Volleyball’s Court Jester : Having Fun on Pro Tour Is a Priority for Gail Castro

Gail Castro’s memories of Italy go beyond her professional indoor volleyball career.

After suffering from a toothache, she decided to visit a dentist, who advised that Castro have a root canal.

She agreed, only to learn that the procedure would be performed without anesthesia.

“The dentist had a cigarette in his mouth and he was in my face with that cigarette,” Castro said. “Then about seven nurses grabbed me to hold me down and he started drilling. I couldn’t move. It was the most pain I have ever felt.”

The serious tone used in recalling the incident is unlike Castro, an All-Southern California Athletic Assn. middle blocker at Cal State Long Beach in 1978-79. She is usually easygoing and a volleyball court jester.

“For me to have fun is more important than anything else,” Castro said. “It’s a different motivation that has the same result. This year I’ve had the most fun I’ve ever had playing volleyball.”

This weekend, Castro and partner Elaine Roque will compete in the U.S. Open tournament in Long Beach. The event starts at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Promenade in downtown Long Beach.

It will be the first Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. tournament that is played in a shoreline city, but not at the beach. As is done in landlocked sites, sand will be trucked in to create the courts.

Castro and Roque are seeded third in the 32-team field.

The 5-foot-11 Castro, a 35-year-old mother, is one of the most physically fit players on the WPVA tour.

“She’s so powerful and so dynamic,” Roque said. “She’s in such great shape and she’s so strong. Gail has got the ripples and shoulders and abdominals and the whole bit.”

Hitting and jump-serving have become Castro’s forte. She ranks second in the WPVA with 59 aces.

“Gail was on a roll with her serve in Ohio,” said Liz Masakayan, who plays with Karolyn Kirby to form the WPVA’s top-ranked team. “She was giving us some tough serves and we couldn’t get a pass.”

Castro and Roque have reached the final of five tournaments this year, and each time they lost to Kirby and Masakayan, winners of 10 of 11 events.

“You have to be playing at your peak to beat them,” Castro said. “There’s no hoping they’re going to have a bad game. You can get a few points off Liz then she gets hot. They get in a groove easily.”

Castro has won three pro beach tournaments, all with former partner Lori Kotas in 1991. Castro and Kotas reached the final of four events in 1991 and each won a career-high $45,575.

They played together in 69 events and hold the record for the longest partnership in women’s pro beach volleyball history.

“We split because circumstances started to make the chemistry bad,” Castro said. “We had been doing so well and reaching the finals of almost every tournament, and when we were not reaching that it was hard. We thought it was time to move on because there was nothing else for us to do. We already had been together for five years.”

Castro says playing with Roque, a former UCLA All-American, has helped her relax and enjoy the game.

“We are so much more caring and we complement each other,” Castro said. “That never happened with my former partners. It’s great.”

The question is how to beat Kirby and Masakayan. With only two tournaments remaining, including the season-ending World Championships in Manhattan Beach on Aug. 21-22, the answer might not come until 1994.

Kotas and partner Barbra Fontana, a Mira Costa High grad, have had the most success against Kirby and Masakayan, beating the top-seeded team three times.

“I wish I had that magic potion,” Kotas said. “The best thing about them is their serve. They average four to six aces a game. . . . I don’t know why, but I don’t think they will win the next two tournaments. I just have a feeling. I can’t explain it.”

Masakayan, a former UCLA All-American and U.S. National team member, was surprised to hear about Kotas’ hunch.

“I have no idea why she would say that,” Masakayan said. “Maybe she knows something we don’t know.”

Masakayan said a lot of hard work goes into winning tournaments.

“I think it’s misleading sometimes that people read in the paper that we win all the time and they don’t know how hard it is to win,” she said. “Of the tournaments we’ve won, we had to come through the losers’ bracket in four of those. That means about half of the tournaments we’ve won haven’t been easy. We’ve had to prove ourselves.”

Several things help make Kirby and Masakayan such a dominating team.

“They’re physically powerful and strong and about the two quickest players on the beach,” said WPVA tour director LeValley Pattison, a Mira Costa grad who is also the women’s volleyball coach at El Camino College. “They also go out and compete hard in every tournament. Their intensity is at a high level the whole year because they’re not happy just knowing that they’ve won almost all the tournaments.

“Unless they struggle over the next week, and I doubt it, somebody has to play really great to beat them.”

Even if Castro and Roque are unable to beat the top-seeded team, they’ll have fun trying. Castro says that’s why she plays the game.

“We’ll crack a joke while we’re playing,” said Roque, who is the women’s volleyball coach at Santa Monica College. “And Gail will do or say something funny or we’ll make fun of each other and laugh. We really have a good time doing it.”