Blanton Serving All Over the Place

It was the day before this weekend’s Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour stop at Hermosa Beach got under way, but Dain Blanton was doing himself and his sport more good than a victory ever could.

Swarmed by nearly 100 kids from the Ketchum Downtown YMCA in Los Angeles as he signed autographs for them, Blanton was concluding “Dain’s Day at the Beach,” a camp designed to bring mostly inner-city children closer to beach volleyball.

Blanton conducts camps around the country to tell kids about the importance of an education and to show them they can attain goals, as well as to introduce them to a new sport.

“These camps are based on exposing volleyball to kids who otherwise haven’t been exposed to it,” said Blanton, who has done six of them this summer and has one more in San Diego next weekend.

For Blanton, a Laguna Beach native, exposure to beach volleyball was never a problem. He began playing in sixth grade and had a volleyball scholarship at Pepperdine. His team won the national championship in 1992.

But Blanton isn’t your typical pro beach volleyball player.

He’s the only African American on the AVP tour, which is another reason he does the camps.

“I want a wider fan base,” said Blanton, who became the first African American player to win a tour event last year when he and then-partner Canyon Ceman topped the field at Hermosa. “I’m the only African American [on the tour] right now. That’s unfortunate, but that’s how it is.

“I don’t mind being a pioneer and being a role model. This is what I like to do.

“If the sport was more diversified, it would be more popular.”

Popularity is something Blanton has found on the tour. Playing this season with Eric Fonoimoana, the team has eight top-three finishes.

“We’re happy together,” said Fonoimoana, who assisted Blanton at the camp Thursday. “But it won’t be a successful year unless we win.”

The AVP has struggled for success this year too.

With sponsors withdrawing, prize money has dropped from more than $3.5 million in 1997 to $1.3 million in 1998 and beach volleyball is rebuilding. Players now go to host sites as many as four days before tournaments begin, hoping to rekindle interest.

“I don’t think [the players] can be pleased with the state of beach volleyball,” tour veteran Adam Johnson said last month at a tournament at Seal Beach. “Now we’re out doing more [public relations].

“The public likes to see athletes give their time back.”

That’s exactly what Blanton is doing.

“I like giving back what I’ve learned from the sport,” Blanton said. “This sport has taken me to a lot of places and put me through school.”

After starting “Dain’s Day at the Beach” last year with a camp in Santa Monica, Blanton and his agent, Terry Schrumpf, got Sunkist to sponsor the camps nationally this year.

And Schrumpf expects “Dain’s Day at the Beach” to grow.

“Next year, we’d like to expand to 15 cities,” Schrumpf said. “We’d also like to get a computer company as a sponsor to donate computer systems to places that bring kids to the camps. That way, we could better communicate with the kids.”

Blanton already has taken to the Internet with the Web site https://www.dainblanton.com.

“The more exposure I get and the better I do, the better the chance [more kids] will get involved,” Blanton said.

“If kids are flipping through the channels two months after the camp and see beach volleyball, maybe they’ll watch it.”

And Blanton’s plan--getting a wider variety of people to watch, participate in and care about beach volleyball--may give the sport a better chance at survival than any tournament or on-the-court achievements.