Shoestring Volleyball : Low-Budget Women’s Team Flies in Face of Previous Failures

A pistol-packing guard stopped a civilian at the entrance gate to Point Mugu Naval Air Station. Locating the civilian’s name on a list--a few hours earlier, his Social Security number had been checked through a computer--the guard scrutinized the civilian’s driver’s license before giving permission to enter the base.

The civilian’s destination was the training facility for the Ventura Slammers, not a top-secret naval anti-terrorist unit but a professional women’s volleyball team. The Slammers have to train at the high-security military installation because the only available gym in Ventura County apparently is an unheated Quonset hut at Point Mugu.

“I contacted 58 places to get a practice venue,” says team co-owner Marsha McGill, “and they were all booked.”

Lack of facilities is only one of many problems facing McGill and other owners of the five-team Women’s Western Volleyball League, which will launch its first season this month. Besides the usual organizational headaches, the owners are limited by an absence of deep pockets.

“We’re just ordinary working people,” says McGill, a former schoolteacher with a master’s in psychology.

The owners also are bucking history, remembering all too well the specter of soccer, arena football and, most ominously, volleyball, failing to gain a foothold in professional sports. Two years ago, the women’s Major Volleyball League disappeared midway through its third season; in the 1970s, a co-ed pro league called the International Volleyball Assn. was a flop.

So what makes the WWVL think it has a chance? “We’re starting small,” McGill says. “We’re taking a bare-bones approach.”

If the owners do lose money, they won’t have to sell their children to pay off their debts. The franchise fee was only $1,000, plus a $100 application fee, and owners had to prove they had about $6,000 in the bank. While the MVL reportedly paid some players $7,000 a month, players in the WWVL will receive only $50 a match during an eight-match season that lasts only a month.

With all five teams--Ventura, San Diego, Salinas, San Bernardino and Santa Monica (which will play at Pierce College)--located in California, travel will be relatively inexpensive. Charging $5 for tickets, the teams could break even with an average of only 300 customers a match, says Ralph Christ, the league’s creator and director of operations.

“We did not set our expectations high,” Christ says of the inaugural season. “But I think we will (break even) and may even show a slight profit.”

Having done public relations for several pro soccer teams, Christ has had firsthand experience with sports enterprises that didn’t keep a tight rein on expenses.

“The (failure) of these other leagues lies not in the ownership,” says Christ, 45, a former amateur soccer goalie, “but in the people working for them who spent money in places where it wasn’t needed. There were executive directors of this and assistant vice presidents of that. Before the season started the team was a million dollars in the red.”

Christ’s budget-consciousness extends to his own salary: He won’t be paid in the league’s first season.

“I didn’t get into this for the money,” he says. “I’m doing it so women coming out of college can get a fair shake in pro sports. And I wanted to see something grow from the ground up.”

Last year, along with running a Ventura PR business, Christ was athletic director at Villanova Prep. He says he got the idea for the WWVL during a Villanova volleyball game. Coincidentally, his PR company shares an office with McGill, a volleyball player at Cal Lutheran in the early ‘70s. She loved his idea and went into partnership with Tom Marcus, a computer program analyst who lives in Oak View, to buy the Ventura franchise.

Marcus, who describes himself as “a big volleyball fan,” didn’t get involved with the league to become the world’s next millionaire. “I hope to have a real good time and not lose a lot of money,” he says. “We just hope we’re profitable enough to continue to have volleyball in Ventura.”

McGill, Marcus and “a lot of volunteers who believe in the concept,” she says, have been working since last June to prepare the Slammers for their Feb. 28 home debut against the San Bernardino Jazz at Ventura High. After months of “dealing with all the unforeseen bugs,” McGill, who runs a stress-reduction clinic, could use a little therapy herself.

“I’ve been pretty maxed out every day,” she says.

Advertising in newspapers and contacting club and college teams, the Slammers held tryouts in January, drawing about 20 women. Christ estimates that 75% of the players in the league are former college All-Americans. The Slammers, who will carry only 10 women on the roster instead of the maximum of 12, have eight former Division I players, including player-coach Lisa Bevington.

Practicing three or four days a week is a strain on the players, most of whom have full-time jobs. Because of illness or scheduling conflicts, only five were able to participate in a recent practice, preventing Bevington from conducting a scrimmage.

“We’ve had some setbacks,” says Bevington, a 25-year-old middle blocker. “But there are two ways to look at it: as a chore or a challenge. I choose to see it as a challenge.”

Bevington hasn’t seen the other teams and doesn’t know what to expect from them. But the early line favors the San Diego Waves, who have Sherri Danielson and Missy McClenden, starters on the ’88 U.S. Olympic team.

All five teams will make the playoffs, which will take place in early April on the court of the team with the best attendance.

“We’ll be a little raggedy our first year,” Christ says, “but watch us go our second year.”