Guinea Pig Spikers Take Their Act to the Beach and Blossom

When they played on the U.S. national volleyball team, Mike Dodd and Tim Hovland were used as guinea pigs in practice by better players. They did fine in the gym, but after morning practice they’d spend the rest of the day playing beach volleyball.

That’s when Sinjin Smith, currently the top-ranked beach professional, and Karch Kiraly, captain of the Olympic team and considered one of the best players in the history of American volleyball, beat up on Dodd and Hovland.

At first.

It wasn’t long before the underdogs from the South Bay defeated the stars of beach volleyball.

“We started beating them real good,” said Hovland. “So we thought: ‘Hey, we can do this. We can compete on the beach.’ ”

That was seven years ago. Today beating the sport’s best is as common for the South Bay players as the grains of sand on the beach. Smith and his partner of six years, Randy Stoklos, may be the top-ranked team on the circuit, and they may be known as the kings of beach volleyball, but Dodd and Hovland present stiff competition.

“I think their dominance is a tad bit overrated,” Dodd said. “They have won a lot of tournaments and they’re a great team, but when we beat them people think it’s a fluke. They ask: ‘Why did they win? What was wrong with the other guys?’ That hurts.”

Defeating top-notch players on the tour consistently has soothed the pain. The Dodd-Hovland duo has been the second-ranked team in the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals for three years.

They’ve won 44 titles and four world championships. This year they’ve won five titles--the Dallas Open, Seal Beach Open, Cleveland Open, Hawaiian Open and Milwaukee Open--and have surpassed last year’s total earnings.

They’ve made $70,000 each, while last year Dodd earned $66,350 and Hovland $54,078.

“They’re both exceptionally good players for big men (Dodd is 6-4 and Hovland 6-5),” said Kevin Cleary, president of the AVP. “Mike is a smart player who has court savvy and Tim, well, they used to call him ‘the Breeze’ in college because he was so quick.”

Their combination is tough to beat. Dodd is known for all-around play and consistency. The 30-year-old started playing in his hometown, Manhattan Beach, when he was 8. Two brothers and a sister later had successful collegiate volleyball careers.

Older brother Ted was an all-American at Pepperdine University and played for the U.S. national team. Younger brother Matt was on Pepperdine’s 1985 NCAA national championship team, and older sister Leslie played at Utah State.

All attended Mira Costa High School, where Dodd was an all-CIF basketball player and a volleyball star. Unlike most of the better professional beach volleyball players, Dodd didn’t spend his entire college career playing the game for a top-notch program.

He dedicated most of his time to basketball at San Diego State, where he was a guard for four years and an all-Pacific Coast AthleticConference selection his junior year. Dodd played volleyball for only one full season and six weeks of another because of basketball. He was a second team all-American middle blocker both years.

“He could have been much more advanced if he had played more,” San Diego State volleyball Coach Rudy Suwara said. “Still, he became one of the best volleyball players in the U.S. He’s a very good hitter and blocker and he developed very quickly because he’s such a good athlete.”

Dodd often wonders whether he could have been a better volleyball player had he dedicated himself to the game in college.

“I always played volleyball better, but I concentrated solely on basketball because I had a dream of playing professional basketball, and I just couldn’t give up on that. I knew, though, that I’d return to volleyball.”

He returned for good in 1980 after a disappointing experience with basketball. Dodd was given a tryout as a free agent with the San Diego Clippers but was cut after three days of camp. He said it was disheartening, and he realized that it was the end of his basketball career.

Then he played for the U.S. national volleyball team for a year and a half, and later professionally for four years in Italy, where he met his wife, Patty Orozco, a former UCLA and women’s pro volleyball star.

“I decided to stop playing indoors because it’s so much tougher on your joints, knees, ankles, shoulders,” Dodd said. “The constant pounding and landing on the hard surface can shorten a player’s career. Plus, I saw the growth in beach volleyball and knew there would be a future for me in it.”

The decision was wise, and so was choosing to play with Hovland, whose experience indoors and on the beach is vast.

The 29-year-old Hovland was a three-time all-American at USC and was on the 1980 NCAA national championship team. He played for the U.S. national team for a year and a half and played professional indoor volleyball in Europe for six years.

In 1985, his team in Turin, Italy, won the European championships and Hovland was named the most valuable player.

“He has such great tenacity,” Dodd said of his partner, “and he’s such an intense competitor. He has an abundance of natural talent and he’s so quick. He is fast.”

Hovland played football, basketball and volleyball at Westminster High. In 1977, he was the named the Southern California Athlete of the Year by sportswriters. Perhaps that athletic superiority at an early age is what keeps him so confident today.

“I plan to be on top at least another three years,” Hovland said. “I’m in pretty good shape, so I think it’s possible.”

Dodd’s forecast is another five years.

“I plan to win opens until I’m 35,” he said. “If I take care of myself and stay in shape, I don’t see why not.”

With attitudes like that and their fiery style of play, perhaps Hovland and Dodd can dethrone the so-called “kings” of beach volleyball.