Seaside is the largest tournament in North America, maybe the world, with over 120 courts and 900 teams competing on the Oregon coast. Teams come from neighboring California and Washington as well as Canada, Arizona, Idaho, Minnesota, and just about anywhere else in the US. Old friends and partners, now separated by work, family, and life rejoin to "run it" once more. The tourney features every type of division you can imagine. Father and child, coed-4s, reverse masters, Under 14, Under 18, etc. But as everyone knows, the real show is Men's doubles.
I’d been fairly disciplined about getting adequate training, rest, & nutrition during the summer. I had been sleeping well and avoiding stress or late nights. However, in early August I started experiencing periodic nights of sleeplessness. I get brief periods of insomnia every couple of years. It seems to come and go with no rhyme or reason. They say it’s caused by stress but I hadn’t been feeling all that stressed out. The summer had been fun and stress free. I would often go to bed with an empty mind but sometimes wake up around 3:00 am with my mind busy thinking about random unimportant things, unable to fall back asleep. Bareq had given me some Tylenol PM when I had trouble sleeping in Greece and it seemed to help a lot. However, it did very little to help me the night before our departure to Seaside. I took two of those little bastards and still didn’t get any sleep. When I got up in the morning I felt 10 times worse than if I had just stayed awake all night. A small sense of dread and panic was starting to prick at me. What if I can’t sleep tonight? What if I have to play like this? How bad am I going to suck?
I picked up Khasha around noon and then picked Matty up at the airport on our way south. I had a headache and felt foggy the entire day. Khasha’s voice was getting on my nerves even though I don’t think he was all that different than usual. I felt like crap until we checked in and hit the beach for a brief practice. Once I started running on the beach the fog lifted and I felt better. We played a few practice games against some other GG players and quit around 7:00 pm.
We hit the town for groceries and a quick dinner and went back to our hotel. Matt went up to Khasha’s room to watch a movie while I read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson. After a few minutes of reading I took 1 Tylenol PM, had a cup of Mullein tea, promptly went to bed, and got exactly ZERO sleep. The night was one long torturous session of tossing and turning and dreading the sunrise.
When I finally got out of bed to get ready I felt terrible. My brain was in a deep fog and my limbs felt like Jell-O. I had some oatmeal and a banana. We hit the players meeting at center court at 8:30. I checked out the tournament board and noticed we were seeded 17th out of 59 teams despite having accrued no points the past summer. I chalked this up to my points from the Alki tourney the previous summer or the fact that the board director used to play against Matt and I waaaaaaaay back in the day and labored under the illusion that we were still decent. We had a good chuckle about the low rank and name of the other team (seed 48 - Batman & Robin). Even laughing hurt my head. The smiles slowly faded from our faces once we saw the other team already warming up as we approached our court. I had to double check the court number just to make sure we were at the right one. Standing there, next to his very normal looking partner, was one of the tallest monstrosities I’ve ever seen on a beach court. We both exchanged whispered exclamations with each other but didn’t let our surprise show when we introduced ourselves and shook hands with Batman and Robin. They seemed like nice enough guys and they were both attending Seattle U where I went to grad school. Once the tall guy and Matt went to speak to the ref I casually asked Robin (I think) how tall his partner was. 6’10. I wasn’t surprised. Just to put this in perspective, Phil Dalhauser is 6’9. Not saying this kid had the same skills, but I’m just sayin’.
We got off to a terrible start. I just couldn’t pass for shit. No mater how hard I tried I could not shake off the compounding effect of multiple sleepless nights and the sleep meds still in my system. I’d been passing well during the summer, sometimes going several days without shanking a single pass. But today I was a disaster. We lost the first game swiftly but got off to a 10-4 lead in the second game (best of 3 format). An even bigger surprise was the fact that the smaller payer on the other team was the one carrying them. The big boy was not as much of a threat as we thought although you had to be careful hitting against his blocks and he swatted down a couple of my high line shots which I thought I had rolled high enough to be out of reach. Soon enough the wind picked up and I went back to crap. I must have easily had 4 or 5 botched passes that game. The final score was close but we lost the 2nd game and hence the match. We were now in the loser’s bracket.
I felt so ashamed about the way I was playing. I had just assumed that with the great summer I’d had and the fact that the sand is a little more packed and the nets a little lower at Seaside that I would be playing off the chain. But insomnia and the wind had really kicked my ass. I was embarrassed about all those phone calls I made to Matty driving home from the beach every day. Telling him about how well I was playing and hounding him to hit the beach and get his ass in shape so he wouldn’t drag me down. But now I was the anchor. The big, heavy, slow, uncoordinated anchor.
After the loss I took pictures of Khasha & Sophy and Keith & Troys games. Khasha & Sophy played very athletic and hustled well. Keith & Troy played Anthony Medel on center court. They pushed the 2nd game into overtime which is a great accomplishment against a legit AVP pro. Like Matt and I, they hadn’t played together all summer. I don’t think Keith had even played/practiced more than 3 times the whole summer.
The one upside to our loss was that it put us in a bracket that didn’t play again ‘til 4:30 p.m. This long break gave me time to wake up, get my head straight, and get the sleep meds out of my system. Our 4:30 game was against Vu and Harley, both very good longtime friends of ours. Halrey had been a V-Ball coach and Vu was a legend on the grass circuit back in the day. Matt and I used to watch and admire his high-flying partnership with Thoeum in the 90’s. He was the one who encouraged Matt and I to play in our first tourney. He said we’d be good. I recall one summer when Vu never lost a game at Greenlake no matter who he played with. Finally, Bareq broke that streak against me and someone I can’t recall and I gave him so much shit for it. “You just lost with Vu! You understand what that means? NOBODY loses with Vu. You’ll be rolling around in bed all night thinking about how YOU LOST WITH VU!” So naturally, if you’d told me back then that someday Matt and I would beat him in a tourney I’d say you were smoking crack.
We put them away easily the first game. My passing was solid again and I was able to chase down and scoop up almost every ball they hit at us. Matty was setting better too, probably since I was giving him better balls to work with. But like most smart veterans they changed their tactics in the 2nd game and kept it close. Vu got his jumpserve going and aced Matty down his line a couple of times and Harley dialed in his one foot chip shot which left me faceplanted in the sand. We had them down 20 to 18 and ready to put the nail in the coffin but another Ace by Vu and an over set by Matt tied us up at 20. I sided out and got a dig for the next 2 points and sealed the deal but I was a little peeved about how close we let the 2nd game get. I gave Vu a big hug.
Our next game came up immediately. We were instructed to go to court X and play the winner right away. Matt & Mark. Twins from Portland. We were watching them finish their match knowing that we’d play the winner and they looked horrible. Part of me was giddy inside at the prospect of getting such an easy team handed to us at this point in the tourney. But the other part of me was scared. And the deamon was whispering in my ear. “If you lose to these guys then you’re seriously terrible.”
The first game actually started close. But I got in a good jumpserve rhythm and Matt got his nasty floatys going. They couldn’t handle the heaters or the moving targets and we pulled away for an easy win. That first game ended on a bit of controversy. I gave Matt ridiculous chowder set and opened my mouth to call my own hands out of habit but quickly realized that we’re in a tourney and that’s what the ref is for. So instead I yelled “Bad … Line” and Matt crushed it. The other team was looking at me like WTF? I pointed to the ref. He said the set was fine. I felt like an asshole. Even Matt was not feeling me on that move. But I was not in a generous mood. The universe had already conspired against me with the insomnia and I wasn’t giving shit away for free. I stuck to my guns and the game was over. The combination of the swift spanking and one of the players being double booked in the mens’ and coed divisions resulted in a forfeit of the 2nd game and with that we won our 3rd match of the day. We were done. We lived to fight another day. 8:30 am the next morning to be exact. Ouch!
Making it to the 2nd day is always a primary goal for most mid-level teams. It means you didn’t get wiped out too fast and basically just prolongs the tourney experience. Downside is you get one less night of partying. Khasha joined us for a dip in the ocean and then I took some pictures of Thoeum and Kyles last game during the sunset. Thoeum was on some serious pain meds and Kyle was on blocking strike. The other team was a couple of big hammers and they really hit some heavy balls. Kyle and Thoeums aspirations retired with the sun. They were out and it was getting dark. We grabbed dinner and breakfast for the next day at the store. Even Matt was too tired to do anything but eat and shower. We both hit the sack early. I had my fingers crossed, hoping to finally get some sleep for the first time in 72 hours.
To be continued ...
Read Part 3 Here
