VOLLEYBALL : Team Cup Gives Players, Crowd a Taste of Europe

For all intents and purposes, the professional beach volleyball season is over.

And the international European leagues will not begin until October.

Attempting to fill the vacuum for the sport’s aficionados is Team Cup Volleyball, which ended after six days of competition Sunday night at the Forum.

This weeklong competition of spikes and sets was a melding of the United States’ 32 best indoor and beach volleyball players divided into four teams.

Undefeated Team Redsand, led by Olympians Steve Timmons and Craig Buck, dominated play throughout the week and won Sunday’s final by defeating Team Toyota, 30-27, 30-19, before 5,627.

A competition of this sort is necessary to promote the sport, the athletes say. Volleyball is enjoying success as a two-person beach game.

With the U.S. men winning the 1984 and ’88 Olympic gold medals, the sport also has gained popularity indoors.

“But we’re going through serious growing pains,” said Timmons, one of America’s marquee players. “Our early goal was to sell the sport to the public. In a way, we are still doing that.”

In some respects, they have a way to go.

“We’re still not getting the numbers to come out and watch the indoor game,” said Jon Root, a member of the 1988 Olympic team.

These players know where the money is--Italy. Timmons and Karch Kiraly, the leaders of the U.S. Olympic movement in the last decade, have signed half-million dollar contracts for the upcoming season.

Root does not command as high a salary in Italy, but he also is leaving next week. So are several other U.S. stars. Most of the country’s elite players live in Southern California.

“This (competition) is a warm-up for us,” Root said.

The players hope volleyball eventually will support a U.S. professional league. Such enterprises have failed in the past, yet a twinge of hope remains.

“We think we could take this on the road,” Timmons said. “L.A. is a tough market. We could get a lot more fans in other American cities.”