Sunshine Sport Enjoys Full-Time Ambassador : Busy Chisholm-Carrillo Promotes Women’s Pro Beach Volleyball

Linda Chisholm-Carrillo looks stunning in her swimsuit, a sleek one-piece, black on top with a print bottom. She is tall, tan, and her blond hair is tied in a stylish braid.

But Chisholm-Carrillo is no swimsuit model. She is a beach volleyball player from Van Nuys. She looks pretty, but her work is dirty--make that sandy--and definitely sweaty.

There is nothing glamorous about diving to return a serve only to come up empty-handed and covered with sand. And playing barefoot looks fun, but the reality is that jumping repeatedly on a surface that gives underfoot exhausts the legs, making it increasingly difficult to spike and block the ball.

To attract fans, the Women’s Professional Beach Volleyball Assn. relies on the initial image--lanky, lean women in swimsuits. To maintain interest, it thrives on the fans’ realization that covering a 30 by 30 foot plot of sand and playing above a 7-foot, 4-inch net requires outstanding athletic ability.

“Someone not familiar with the sport would notice girls in bathing suits and athletic shapes and then see them play and get interested,” said Chisholm-Carrillo, who got her start in the indoor game at Birmingham High.

“They’re amazed because if you see indoor versus outdoor, it is six (players) versus two, plus the wind and the heat and jumping off the sand. It takes a month just to get your sand legs.”

As its president, Chisholm-Carrillo, 33, is a force behind the WPBVA’s growth.

Events at Manhattan Beach and Venice Beach, for example, drew an estimated 10,000 fans over a two-day period this summer, according to the WPBVA. An accurate count is not available because the WPBVA does not charge for admission.

Events in non-beach towns do not do as well, according to the WPBVA, which estimates their average at 3,000, although the Fresno Open attracted about 8,000.

Not only are fans more interested, the players are taking the game more seriously, according to Liz Masakayan, Chisholm-Carrillo’s playing partner.

“With the increase in prize money, some are quitting their jobs and making this full time,” Masakayan said. “The tour is a lot more organized and the little things are nicer and more convenient, like catered lunches.”

Chisholm-Carrillo takes great pride in the WPBVA’s increased number of sponsors. The influx of funding this season enabled the organization to hire a public-relations firm for the first time and to increase its advertising. More magazine and radio ads as well as billboards and posters are planned for next season, according to Chisholm-Carrillo.

Chisholm-Carrillo, a charter member of the 5-year-old WPBVA, has won $100,977 in her five years on tour and is fourth on the all-time money list.

Under her leadership, prize money has increased so dramatically this season that Karolyn Kirby has improved from seventh in career earnings with $52,016 to first with $116,456. In a season that is not yet complete, Kirby has earned $64,440, more than her past four seasons combined.

With partner Angela Rock, Kirby has won an unprecedented 12 tournaments in 1991, breaking the 1989 record of 11 by Jackie Silva and Patty Dodd.

One tournament remains on the 17-city tour, the $75,000 WPBVA World Championships, Aug. 23-25 at the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas.

Although Kirby and Rock are the overwhelming favorites, the four-week gap between the most recent tour event, last weekend in Santa Barbara, and the final event will give Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan more time to develop their budding partnership.

They have only been together since the seventh tour stop, May 18-19 in San Diego. Since then, they have finished second three times, third twice and fourth three times.

Before teaming with Masakayan, Chisholm-Carrillo won the Clearwater, Fla., event April 21 with Nina Matthies. Other than Kirby-Rock, the only other team to win an event since the season began April 6 is Gail Castro and Lori Kotas, who have three championships to their credit. “Between Lori Kotas and Gail Castro and ourselves, we’re the only ones who can beat them,” Chisholm-Carrillo said of Kirby-Rock.

Before Kirby-Rock, the dominant pair was Silva-Kirby, a duo that won seven of the last nine tournaments in 1990. Ironically, it was Chisholm-Carrillo who convinced Kirby to play on the beach.

“I played with her in the Italian indoor league and she told me all about the beach so I thought I would follow in her footsteps,” Kirby said.

The dominant partnership that preceded Silva-Kirby was Silva-Dodd, which racked up 11 victories in 1989. In 1987 and ‘88, Silva’s partner was Chisholm-Carrillo. Together, they won 15 tour events, including consecutive wins in the season-ending world championship tournaments.

Because the domination of one partnership each season does not whet the fans’ appetite for suspense, Chisholm-Carrillo is pleased to see that her sport is developing depth. “There’s been quite a few upsets this year,” she said. “You’re fortunate to get a fourth place.

“This year, the second-round match is tough. You can run into some top teams, seeded between fifth and 10th, that can beat you. And your third-round match can be like a final match. Before, it used to be kinda easy all the way through your last match on Saturday. . . . Now you have to be prepared all day Saturday and all day Sunday.”

Even a victory over Kirby-Rock is no guarantee of a tournament title.

In a tournament at Venice Beach three weeks ago, Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan beat Kirby-Rock, 15-8, in the quarterfinals of the double-elimination event only to lose in the semifinals to Kotas-Castro.

It was the third time this season that Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan had defeated Kirby-Rock, yet they are still looking for their first tournament title.

The Venice match was decided with Chisholm-Carrillo serving, jump style. Her sinking serves threw off the Kirby-Rock return and enabled Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan to reel off four consecutive points, pushing a 9-6 advantage to a 13-6 lead.

After Kirby-Rock scored consecutive points, Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan sewed up the match with a kill by Chisholm-Carrillo and a tip by Masakayan over a block attempt.

The kill by the 6-foot-2 Chisholm-Carrillo demonstrated her athletic ability. Instead of setting the ball off Masakayan’s dig, Chisholm-Carrillo leaped high above the net and surprised Kirby-Rock with a spike.

It is that kind of play that inspired Masakayan to ask Chisholm-Carrillo to become her partner after the May 12 tour stop in Hermosa Beach.

“She was playing with Nina (Matthies) and I called her up on Monday morning and asked her if she was interested in playing with me,” Masakayan said. “I didn’t think she’d give up her partner, but she did.”

And Masakayan, a two-time All-American from UCLA, made her third partner switch of the season, from Dodd to Nancy Reno to Chisholm-Carrillo. The frequency of partner changes seems odd, and at times there are personality conflicts, but the changes are usually made strictly for competitive reasons. One partner feels she is pulling too much of the load or the pair realizes that their skills don’t complement each other.

Masakayan chose Chisholm-Carrillo because of her experience: 11 years on the beach, a year in foreign and domestic indoor pro leagues, two years with the U.S. national team and four years at Pepperdine.

“I needed a partner with consistency and one whose strengths complement mine,” Masakayan said.

Chisholm-Carrillo, 33, was looking for an agile player who could make the difficult service returns.

“She’s quick, which makes up for me, and she is an excellent hitter for her size (5-8), so we’re pretty good at sideout,” Chisholm-Carrillo said of their ability to prevent another team from maintaining serve and running off long strings of points.

They also share an intensity gained from their distinct Olympic experiences. Chisholm-Carrillo played on the ’84 team that won a silver medal in Los Angeles and Masakayan played on the ’88 team that finished second-to-last in Seoul. “They have that element of spirit,” Kirby said. “Liz is a great competitor and Linda is a great competitor. That extra special competitiveness makes them win a lot of matches.”

Until December, Masakayan was on the U.S. national team. When she left it, she thought her chance to compete in the 1992 Olympic Games was lost, but through the efforts of her new partner, Chisholm-Carrillo, she might still have the chance.

Next spring, a tournament will be held to determine the top two pairs of American beach players who will advance to the Games in Barcelona for an exhibition against teams from eight other countries.

Chisholm-Carrillo’s goal is to gain sanctioning for two-woman beach volleyball as an Olympic sport through the FIVB, the international volleyball federation.

“They are somewhat of a difficult group,” Chisholm-Carrillo said. “It’s tough because it is, I don’t want to say chauvinistic, but it is male-dominant. And we, too, as women know that beach volleyball isn’t so popular around the world.

“Australia’s growing and here in the United States we have the top women, but they are not playing all over the world so we have to do some (public relations) internationally.”

Chisholm-Carrillo is up for the task, off and on the beach.

“This is the thing I love the most,” she said. “Although it has its ups and downs. When you’re winning, it goes great, and when you are losing, you think maybe you should try something else.”

But Chisholm-Carrillo won’t give up her life on the beach. For someone who saw herself on the Birmingham High volleyball team as “a very gangly type with no skill,” it is nice to be mistaken for a swimsuit model.