SEAL BEACH VOLLEYBALL / MIKE REILLEY : For Most Part, Players Are Happy With Changes in the Sport

Sinjin Smith played for little more than a hearty handshake and a cold beer when he started on the professional beach volleyball tour in 1977.

But much has changed with the sport in the past 14 years with TV contracts, increased purses and admission being charged for courtside seats.

And some players, such as Smith, think the sport is drifting away from its beach roots.

“I had no idea I would be making this kind of money when I started,” said Smith, who has won $830,000 and 124 tournaments, more than any other player. “The sport’s definitely changing at this level.”

Pro beach volleyball has grown from its humble beginnings, where players traveled together in vans to tournaments from Santa Cruz to San Diego and played for little, if any, prize money.

“There were only 10 stops, all in California,” Smith said. “The entire purse was only about $5,000.”

The tour, which became the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals in 1983, now features 25 stops, stretching from this weekend’s $100,000 Seal Beach Open to Cape Cod, Mass., and Cleveland. Prize money has exceeded $2.5 million this season.

But some players say the recent changes and growth have hurt the sport.

At the heart of the discussion is the AVP’s multi-year TV contract with NBC. The tour has set a 42-minute time clock for the three championship matches televised live by NBC this season.

“We’ve gone away from our roots,” said Randy Stoklos, Smith’s partner. “But you have to in any pro sport because of TV. I’m not saying TV controls all sports, but we have to bend over backward for it because of the dollars.”

Smith and Stoklos, the top-seeded beach team the past 10 years, said they don’t like seeing time limits on matches.

“They’re shortening the game too much,” Smith said. “NBC wants it live, and it’s risky because we want to put on a good show. If we don’t fill the time slot with good volleyball, then they (network executives) won’t think it’s a worthwhile sport to televise.”

But Smith said time restraints detract from the excitement. Some finals have lasted as long as 80 or 90 minutes, testing a player’s physical and mental toughness.

“The best games are the ones that go deuce in the end,” Smith said. “Those are the matches people remember.

“Prime Ticket televises our matches tape-delay and lets us have as much time as we want. NBC should tape-delay it, too, like a half a day or something.”

Jon Stevenson, AVP president and a player on the tour, said the first NBC telecast--the Milwaukee Open two weeks ago--drew 15 million viewers.

“It guarantees some very big numbers for us,” he said. “The deal couldn’t be better. It’s a test for our sport, to see how it appeals to the U.S. sports fan.”

And fans soon will have to pay to see it live.

Stevenson said the tour also will be charging for the 6,000 main-court bleacher seats as early as next year. Sites such as the Fresno Open have charged in the past for box seats at main court.

“The hard-core beach people are saying, ‘No, don’t sell the seats,’ ” Stevenson said.

But the sport’s increasing popularity has tour officials concerned about crowd control, and one way to handle it is charging admission. Stops at Manhattan Beach, Seal Beach and Hermosa Beach regularly draw more than 30,000 people over two days.

“There’s no doubt that the venues are becoming more and more controlled,” Stevenson said. “We don’t want to leave in the dust the fact that we’re playing on the beach. But the fans I’ve talked to were unanimous in saying they would gladly pay for a good seat and for security.”

Stevenson said some sites will have admission gates as early as next summer.

“It’ll be a nominal fee,” he said. “Something like $5. There’s no real profit incentive there.”

Top teams advance: Shortly before his quarterfinal match, Smith was describing the pressures of being top-seeded with Stoklos.

“The pressure just blows me away,” he said. “The guys we play, it always seems like they put together their best games against us. If they played that well the rest of the way, they would win the damn tournament.”

Smith and Stoklos then survived a scare from ninth-seeded Eric Wurts of Huntington Beach and Roger Clark of Pacific Palisades in the quarterfinals, rallying from a 12-5 deficit for a 16-14 victory.

Smith and Stoklos advanced to today’s winners’ bracket semifinals against fifth-seeded Brent Frohoff and Scott Ayakatubby, both of Hermosa Beach, in the second day of the double-elimination tournament.

Ayakatubby and Frohoff became partners earlier in the week when Ayakatubby’s regular partner, two-time Olympic gold medalist Steve Timmons of Manhattan Beach, announced he would miss the tournament because of a shoulder injury.

The other semifinal will match second-seeded Kent Steffes of Pacific Palisades and Karch Kiraly of San Clemente against 11th-seeded Owen McKibbin of Santa Monica and Tim Walmer of Manhattan Beach.

Ayakatubby and Frohoff defeated 13th-seeded Brian Lewis of Newport Beach and Scott Friederichsen of Laguna Hills, 15-6, in the quarterfinals.

Lewis and Friederichsen had pulled one of Saturday’s biggest upsets, beating fourth-seeded Adam Johnson of Capistrano Beach and Ricci Luyties of Pacific Palisades, 15-7, in the second round.

Luyties and Johnson, winners of the past two stops on the tour, Cleveland and Milwaukee, defeated U.S. national team members Bryan Ivie of Manhattan Beach and Scott Fortune of Laguna Beach, 15-10, in the first round.

The other major upset also came in the second round, when 19th-seeded Bill Boullianne of Santa Monica and Pono Ma’a of Honolulu beat third-seeded Tim Hovland of Playa del Rey and Mike Dodd of Manhattan Beach, 15-9.

Dodd and Hovland renewed their partnership last week after breaking up last year. Together, they won 55 tournaments and more than $1 million in 10 seasons.

After easy victories in the first two rounds, Smith and Stoklos, the top-ranked team the past 10 years, ran into trouble against Wurts and Clark.

They fell behind, 12-5, and fought off game point at 14-13.

Smith, 34, who has been slowed by wrist and knee injuries, had a kill to tie it, 14-14. They took the lead when Clark hit a ball out, and Stoklos ended the match with an ace.

“We got off to a slow start against them,” Stoklos said. “Sinjin’s never a great starter. Sometimes I want to get him by the fire just before the match to get him warmed up and going.”

Smith-Stoklos can clinch first place in the tour’s grand prix point standings with a third-place finish at Seal Beach. If they win the points title, they would split $140,000. “There’s nothing like being No. 1,” Stoklos said. “We’ve been the No. 1-seeded team for the last 10 years and no one talks about it. But we’ve been fending them off.”

You asked for it, you got it: Someone asked Stoklos about the appeal of the AVP tour nationwide.

“People dream of coming to California,” he said. “They see the guys playing on the tour, all Californians. Most of the guys out here are good-looking, well-conditioned. It promotes sexiness. What more would people want, a strip show?”

Then, shortly after Kiraly and Steffes’ quarterfinal victory at main court, the fans poured out of their seats to watch two women stripping behind the grandstands.

Winning pitch: Oakland A’s pitcher Rick Honeycutt had the honor of being one of the judges for the Miss Miller Lite contest.

After he was introduced to the crowd, Honeycutt said: “We’re looking forward to beating the Dodgers in the World Series this year.”

You think he was booed?

Notes

Competition resumes at 8 a.m. today, with the championship match tentatively scheduled for 3 p.m. . . . Prime Ticket will televise the finals at 8 p.m. Wednesday and 8 p.m. Friday.