The Golden Spike : U. S. Volleyball Team Takes Big Losses as Players Defect to Italy and Beach Circuit

SEATTLE — It takes money to make money. You need bucks to get Bucks.

The first statement is a fact of life. The second is a fact of volleyball. Just ask Bill Neville, coach of thS. men’s volleyball team.

Money-- lire to be exact--was at the root of all wrong with the U .S. team at the Goodwill Games last week.

“We have not been able to stop the bleeding,” he said. “I tried. But it’s hemorrhaging. I can’t get the thing to coagulate.”

Indeed, the U. S. Volleyball Assn. has not been able to stop the flow of top players to the lucrative professional ranks of Italian leagues. Nor has it been successful in keeping them from the sun, sand and big-money beach circuits.

An exception, for now anyway, is Craig Buck, a former Taft High and Pepperdine standout.

Buck, from Tarzana, has returned to the U. S. team after a season in Italy. At the age of 31, the 6-foot-8 middle blocker is still considered one of the best players in the world at his position.

The record of the United States since June 15, the date of Buck’s return, is proof positive. Without Buck, the team was 4-21. With him, it is 10-4, including a respectable fourth-place finish at the Goodwill Games.

“Even if Craig is not getting block after block and hit after hit, his leadership and stability is certainly an intangible that is critical to the whole effort,” Neville said after the United States lost to Cuba, 15-5, 15-11, 15-5, in Saturday’s bronze-medal match.

Buck, the only member of the team who was a starter on the U. S. squads that won Olympic gold medals in 1984 and ‘88, suffered a minor knee injury and sat out half of one game against Cuba. It was one of the few times he was off the floor during his country’s five matches.

“It’s important that he’s on the floor all the time, even if he’s not maxing out,” Neville said. “He’s instructing all the time. And the guys will listen to him because he’s been to the top of the mountain.”

Now if only the nation’s governing body for volleyball would lend him an ear.

“We had a team that filled arenas. Why isn’t it still filling arenas?” asked Buck.

Answering his own question, he said, “The USVBA has a bit of a management problem. They criticize players for going to Europe, but I don’t agree with that. It’s not just the money. It’s that the environment for the team to play just isn’t all that good.

“For five years, they had the No. 1 team in the world and really didn’t do, from a marketing point of view, anything with it.”

As a result, the team is now decimated. The United States simply got too good for its own good.

In 1986, two years after the United States won Olympic gold in Los Angeles, a trio of top players left the team for Italy. Dusty Dvorak, the team’s star setter, was among them.

After the U.S. team rebounded to defend its Olympic title in 1988, Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons retired to the beach circuit. Since then it seems that every few months another top player follows.

Kiraly and Timmons reportedly earned $500,000 each for a season in Italy, which runs from November through May. Other top U. S. players also made well over six figures.

Money also is attractive on the beach circuit, where the best players can make more than $100,000 in endorsements alone.

Experienced members of the U. S. national team make roughly half of that.

Buck and Jon Root are the only players the United States has left from its 1984 Olympic squad. Root was a reserve behind Kiraly. Scott Fortune and Troy Tanner were reserves on the 1988 team.

A new USVBA rule will allow professionals such as Kiraly and Timmons to regain their eligibility for the national team, but Buck says the current players are trying to conduct business without looking over their collective shoulder.

“This is our team. These are my teammates and I want everyone to do the best they can on this team,” Buck said. “I don’t look around and think about who I wish we had.”

The United States, which will next compete in October at the world championships in Italy, won its first three matches of the Goodwill Games before dropping its last two.

The undisputed highlight: A five-game, come-from-behind upset of the Soviet Union on Wednesday.

“It’s always nice to beat the Russians,” he said. “They’ve been such a rival for some time now.”

Loses to Italy and Cuba soon followed, however, tempering any burgeoning enthusiasm about the team’s chances at the world championships.

“I don’t think there are too many expectations of greatness for this team,” Buck said. “We’re very modest right now.

“Our lineup changes game by game, so it’s tough to have a premonition of what’s going to happen. We just keep our fingers crossed and see who plays well.”

The one constant is Buck, who sometimes feels the pressure.

“I can’t have a bad night or an inconsistent night, so if I’m off I really feel guilty,” he said. “I’ve been here. I have no excuse to be off.”

Buck admits that he sometimes is frustrated as the new U. S. team struggles to come together, but he said he will continue to play even if the team fails to regain its top status.

“I feel it would be an honor to represent this country three times in the Olympics regardless of where we finish,” Buck said. “I’d pay to play in the Olympics.”

Should he decide to return to Italy after the World Championships, he could probably afford to.

But if the United States can’t find a way to keep its best players together, the team will pay in the long run.

“I can yak it up a lot and blow a lot of wind, but I don’t have any money backing me up,” Neville said. “Italian teams have $4-million budgets. We have a tenth of that for everything.

“I can offer a dank gym, year-round training and six months of travel not under the greatest conditions.

“The only way we can compete is to get more money. I’m trying, but if nothing else I can needle the Italians whenever possible. I throw these verbal barbs. It’s all I’ve got.

“I can’t fault a guy who gets offered six figures at 25 years of age for only seven months’ work. I just have to wave.”