VENICE OPEN : Completing Her First Tour of Duty : Pro volleyball: LeValley Pattison is earning praise after taking over as the women’s tournament director in May.

LeValley Pattison will go to Venice Beach early this morning to make sure the sand courts are set up correctly for this weekend’s $60,000 Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. tournament.

Pattison, a Manhattan Beach native, will spend the weekend running from court to court to check that the appropriate scoreboards are up and that there is the correct number of referees, linesmen and ball shaggers at each match.

Once the players arrive, she will assign them a court, announce upcoming matches to the crowd and update the brackets on the scoreboard.

Pattison also serves as an emotional punching bag for some players. When they are dissatisfied with a referee’s call or angry with their partner after a match, players often take out their frustrations on her.

“The hardest thing about the job is people getting angry at each other or at officials--and they take it out on me,” said Pattison, who played volleyball at Mira Costa High and El Camino College. “A few times they’ve disagreed with a call and they come over to me real mad.”

Pattison, 28, is the WPVA tournament director, a position she was named to when tour director Anna Collier quit on May 19, four days before the Seal Beach Open. Pattison, a pro beach player for five years, is also responsible for seeding players for each event.

“Anna quit on Tuesday and players call in with their partner for that week by Wednesday,” Pattison said. “I thought, ‘At least I hope I can make it through this weekend.’ ”

WPVA Director Roxana Vargas said Collier resigned because she was at odds with the organization’s board of directors, which happens to include some of the tour’s best players.

“There were differences of opinion in regards to the direction of the WPVA,” Vargas said. “Fortunately, Anna had already set the things for the whole season. The stressful thing for LeValley was being put in the position of leadership and being new.

“The transition was kind of smooth. She’s a well-respected individual, personally and professionally.”

Collier could not be reached for comment.

Many players believe Pattison has done a great job.

“Everybody was surprised when Anna left,” said Jackie Silva, the WPVA’s winningest player with 40 career tournament victories. “She was there from the beginning when the association started getting big. LeValley learns every weekend. She has a good heart and lots of patience, maybe more than Anna. She’s doing a pretty good job.”

Nina Matthies, who founded the WPVA in 1986, believes Pattison is the perfect person for the job.

“The thing about competing is that a lot of times you’re not rational,” Matthies said. “You’re under a lot of emotional pressure. LeValley handles people very well because she doesn’t react back at athletes.

“She’s very low-key and that’s putting it mildly. She has the ability to listen to people. It takes an awful lot to ruffle her feathers.”

Karolyn Kirby, the WPVA’s top-ranked player, says it’s a plus to have a tournament director who has recently competed on the tour.

“With a person in that position it’s definitely a bonus to have been a player, especially lately because the game has grown so quickly,” said Kirby, who has won seven events this year. “The tour is so competitive. . . . It used to be that Sunday was the stressful day, but now the quarterfinals on Saturday are stressful.

“Players really like LeValley. That’s the feedback I get. It’s nice to have someone in that position that you feel you can talk to.”

An All-Southern Section setter at Mira Costa, Pattison played a season at UC Santa Barbara before transferring to El Camino College. She was named California community college player of the year in 1983 after leading El Camino to a state championship.

She completed her collegiate career at Cal State Long Beach, where she was named the school’s woman athlete of the year as a senior in 1986.

But making it on the pro circuit was difficult. Pattison trained hard and competed for five years, but her best finish was fifth place at the 1988 Hermosa Beach Open with partner Jan Corley.

She retired at the end of the 1991 season to become the WPVA’s assistant tour director.

“It was hard to stop,” Pattison said. “It was hard to not be involved with working out, but I don’t miss switching partners and I don’t miss the emotional turmoil that goes on with the tour.

“I have so much to do at tournaments that I don’t just sit there and say, ‘God, I wish I could play.’ ”

Pattison, who is in her second season as the El Camino women’s volleyball coach, is also working on a master’s degree in administration and education at National University.

After graduating from Long Beach, she served as an assistant at Mira Costa under DaeLea Aldrich. Then she spent four years as an assistant to Matthies, the women’s volleyball coach at Pepperdine.

Besides coaching and playing, Pattison has also been a referee since 1987. Until last season, players who were also certified officials would serve in that capacity after being eliminated from an event.

“She has, in my opinion, had the respect of all the players for years as a referee,” said Elaine Roque, who is seeded sixth with partner Patty Dodd at the Venice Open. “She always seems to have players’ respect because she’s so even-tempered and she has a nice demeanor. She could have grown up in Hawaii, she’s so mellow.”

Roque, who is the women’s volleyball coach at Santa Monica College, added that Pattison came through for the organization at a difficult time.

“She’s terrific,” she said. “LeValley has been great in stepping in and taking responsibility and learning. We haven’t had any problems in tournaments since she’s taken over.”