At the Beach, Fans in a Volleyball State of Mind

Huddled near a volleyball court at Manhattan Beach, Cara Klinger and girlfriends--their aerobically conditioned frames sporting bright bikinis--are oblivious to the preacher with the megaphone shouting “go home and cover your bodies.”

Klinger and friends are in a “UC state” (volleyball lingo for an unconscious or rapturous state), as they take in the sun, surf and scene of men’s professional beach volleyball. Forget football, they say. Blow off basketball. For these women and the thousands of fans who attend the game played on a sand court, volleyball is king.

“This is more than a spectator sport. It’s a sport of spectators,” says Klinger, 25, a Club Med account executive who has come to cheer her favorite players at the recent Off Shore Manhattan Beach Open.

“It’s not like football or basketball where you sit in the stands for hours,” says the Redondo Beach resident. “Out here you can walk around, sit in the sand, talk to guys, get a tan, swim, go back to the sidelines and watch the players,” including stars like Sinjin Smith, Randy Stoklos, Karch Kiraly and Brent Frohoff.

But people-watching may be the biggest “sideline” event at a volleyball tournament. Undeniably, hordes of hormones are at high tide as men watch the “Bettys” (volleyballspeak for women) some of whom wear a G-string bikini called a floss, and women, likewise, check out the guys.

Since March, when the men’s pro beach volleyball season started (four of the 20 tournaments were in Southern California), fans have flocked to seaside nets from Venice to Seal Beach to see the action both on and off the court. And that action will peak the weekend of Aug. 25 and 26 when the 1990 Miller Lite USA Championship takes place at Hermosa Beach.

“Whenever there’s a game in town, I’m there,” says Klinger, who adds that she plans to attend the Hermosa Beach event. “I love coming to the games because of all the people. It’s nice being out at the beach on a hot summer day wearing a little something and meeting people--you know, guys.”

Klinger and her best friend, Brenda Cooksey, 21, a Southwest Airlines ticket agent who lives in Hermosa Beach, admit they like attending the tournaments for the skin show, but say they have respect for the sport and the athletic prowess of the pros.

“The guys are true athletes,” Cooksey says. Among her favorite players are the team of Steve Timmons and Adam Johnson. “They play just as hard as the Lakers.”

Talk like that pleases Jon Stevenson, president of the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals (AVP), which represents 330 men. Women players are represented by the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn.

The nonprofit men’s volleyball association was founded in 1983 when marketing gurus started to jump on the bandwagon to cash in on the players’ popularity, says Sam Lagana, the association’s spokesman.

Lagana says that although the 1984 and 1988 Olympics bolstered interest in both indoor and beach volleyball, “The beach game had a very strong showing way before then. It became a pro sport in 1976 and had been around since the 1930s as a recreational activity.”

Today, a number of the men who played on the 1984 and 1988 Olympic teams are on the pro beach circuit, including Pat Powers, Timmons and Kiraly, who, with a partner, won two world beach championships before winning Olympic gold in 1984 and ’88.

With more than $2 million in prize money for this year’s AVP tour, men’s pro beach volleyball is drawing increasing numbers of fans, Lagana says.

The recent two-day tournament at Manhattan Beach pulled in 24,000 fans. A two-day event earlier this month at Seal Beach drew 27,000 people. And the showdown at Hermosa Beach, which officially closes the season, is expected to lure 40,000 folks. Five years ago, the Hermosa Beach tournament drew half that amount.

The players are making fewer appearances in Southern California this year (the 1990 tour has taken them to 14 states, Japan, Brazil, France, Italy and Australia) and Lagana says that’s why crowds are growing.

Stevenson adds that the sport also is garnering devotees because of players like Smith and Stoklos--superstars--who have given the game a higher level of glamour and respectability. Smith has modeled for GQ, for example; Stoklos appeared in the volleyball movie “Side Out.”

“The people who come out here love the beach, the lifestyle of the sport and they love the players. The fan turns on with the sport and the lifestyle. That’s it. This is all part of the beach volleyball culture,” says Stevenson, a top 10 player, speaking at the Seal Beach tournament.

Stevenson says the exposure of beach volleyball via national TV (Prime Ticket Network, ESPN and NBC, which will televise the Hermosa Beach event on Sept. 1) and sponsors, who promote products at the free tournaments, also have created more followers.

“Volleyball is my favorite sport. I’m here to watch the games. I’m not here to pick up a player,” says Susan Meyer, 22, reclining on a beach chair at the Manhattan Beach tournament. Meyer is flanked by other volleyball fans Adrienne Pilmanis, Monique Figueroa and Barbara Lambkin, all dripping in dark tanning oil.

Says Figueroa, 22: “This is a really good time and plus I’m getting a tan.”

Chimes in Lambkin, 21: “And we’re not bimbos out here. We’re sports enthusiasts.”

At the Seal Beach tournament, David Argyle, 28, says he doesn’t care what the women want to call themselves. Adds the Long Beach computer programmer: “(The women are) all babes. I’m just kicking back, man, grooving.” And waiting for a bikini contest to commence.

Soon, 20 scantily clad women, most of them “studying to be models,” walk on the sand in high heels while making their way to an elevated stage before a sea of thousands of cheering men. The winner, 21-year-old Toni Ayabarreno, a junior at Long Beach State University, proves to live up to her title. She loves volleyball.

And volleyball players say they appreciate their fans.

“I love the fans,” says Stoklos, 29, who has received flowers, letters and surprise visits by women while on tour and on his home turf.

“But sometimes it can be scary,” he says about the female fans who trail him home or to a hotel after a game.

Smith, 33, says he likes the atmosphere of the sport more than anything--from the serious fans to those who only come to see and be seen.

“We’re outdoors, by the ocean, on the sand with a net, a ball and thousands of people. They make us stars and I respect them for that,” he says. “I’d go out of my way for them.”

Teen-agers Fred Hall and Ray Chen offer evidence that Smith and other players take time for fans.

Tossing a fluorescent green volleyball between them on Seal Beach, the two show off its autographs: Smith, Stoklos, Stevenson, Timmons, Mike Dodd, Tim Hovland and others. Hall, 17, a senior at Cerritos High, and Chen, 16, a junior at Whitney High, began their autograph hunt at 10 a.m. Eighteen signatures later at 4:30 p.m., their star search is over.

“I can’t believe we got so many,” says Hall about the autographs. “What a day, man.”

Adds his friend, Chen: “Yeah, and the girls weren’t bad either.”

SURF HAMBURGER? TEAM ADVIL? IT’S VOLLEYBALLSPEAK

Volleyball players and fans, and beach-goers in general, have their own language. What follows is a rundown of volleyball slang.

Bambi: A player who tenses up and does not play aggressively.

Betty: A bikini-clad beach girl.

Boom: A ball spiked straight down into the sand.

Chuck: A ball that is pushed or thrown, rather than hit.

Facial: A spike to the face. Also known as a six-pack because volleyball etiquette holds that if you give another player a facial, you buy him or her a six-pack to help ease the pain.

Flosser: A woman wearing a thong or G-string bikini.

Heater: A hard-driven or spiked ball.

Jed: A block.

Juice head: A body builder at the beach.

Kong: A one-handed block similar to the move King Kong performed on the biplanes in the original movie.

Lip: A good dig. Gets its name from the lip-like appearance the arms create when they’re placed together for a dig.

Missile: A spike or serve that rockets out of bounds.

Rock: A guy without the body for the beach.

Roof: An excellent block that ignites barking from the crowd, as in “Roof! Roof! Roof!”

Spade: An ace serve.

Stone: A woman without the body for the beach.

Surf hamburger: A swimmer who gets banged up in the undertow.

Team Advil: When two teammates are fighting and edgy with each other.

UC State: An unconscious state where a player or team can do no wrong.

Volley Dolly: A female groupie.