Loiola Discovers His Place in the Sun

Jim Menges remembers the first time he saw Jose Loiola play a beach volleyball match four years ago.

“He had a lot of raw talent and a great deal of volleyball skills,” said Menges, who won 43 beach volleyball tournaments in his career. “He just didn’t know how to control his emotions. He was a little wild.”

Since making his debut on the Miller Lite/AVP Tour in 1993 with fellow Brazilian Anjinho Bacil, Loiola has become the game’s fastest-rising star. This season, he and new partner Kent Steffes have won seven of 10 events and are seeded first in this weekend’s $300,000 tournament at Hermosa Beach. It’s the former Manhattan Beach Open, moved just down the beach after an environmental group got a court order to keep the event out of Manhattan Beach.

In less than five seasons on the tour, Loiola has won 20 tournaments and $961,497.

And through it all, he has remained one of the tour’s most intense and animated players, to the point that other, more reserved competitors also are showing more emotion on the court.

“I worked my butt off to be in this position, and I only did it by being professional and having fun at the same time,” said Loiola, who grew up outside Rio de Janeiro and did not speak English when he arrived in the United States in 1993. “I do not play uptight because I know how hard I work. . . . I’m always trying to get better and better.

Loiola credits his fiancee, Pamela Graham, for his quick adjustment to the United States and for making his life simpler so he could work on his volleyball career.

“I don’t know how we communicated with each other at first because he spoke absolutely no English,” said Graham, who is expecting the couple’s second child in October. “But . . . he’s always been extremely focused in whatever he does. As soon as he tasted his first win, nothing else was good enough. He’s so determined.”

Loiola wants to be remembered as the hardest-working player on the tour. He works out at least four hours, four days a week between tournaments. From weight training to cardiovascular exercises, Loiola attacks every workout with the same intensity.

“Most guys don’t really work, but Jose does,” said Menges, who coaches Loiola and Steffes. “He touches a volleyball five to six days a week to go along with his other workouts. You have to like his spirit because he really wants to be the best and he’s willing to listen.”

Loiola, 27, began this season by winning the “King of the Beach,” an annual tournament to decide the best overall beach volleyball player. After finishing runner-up his first two seasons on the tour, Loiola joined Karch Kiraly and Adam Johnson as the only players to have won the King of the Beach title.

“The guy is on fire. . . . I love playing with him,” said Steffes, who joined Loiola this season after being a longtime partner with Kiraly--his 1996 Olympic gold medalist teammate who had shoulder surgery in October. “There are a lot of good players on the tour, but he’s just fun to play with. He has a real love of the game.”

Loiola arrived on the beach volleyball scene in the summer of 1993 when he and Bacil finished second at the FIVB World Championships in Brazil. In his first season on the AVP tour, Loiola was named rookie of the year after he and Bacil made it to the finals three times.

In 1995, Loiola and Bacil became the first international team to win an AVP event at the Evian indoor in Washington, but soon afterward, Loiola made his first partner switch when he joined Johnson, who had been partners with Steffes.

“I had a chance to step up my game by playing with Adam, so I did,” Loiola said. “He helped take my game to a different level as I learned to be more professional. He was really good to me.”

Loiola and Johnson became only the fourth team to win both the Manhattan Beach Open and the U.S. Championships at Hermosa Beach in the same year in 1995.

The next season, they won seven more tournaments, reached 13 finals, and Loiola was named by his peers offensive player of the year.

But during the off-season, Loiola made a controversial switch when Steffes asked him to become his partner after Kiraly suffered the injury that would force to miss the first half of this season.

“I wanted to take another step up like I did when I became partners with A.J., that’s why I joined Kent,” Loiola said.

It was an easy decision for Loiola, but it was not well received by Johnson, who has not spoken to Loiola this season.

“Adam and I had chemistry, but it is different with Kent,” Loiola said. “A.J. is not a great blocker. Kent can block and jump serve. Also with Kent, I have a lot of fun playing. With Adam, I had fun but not as much.”

The fun continued Friday as Loiola and Steffes won their first two matches of the tournament after receiving a first-round bye. They defeated Leland Quinn and Marcelo Duarte, 15-10, and then scored a 16-14 overtime victory over Daniel Cardenas and Eduardo Bacil.

Kiraly and Johnson were not so fortunate, falling to Lee Legrande and Matt Unger, 13-11, in the biggest upset of the day to fall into the contender’s bracket.

“I had to do what is best for me,” Loiola said about switching to Steffes. “The way I feel about Kent and I is that when we play our game, we can beat anybody. We don’t worry about anyone else.”