to call it that. NYU is more-less a bunch of buildings in the city, but hot damn is it cool there. I can’t imagine a better place to earn an MFA in Creative Writing than NYU. I really can’t. And just so we’re clear, I’m going to apply for fall, 2010, and see where it takes me. Hopefully I can be courtside with the “Violets,” while earning a degree that I can honestly be proud of at the same time. Wouldn’t that be something? In the meantime, back to my book, so that I have a few respectable words to submit when the time comes…