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INTERVIEWS PLAYING COACHING DIG MAGAZINE What is the best way for young players, especially girls, to break into the beach game. Of times they are burned out on volleyball in the summer after long high school and club seasons? We as professional players have to keep encouraging young volleyball players that the beach is a great release and break from the hard court and structure of high school and club volleyball.The AAU offers some great youth beach tournaments. I encourage my Carson High Volleyball teams to get out on the beach and play. Once they get out on the sand they really enjoy it and get hooked. I love how the AVP has youth tournaments on the opposite sides of the piers during our California events. It gives the kids an opportunity to watch the best in the sport and then a chance to emulate what they saw and play in their own tournament. Playing on the sand feels good on the body and you can go kamakazi after balls on defense. Most kids love the beach surface as it is so forgiving on the body. Once they try the beach game they usually want to keep playing. Would you recommend for young players to start on the beach? Absolutely! It is a great way to learn ball control and it is a fun experience because you're outdoors. It is also fun for the kids to learn defense on the sand because they can dive anywhere and not get hurt. I am getting my 5 year old out there already as she loves to pepper and go after everything. How did you get started in volleyball? I was 13 years old and in the summer I would take the bus to the beach every day to body board. I would walk by the volleyball courts every day on my way into the ocean. One day this old guy asked me to play with him. I was not very good at first but I started to improve and really enjoyed playing. Me and this old guy started beating teams and by the end of the summer we were teams there. I always brought my body board but a lot of the days I wouldn't get off the courts. That's when I fell in love with the sport. What is the goal of your Dig For Kids Foundation you co-direct with your cousin, Eric Fonoimoana? Our goal is to continue to introduce volleyball to as many children as possible to help grow this sport. We will also continue to tutor and help kids from under served communities set and achieve goals and help them understand that college is a viable option for anyone from anywhere. We also want to continue to assist kids with our EVA (Excellence in Volleyball and Academics) Scholarship as we have given out 16 scholarships to date. Keri Walsh donated $4000 out of her own pocket a few weeks ago for the EVA and we are very grateful for her support. Our ultimate goal is to franchise DFK to other cities across the United States and we have many requests from people all over the country to start chapters of DKF in their cities. What do you tell a player who thinks they are too small to compete on the beach? I tell them to look at me. Although I am 6'3" I am small in todays AVP standards. I tell them that beach volleyball is more about the mental game and the fight in your heart. You can beat your opponent by playing a smarter game and giving a better effort. What is that saying," It's not about the size of the dog but about the size of the fight in the dog!" How much longer do you see yourself playing professionally? I will continue to play as long as I still feel I can win a tournament and I continue to have great passion for the game. I came close in Dallas beating #1 Lambo and Stein and I am having so much fun on the court. Retirement is always a tough thought but going into my 15th season I can honestly say I am in the best shape of my life. I won't put a number on it but I know I am playing through 08. Your Volleyball Vacation's business is taking off, how will that expand in the future? I started volleyballvacations.com over 12 years ago and used to do one trip a year. Now I have to offer 6 trips a year because they all sell out and I can only fit so many people at each resort. I make sure these trips are very detailed from a learning perspective so that everyone gets the most out of their experience. Each day for a week they play in tournaments, enjoy clinics and enjoy open play with the pros. We all eat dinner as a group and then partake in the nighttime activities. These trips are truly unique and they have grown mainly by word of mouth. Our last trip to Cancun I brought Sinjin Smith, Michelle More and Suzanne Stonebarger and they were very personable and great to work with. I added a volleyball cruise and started a new company called Ultimate Sports Vacations. With this new company it was a natural progression to be able to bring in other sports and disciplines like tennis, golf, yoga, scuba, martial arts, sailing, wake boarding and even trapeze. I rent out entire resorts which allows me to accommodate more clients and this fills the resort with full of athletes from all over the world all there to enjoy a week of sports and fun. The next trips are July 20-27 in California during the AVP Long Beach event and October 27-November 3 at club med in the beautiful Turks and Caicos Islands. Is your goal to finish in the top 10 of the AVP Tour rankings this season and get you get back into the winner's circle? My immediate goal is to finish in the top 10 and win another tournament. I want to win so bad that I can taste it. The men's tour is extremely talented and very competitive so I know I will have to play my best possible volleyball to achieve these goals. It is not going to be easy but I have a great partner in Ed Ratlidge and we are getting better as a team every day. We both have high expectations and feel that we are going to be tough to beat out there. If you could play with Karch Kiraly this year in his final season, would you do it? I already played with my cousin Eric Fonoimoana a few years ago and am very happy to have done that since this is his retirement year too. I would be honered to play with Karch but it would be short term because we both realize that we have to have taller players to win a tournament. I think we would do very well and you would see lots of hustle and groveling on the court. I will miss Karch out there but I have to admit that I won't miss that pink hat! Most memorable moment in volleyball? Winning the 2002 Hermosa Open in my hometown in front of all my family and friends was incredible. It was such a great match to be a part of as it was so dramatic. The 3rd game ended 27-25. Having Sinjin Smith come up to me after the match and tell me that it was the best final that he had ever seen was a great memory. I will never forget the feeling of fighting off match point after match point and then finally putting them away. It was took me 10 years on tour before I could reach the pinnacle of the sport. I remember the excitement of being carried on the shoulders of my friends into my buddies restaurant where hundreds of people were waiting to celebrate with me. I am so blessed to be able to have experienced that and to be able to do it in front of the people that I love was priceless. Can a player be successful on the AVP Tour just by playing volleyball? I get emails all the time from people that want to know how they can get on tour. I have the same answer for them every time. First I ask them what their experience is. Then I ask what kind of dedication do they have and how much time can they commit to training. Then I ask them if they know anyone in California that they can train with. I finish by assessing their answers and if they are ready I advise them to move to California and follow their dreams. If I don't feel they are ready then I advise them to train hard and do the things that they need to do in order to prepare themselves for the reality of being a pro beach volleyball player. I am not one to crush someone's dreams but this is no walk in the park. VOLLEYBALL MAGAZINE You've got your hands in a lot of things - volleyball, modeling, non-profit work, and your vacation company, coaching - is it difficult to manage it all? I like to stay very busy year round. I figure if I work hard then I will also play hard. I have to plan things well ahead of time to be able to mange all of my projects. It is tough and challenging sometimes but very rewarding. Right now I am coaching the girl's team at Carson High school. I am also the program director for the Dig For Kids Foundation which is also at Carson High where we tutor kids then teach them how to play volleyball. I just got back from Mexico for one of my volleyballvacations.com trips where I hire other AVP pros to come on vacation with me and teach people how to improve their volleyball skills. I am producing 2 more volleyball trips in January. One will be held in Hawaii while the other will be at the Turks and Caicos Islands. I am also producing a "Soap Opera Week" and a "DJ week" coming in 2003. Modeling has also been awesome and I have met a lot of interesting people while working on location. I have also been lucky enough to get some new sponsors from modeling. A new project I have started is hosting sports and lifestyle shows. I am interested in doing this more seriously especially when I stop playing on the AVP. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed but I love to stay busy. When and where did you realize that volleyball was more than just another sport? Were there specific times that helped you understand this and how has it helped you on the AVP tour? I really owe a lot to volleyball and am always trying to give back to the sport. I learned about self promotion and public relations while playing at college at the University of Hawaii. There aren't any professional sports in Hawaii so the people there really love their college teams. Every game was on TV and as an athlete we were always doing interviews and interacting with the fans and media. This ended up being valuable training for me as a player on the AVP tour. At this time of my career I realized that volleyball could help me if I wanted to play professionally. I had met some very successful people in Hawaii as they loved coming to the games to cheer us on. They always asked me what I was planning on doing when I graduated. I was fortunate enough to become friends with these people and ended up gaining some great sponsors from Hawaii as a rookie on tour as they wanted to see me succeed at the next level. I remember when I was playing a match against USC as a senior and was approached by some model agents. I signed a contract with them and they started booking me as soon as I graduated. They used the volleyball/model angle and it got me a lot of work. I was starting to figure out that volleyball was more than just playing on the court. My first year on tour was when it all started to come together for me. I constantly volunteered to do all of the media interviews while traveling to other cities and always offered to help run the clinics for the kids. I learned that my sponsors really liked that I was always involved in promoting the sport and ultimately was getting a lot of exposure for their company's nation wide. These media hits really helped build my value as a professional athlete. Was there any player that you looked up to or respected while beginning your professional career? I always looked up to Sinjin Smith as he truly did so much for the sport. Not only was he an amazing player that had the heart of a lion but he was the guy that was ALWAYS making the extra effort to help the sport grow. He reached out to many fans and more importantly to the excited children that were the future of our sport. He is a person that realized how important it was to do all he could for the sport that has given him so much. I will never be the player Sinjin was but am proud to know that I have been compared to him many times as being a great promoter of the sport. Talk a little about the importance of sponsorships for a pro player. How easy or difficult is it to find sponsors (especially under recent economic times)? Sponsorships are very important for us. Professional volleyball players do not get a salary like almost every other professional sport. We need sponsors to make it all come together. You win, you make money. It's that simple. If you have a bad tournament you need to have sponsors there to pick up the slack. Quite often players are playing for their rent and I think that is ridiculous. We train harder than most professional athletes but have to pay for our own trainers, flights, hotels, etc. I think for most players that finding sponsorships are difficult. Most players don't have the time that is required to find worthwhile endorsements. It can be done with persistence and patience. With the recent success of the tour and the addition of live national television coverage, finding sponsorship is not as difficult. Companies are starting to spend on athletes again which is a much needed break for pro beach players. We want to play and not worry about the money. Unfortunately this is the struggle many players face while training and during competition. Sponsors give us piece of mind and the ability to focus on the game rather than the outcome. Some female athletes who have tried to venture into the modeling business have found it difficult to get work because of the tone of their bodies or because they don't fit a certain fit a certain mold/size that a designer is looking for. Several who have made it in the business have had to really pare down their workouts in the off-season to 'lighten' their look. Do you think male athletes have it a little easier on that end or do you face similar problems when you're being considered for projects? I do know that the industry is tough with the women as many clients are very strict about their models bodies having to fit a certain size etc. It is a lot tougher for a woman to make it as a model but you can do pretty well for yourself if you have the body type required and are willing to go to countless castings. There are a lot of agencies for different looks and sizes for women. Volleyball players tend to have muscular bodies that are too athletic looking for many of the women's' clothes that are in "fashion." For me it is not such a big deal. I don't fit into the "sample" clothes that are used during fashion shows. I am too big and muscular so I can't do most fashion shows. I understand this so it doesn't bother me. I do get a lot of athletic jobs and for men it is easier as athletic build is "in" right now. The thinner build tends to do well with the high fashion companies and fashion shows. How does your training program differ in the off-season as to when you're on tour? I like to do much more cross training in the off season. Lots of running, basketball, and any way to get a good sweat. I am starting to do more "core training" because my back was pretty bad this past season and this type of training focuses on the mid section. I also hit the weights pretty hard. During the season my training is limited to sprints, light lifting, and mostly sand work. I also don't touch the volleyball for a few months in the off-season so that I don't get burned out. You played at two different schools during college, both of which are highly regarded in volleyball circles. Was there much difference in the structure or training environment at each school? I enjoyed playing for both UCLA and the University of Hawaii. UCLA was a great experience for me as it was the best environment for anyone who likes to be challenged. I worked my butt off there and felt that I wasn't being given a fair chance to help the team win. I became a much better player than I would have ever been by going there for 2 years. Every day was an absolute battle at practices. If you lost in the scrimmage, you weren't starting the next day. This brought the best out of everyone. You can imagine why UCLA has won so many national championships. Experiencing that as a freshman helped me understand how great that program really was. The coaching was very good at UCLA as we were surrounded with very successful coaches that were great players too. I found it better for me to transfer to the University of Hawaii. To my surprise it was very different there. I came in ready to battle every day and win another championship. The mentality was very different in Hawaii as practices weren't intense and most of the players on the team didn't have as much experience as players on other major college teams. We did condition harder than the UCLA team did because we were shorter and had to make up for this. We were the strongest team in the nation but didn't have the biggest or most experienced players. We had terrific athletes but always seemed to be too small to beat the bigger teams. The coaching at Hawaii was really bad too. I had 3 different head coaches in 3 years. This didn't help with team chemistry as they all had their own coaching philosophies. The coaches were very controlling and it was very difficult playing for them. We just didn't see eye to eye. I had the UCLA mentality and couldn't understand how losing was acceptable. Given a second chance, would you have made the same decision to make the switch? Absolutely!! I enjoyed both schools tremendously but really excelled in school at Hawaii and wasn't motivated at UCLA. I was very lucky to be able to experience two amazing schools and to have my entire college education paid for. It made me grow as a person and taught me how to deal with adversity. How important do you think the college experience is for young players trying to make it at the pro level? I think it is very important for a person to play in college before turning pro. I will use my good friend Adam Jewell as an example. He had a chance to play in college and refused to because he was good enough to make it on the tour. He is one of the best athletes on the tour but never experienced the coaching and competition that playing in college gives you. He could be one of the best players on the tour but still struggles with certain skills. He will be the first person to tell you he regrets not going to college because he would be dominating right now. The interesting fact is that almost every AVP player has a college degree. You're well known as a big promoter of the sport and as someone who feels that the sport's best hope for the future is getting kids involved in volleyball at a younger age. Aside from getting kids interested before they get too deep into other sports, what do you think needs to be done to bring the sport more mainstream? I think we are definitely heading in the right direction. There were some keys for us to get back into the mainstream. Having a unified tour with men and women playing together was important. Having national TV back was also important. The sport needed to be cool again. I think it is almost there. Everyone is talking about volleyball again. There are a lot of great younger players on the tour battling every tournament. New rivalries are born and emotions and personalities are real and people are witnessing a pure sport. This is getting us back into the mainstream as America is sick and tired of hearing about other athletes complaining about contracts and hold outs etc. Volleyball becomes a viable sport that is refreshing and fun to watch. We are about lifestyle and image. It is a healthy sport that anyone can learn to play. We need to keep marketing the younger exciting players and ride the wave to the Olympics as we look to capture our 3rd gold in a row. Talk about the progression of the sport - are new rule changes and the variety of the game (beach vs. indoor, etc.) making it more difficult to get younger athletes to commit or focus on volleyball as their primary sport? Do you think certain rule changes like the libero make it necessary for kids to become too specialized at younger ages than ever before? Volleyball has to change to make it more exciting to watch and play. The rally scoring is better to watch from a viewers stand point. Many coaches in high school are training their kids on the beach before their indoor seasons begin. I saw a lot of teams this summer at the beach and that is great because they are seeing that beach volleyball is fun to play too. Younger athletes have to commit to one sport as it has become too competitive to play many sports and expect to be excelling in all of them. For me the libero rule change is good to see because I coach a lot of shorter girls who before the libero rule never had a chance to play in college. Now they have a chance and more importantly a feeling of acceptance in a sport that was becoming too focused on only taller players. With everything you've accomplished in your career, qualifying for the Olympics seems to be a piece of the puzzle that you're still aiming for. What other goals are you setting for yourself and what else can we look forward to seeing from you? I really want to play in the Olympics. It is very difficult to qualify as you have to commit to playing internationally for 2 years. I am working on finding a partner that is dedicated and is willing to work on this accomplishment as a team with me. If I can't find anyone willing to go and play internationally then I have to focus on the AVP. My main goal right now is to win more tournaments. Any parting words of wisdom? How about a number. 158 for me. It took me 158 tournaments to finally win an AVP tournament and it was worth the wait. I worked so hard to win and when it finally happened I knew that all my hard work had finally paid off. The saying may be used a lot but I always lived by it... NEVER GIVE UP!! THE PROMOTER Albert Hannemann is a standout on the professional beach tour and one of volleyball's biggest boosters.  Acrobat Version (4-Color) 8MB An article by Don Patterson featured in Volleyball magazine. The best player on the JV football team at Carson High in Los Angeles decided to play volleyball last year. He was talked into it by Albert Hannemann, the ninth-ranked player on the AVP Tour. Hannemann, who coaches at Carson during the off-season and played college ball at UCLA and Hawaii, assured the football player that it would be fun. He also told him it would help him stay in good shape and improve his footwork for playing linebacker. The football player tried it, and it wasn't long before he decided that Hannemann was right. After the season, he told Hannemann that the football coaches had given him some flack for missing so many spring practices. "What are you going to do?" Hannemann asked. "F--- football," he said. "I'm playing volleyball." One by one, Albert Hannemann plans to bring them around. F---- football? Yes. That's what he likes to hear. "I always feel like there is a kid out there who could learn to love this sport. and there is a fan who is one good experience away from converting 10 friends to come and support the tour." he says. 1 really believe that and live by it." Which is why he'll go just about anywhere to find potential followers. And in his mind, that's any place where you can set up a net. Sometimes it's New Mexico or Michigan or Massachusetts, where he has run clinics for children. Other times it's a Club Med, where a hundred or so fans sign up for a trip on his web site VolleyballVacations.com and trade hits from sunup until sundown with him and players like Olympic gold medallist Eric Fonoimoana or Canyon Ceman. Or it might be a modeling shoot for Hugo Boss or Nautica or Calvin Klein, where he always urges the photographer use a volleyball in the picture. There's also this nutty event in Miami Beach, Florida called VolleyPalooza. Happens every February, and it draws a thousand or so fans who come to ogle a bunch of models who are playing a brand of volleyball that doesn't resemble anything you'll see on center court at the Manhattan Beach Open. The voice on the microphone? Yep. Hannemann, the co-emcee of the tournament. TV, too. Last summer he taught a volleyball lesson for a show on the E! channel. Demonstrated sets, spikes and digs for a Playboy Playmate of the Year. If it sounds like fun and games, well, it is. But Hannemann, who is 31 and will play his ninth year on the beach tour this summer, says this is stuff he does mostly to pay the rent. In his estimation, "I think if we get kids, the sport will take off," he says. "I think that's the only thing we're missing right now." Of course, that's easier said than done. It means competing with baseball and football and basketball. It means trying to reach kids before they've played five or six years of soccer. And it means explaining why volleyball fans are forced to scour the back alleys of cable T\/ to find their heroes while mainstream sports junkies have Shaq and Barry Bonds and Andre Agassi in their faces around the clock. Still, it's worth it for Hannemann, and more important, it's necessary. His commitment to promoting the game can be loosely traced to a tournament years ago when he saw Sinjin Smith, the second winningest player in beach history, get eliminated from a tournament on a Saturday. "Like most players, I expected him to be upset, run to the hotel, change his flight and get the hell home," Hannemann says. "Surprisingly, he stayed and played with some random kids on center court for about a half hour." Many nights last year, Hannemann spent long hours in front of his computer, writing grant proposals to fulfill his duties as vice president of Fonoimoana's Dig for Kids Foundation, which provides kids from low-income communities after-school volleyball lessons and academic tutoring. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings last summer, he could be found at the beach with kids from the Boys & Girls Club in Venice, California, where youngsters from underprivileged families can play or study or learn to use computers. The club recently built a new gym, but the budget remains so tight that Hannemann has to bring his own paper when he wants to make photocopies. But volleyball is catching on in Venice. Before Hannemann donated a bag of balls to the club, the kids mostly pounded up and down the basketball court and dabbled in indoor soccer. Now, volleyball is a significant part of their routine, and after a successful summer program and funding help from the Amateur Athletic Foundation, the beach clinic is on the schedule again for next year. 80 percent of his non-playing volleyball efforts go towards getting kids involved in the game. Hannemann thinks one of the big keys to making these programs work is establishing continuity with the kids, not pulling a hit-and-run job by showing up once for a couple of hours, demonstrating a few skills, and leaving. In return for his commitment, though, he expects a commitment from the kids, too. "They had been doing a beach program (at the Boys and Girls Club in Venice) for, like, 1 2 years, but it wasn't really working," Hannemann says. "Different kids were coming every day, and there wasn't a way of~ maintaining the same kids so you could keep teaching them and they could get better. "Now, if they miss two days, they're out and the next kid on the waiting list comes in. It's got to be a privilege or they're never going to take it seriously. The girls' volleyball team at Carson High used to be just another team among many, a team that hovered around third place in its league and hadn't finished first since 1988. That changed last season when Hannemann began working side by side with Karen Blanke-Pau, who has been Carson's head coach since 1994. By the end of the 2001 season, Carson had gone undefeated in league play and made it to the quarterfinals of the city playoffs. There, despite the absence of its best player, who was out with an ankle sprain, Carson hung tough before eventually losing to Pacific Palisades. When Hannemann first got involved with the program - in the spring, he assists with the boys' team, too - he had planned to help for an hour or so at an occasional practice hut it wasn't long before he was at every practice from beginning to end. He got addicted to my girls," says Blanke-Pau. That helped quicken the volleyball pulse at Carson which is a noted powerhouse in high-profile sports such as football and baseball. All of a sudden everybody was taking noticing, complimenting the players, shaking the coaches' hands. And it was more than that. Last year, 55 girls tried out for the team. For six years before Hannemann arrived, Blanke-Pau had never had more than 20 students out for JV and varsity combined. In practices, players were introduced to new training techniques like fast-twitch exercises, and setters were schooled on footwork and how to read the pass. In games, the team played with a confidence that comes from knowing you can handle whatever is thrown at you. "Knowledge is pretty powerful," says Fonoimoana. "I think Albert's knowledge - him teaching them what to do in certain situations - has won them games." Maybe it was defense, where the team's improvement was most evident. Hannemann would drill balls at the players, and they kept reminding him not to hit at anything less than full speed. "I felt bad, because I did six pack them every once in awhile," he says. "But that's the way they get better." The truth is, Hannemann's major push isn't at the high school level, and it probably never will be. His goal is to help volleyball follow soccer's lead and establish a far-reaching, AYSO-like structure so that kids - and not just ones from wealthy communities - will have an opportunity to learn the game at an early age. "Once they're in high school, they're so far behind," he says. "Unfortunately, I think it's too late by then. I mostly target six to twelve year olds." One day last summer, during his beach clinic in Venice, Hannemann was approached by a young girl who began telling him about her college plans. She was one of 70 kids in the program, most of whom had never even been to the beach. She said she had wanted to go to Harvard before she came to his clinic, but then she heard that Harvard doesn't have very good sports teams. Now she's shooting for Duke. "She's eight," says Hannemann, smiling. "And she wants to play volleyball." Mission accomplished. ON THE ROAD from Volleyball Magazine Playing on the AVP tour is always an adventure. We always hope the tour will be born again but no matter what happens we find our love for the sport forcing us back on the courts. This year Leonard Armato bailed us out after Charlie Jackson's failed attempt to run a tour. The late start to the season left a lot of players in limbo. The Brazilians decided to stay home. The rule changes chased some older veterans away. I say adios to these guys as we all focus on growing the "new tour." Leonard Armato has given us a fresh start and the vibe is definitely back on tour. I prepared myself for an interesting road trip with lots of new players. Traveling on the AVP tour is like riding a roller coaster. From cancelled flights to food disappearing from the player's tent, many things can happen that really test your patience. A strange opportunity presented itself this year for all current players on the tour. Many of our top teams left for greener pastures or shall I say "greener pockets" by trying their luck on the FIVB tour. With the disappearance of the Brazilians, the retirement party, and the AVP world travelers, the tour supremacy was up for grabs. Me and my partner Sean Scott were ready to take a big bite out of the pie. We were hungry. So were a bunch of new guys. The first tournament on the road trip was in Muskegon, Michigan. First round was against this guy Chad Turner. Sean and me discussed this guy as a basketball player without many skills. We figured it would be a quick match and we would get a lot of rest before our next match. We almost lost two straight and pulled it out in 3 games. We learned that Chad Turner could play volleyball too. Upsets were happening all over the place. We battled hard and finished at third place. The surprise here was AK and Anjihno finishing 13th as they had won the tourney the week before in Huntington. Fonoi and Dain finished 7th. Both teams were casualties of a new player named Jason Ring. Fonoi and Dain flew back to Europe and realized that they should have never left. Next was Belmar New Jersey. Great crowd again and a very hot weekend. We had another first round game against some qualifiers. I tried to change my initial thought about this team as they were both under 6 feet tall and I felt pretty confident we were going to wax this team off the court. I thought this guy was for sure a recreational player that must have careered to make it out of the qualifier. I was in cruise mode and all of a sudden it was game three and we barely pulled it out again. The next day a big problem occurred in the tent when I went in to eat some lunch to fuel up before we played in the final. One problem was that there wasn't any food left. I looked around and noticed all the new qualifier guys were still in the tent with girlfriends, parents, and one guy even had his dog in there. This is not allowed at tournaments but we didn't have anyone there to enforce it. I did my best Stoklos imitation and over reacted, as I was very frustrated and really hungry. I made it clear that the food was there for the players still playing in the tournament. It wasn't a picnic and Spot should eat a bone, not my turkey sandwich. We lost in 3 games and took home the silver medal. Next weekend comes quickly as I arrive at the airport early for the Friday 6am morning flight to Virginia Beach. Only one problem. When I looked at the departure board my flight had been cancelled. I thought that I would just get on the next flight, which would be in a half hour or so. All flights were full until 2pm. I finally arrived in Virginia after 11pm. Got to the site early Saturday and put my stuff in the tent. I felt something was different and went for a warm up jog to figure it out. I realized that I didn't recognize 80% of the people in the tent. It seemed that the players' tent was full of new guys and all the veterans would go hang out on stage with veteran announcer Geeter. Our first round match was against some kids that had almost beaten Whit and Canyon a few weeks earlier so we were not taking them lightly. We won in two straight but all the other matches with the qualifiers seemed to go three games. There seemed to be a little west coast, east coast thing going as we started to pull for our young west coast players. Young stud rookie Scotty "Fast" lane pulled out a tight 3 gamer with some local qualifiers and came running back to the tent and yelled, "they don't f...... respect west coast volleyball. Look at em now." It clarified that there really was a rivalry between these qualifier teams and more importantly that the sport is really changing. Sunday morning came and the tent looked familiar again. Whitmarsh looked annoyed as the rain was coming down pretty hard. I told him to cheer up cause we all know each other in here. Then Matt Furbringer sits up and shakes Whits hand and introduces himself. We all bust out laughing. We pull out another third place and feel awful about it. The road can be tough but at least we are playing ball again. We also met a lot of new people this summer. The strange thing is that we met them before we served the first ball at them. Beachmania Magazine This is Lynn Chu reporting live from the beaches of Southern California. I am bringing you this exclusive BEACHMANIA player profile/interview on one of my all-time favorites. I will give you a few hints as to his identity. This sixth year veteran on the A.V.P. Tour is one of the original "Young Guns" and has eight individual sponsors. He has a corner on BEACHMANIA dedicated to him and also writes articles for the newsletter there. He is a co-owner of Upgrade Clothing with his former University of Hawaii teammate and friend, Jason Olive. When he actually finds spare time, he donates it to various charitable organizations such as Special Olympics; Big Brothers of Los Angeles, Muscular Dystrophy of Hawaii and the Children's Make A Wish Foundation. As supplement to his pro volleyball career, he frequently models for major fashion industry leaders and recently modeled for J. Crew and Nautica's print campaign. Albert Hannemann is clearly a "model citizen" on the A.V.P. Tour. Name: Albert Hannemann Albert basically played all types of sports growing up. In fact, he said he played football, basketball and volleyball while at North Torrance High School. He then went to college at the University of California at Los Angeles to play volleyball and major in American History. His first year at UCLA, he won the 1991 NCAA championship. At the University of Hawaii, Albert earned a few of his many accolades early, including Student-Athlete of the Year (in 1991), Collegiate All-American (in 1992), Academic All-American (in 1992) and NCAA Completion Scholarship Award (in 1993). In December of 1993, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in American History from UH. Albert's advice to young fans about playing volleyball in college was that "going to school and getting your degree is very important. If you have the chance to be a student athlete, it's definitely something you should not pass up. It made me a well-rounded individual and the pressure prepared me for real-life situations. It was a great experience playing a sport in college at that level. I learned how to set [where he redshirted freshman year at UCLA]. In the summer of 1990, I won a gold medal at the United States Olympic festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That was the highlight of my indoor career. The following year I felt I needed a new start and transferred to UH. It was an easy transition to go back to where I spent much of my childhood. I had lots of support there from both family and friends. I quickly discovered that the UH fans were the best a team or a player could ever ask for." Shortly there after, he ventured to the beach full time. He won two A.V.P. Qualifier events with his good friend, Matt Unger, at Chicago and New Jersey. Also in 1993, "Al B!" (one of his nicknames on Tour) was considered a candidate for the A.V.P.'s Rookie of the Year honors. The following year, Albert and then partner, Steve Timmons, played pro beach volleyball live on an N.B.C. telecast for the Milwaukee event and placed ninth together. This was one of Albert's most notable finishes. The year 1995 gave him more playing times on Sundays, more sponsorships and more TV time, in which he placed a career high fifth place with Daniel Cardenas at the Singer Island stop in Florida. Over the next two years, Al kept climbing up the ladder of success on the A.V.P. Tour. "A lot of people have been asking on the A.V.P. Tour, where's the personality? Where are the young guys that are all fired up? Here they come, Albert, Hannemann and Kevin Wong, a team that had never won a tournament together. They've got some fire. They knocked out Karch Kiraly and Adam Johnson. They're playing well," expressed well-known TV announcer Chris Marlowe at the beginning of the ESPN telecast for Corpus Christi. This was the first final for eighth seeded tandem of Hannemann/Wong as they took on the newly formed team of Steffes/Rego, who were the fourth seeded team. Along the way to the finals, Hannemann/Wong crushed the team of Bumgardner/Schroeder 11-1 and 11-3 in the first round on Saturday. In the second round, they defeated Davenport/Friederichsen 9-7 and 12-10 in a closer met match. In the Sunday quarterfinals match up, Albert destroyed one of his idols, Kiraly/Johnson 12-10 and 11-7. Then, in the semifinals, Al and Kevin went on to defeat Heidger/Tanner 9-7 and 11-7 to advance to the finals. The finals were the biggest moment in their respective careers as Al and Kevin was only playing in their fifth tournament as a team. Regarding "Big Al's" first final appearance, Chris Marlowe stated that, "Albert Hannemann is one of the most entertaining players in all of beach volleyball. When he makes it into a final, my job is easy." In my opinion, Al's playing style can be characterized as entertaining. He gets both the crowd and his partner fired up by being very vocal and he throwing his fists in the air. Clearly, the Corpus Christi crowd was behind the underdogs, Hannemann/Wong, who received I.V. bags before the final match against Steffes/Rego. Hannemann/Wong lost the coin toss, but gained the first point in the final. Concerning the final Al said that it was " too bad we lost the coin toss because it was so windy. The wind was tough. I was so sick [from a head cold] it made me focus a lot more and everything seemed to 'slow down.' We were 'in the zone.' We beat everyone in two straight games." Hannemann/Wong drew first blood in the finals. Mike Dodd was quoted as saying into Al's early celebration, "Someone's got to tell him it's just one to nothing." A few aces from Steffes/Rego resulted in a 4-1 side change. Al played big during the next one with an ace to make it 4-3 and then a huge stuff block to tie it a 4 a piece. Al gave the crowd a treat with his pose down. Next side change is 5-5, still tied. Hannemann/Wong had the lead at 6-5. Then they were aced twice by Steffes and by Rego once. The next side change was 9-6, in favor of Steffes/Rego. During this final, there were a few instances that didn't go very well for Al/Kevin. Wong was called on a net call after a block and a few unforced errors. Albert had yet another ace to bring his team to a 7-13 side switch. The results of the final was 15-7 game. Steffes/Rego had won their first tournament as a team. Mike Dodd said in reference to Hannemann and Wong's performance in the finals that "win or lose, it was a great showing for those guys and great heart." You could see that easily in Albert as he had 3 aces and a huge stuff block. The fans took notice as Al and Kevin happily signed autographs, posed for pictures, and interacted with them and "high fived" the kids who were helping with running the A.V.P. event that weekend. "Why would Al and Kevin break up after a second place finish from playing in only five tournaments together?" I asked Al for his point of view. He replied that, "Kevin was getting ready to play the international tour with Carl Henkel. We decided before that tournament, that [Corpus Christi] was going to our last tournament together. It doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people. It was something that Kevin felt strongly about that he had to get ready for the FIVB Tour. That was almost Kevin's last A.V.P. tournament. So, I had to respect his decision. Of course, I wanted to play again to see how we would do." Al continued to do well after their break up. He found success when he played with Aaron Boss for ten of the A.V.P. events, placing fourth in Atlanta and a fifth in Milwaukee. Overall, Al had fifteen top ten place finishes and moved up nine spots to end the season ranked as the twenty-sixth player. He earned $16,758.50 to boost his career earnings to $126,594.50 and played with five different partners (Brent Doble, Kevin Wong, Wayne Seligson, Aaron Boss and Matt Unger). The A.V.P Tour has clearly been a family affair for Albert. Remember his older brother, Chris? In the 1993 Chicago Open, Chris and Daniel Cardenas beat Kiraly/Steffes in a first round match up that resulted in a 15-14 overtime win. Nick, the youngest Hannemann brother, reached the semi finals in the 1998 Muskegon event with Henry Russell. A feat that has been unprecedented on Tour was having all three Hannemann brothers present. This happened a few times over the years. Al said, "It was cool. If you were a fan, you had a good chance to see one of us play at any time." Also, you can't forget their cousin, Eric Fonoimoana, started the 1998 season with a huge 'bang' as he won the prestigious King of the Beach event in Las Vegas. Big Al revealed to me some unknown trivia facts about his family. First, he and Eric were planning on teaming up together at the 1994 Baltimore event. But, Scott Ayakatubby called Eric and wanted him to play. So, their partnership fell thorough. Al played with Pat Powers and placed ninth, while Eric and Scott won the event. Al divulged, "Eric's one of my best friends. We grew up together through high school and had some really good times together. He started helping me out when I first started playing with advice or what not. We always battled in college against each other. We have a pretty competitive family. But, for some reason, Eric and I became the tightest." The most phenomenal news that Albert would want his fans to know is that he and Nick shall play for America Samoa for the Olympics and accumulate much needed FIVB points. They are set to play in the Playa Del Plata (Argentina) event in mid-January. Albert stated, "I feel really confident. I think we complement each other really well. I think playing with your brother could be very advantageous. We know what we both need on the court. It could be difficult at times, too. But I think we're mature enough to figure out what we need to do to win." He and Nick are intensely training right now and are in the processes of getting coaches and trainers to help them focus on their goal, qualifying for the Olympics. Off the court, Al likes to participate in these hobbies: martial arts, surfing, mountain biking and snowboarding. Another one of his focuses is being an entrepreneur working on his company, Upgrade Clothing. His company, Upgrade Clothing was started while at UH with great friend and fellow model, Jason Olive. Al and Jason had "lots of ideas what we like to wear and what they think is the 'next craze' " in fashion. They have their sample products ready, but both are focusing on their careers at hand. Al is pursuing his Olympic dream while Jason is getting into acting. They use their company's name in various events they do such as clinics. Look for Upgrade Clothing sometime before the A.V.P. season starts. He's also doing some promotional events for the A.V.P. as the Executive Director of Player Promotions. Al clearly does whatever he can to help promote the sport and to be a great role model. With regards to BEACHMANIA, Al and Michael Cole have worked together in creating his corner here so fans receive accurate information from an actual player. He likes to write as he keeps his own journal and will write in it on a plane ride back from an A.V.P. event or from a modeling job. As for modeling, Al tells me that he is putting that on hold as his preeminent focus right now is making the Olympics with Nick. He is not having any problems finding sponsors as some of his modeling agencies have jumped on the volleyball bandwagon. Al said that his current sponsors and his modeling agencies recognize his marketability as a player as well as his promotional aspects. Al's closing thoughts for the fans were, " I would like to thank the fans for all our your support throughout the years, not just from me, but from all of the players. I know everyone appreciates the fans. Hang in there because hopefully we'll have a Tour. But, if not, beach volleyball is never going to go away. We still have the Olympics in 2000." I would personally like to acknowledge the following people: Albert Hannemann (My job is easy when you have the opportunity to interview one of your idols. Albert is a guy that I consider to be a great friend, too.), Michael Cole (I know you have always believed in me. You're a "good egg."), Lara Lee (I would like to thank Lara for her endless friendship), Chris Marlowe, (Marlowe 's one of the best announcers in the game as well as a great player. Many thanks for your time.), my family and friends (I sincerely thank all of you who had to put up with me during this time, for your support and input.) and of course, I would like to thank the fans for the wonderful e-mails and questions regarding Albert's career. My closing thoughts would be, with a Chris Marlowe feel but with a Lynn Chu twist, when see Big Al at the next A.V.P. or FIVB event would be: "Tell him that Lynn Chu sent you and see what that gets you!" I would definitely encourage you all to meet him in person or write to him fan mail through the A.V.P.s address or through his e-mail addresses (on BEACHMANIA and UPGRADENOW). Please do cheer him on as well as visit his corner, here on BEACHMANIA, often!
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