When longtime beach volleyball player Jeff Conte removed a few trees from the backyard of his Upper Marquez home, he was struck by the amount of space that suddenly became available. That’s when he got an idea – “Maybe I could put a beach volleyball court back here.”
To make sure he had enough space, Conte contacted one of his beach volleyball buddies, Dave Doubroff, the former Director of Operations for the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals).
“I only wanted to do it if I could make it a regulation-size court like the ones we play on at the beach,” said Conte, an athletic lefty who has been playing two-man and four-man games at Will Rogers State Beach and other local beaches for more than 20 years.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
After they took measurements and decided it was do-able, the next step was convincing Conte’s wife Michelle, who doesn’t play volleyball, to go along with the idea. “That took about a year,” Conte said with a laugh.
Once he got the greenlight from his wife, Conte contacted another of his beach volleyball buddies, local contractor Miguel Vidaurre, to come up with a plan to build it.
That’s when the project really got underway. The first step was leveling the yard, which involved building up an existing wall on the pool. “Building up to level things out was a lot less expensive than taking earth away,” Conte explained.
Finding the right sand turned out to be a lot more difficult than anticipated. Conte searched and searched but kept coming up empty. “Some places had playground sand, but that was really coarse, so it wouldn’t work,” he said.
Frustrated, Conte eventually sought out another beach volleyball expert, Billy Berger, a former CEO of the AVP. “He had just built a court, and he referred me to a place in San Juan Capistrano that sells the same sand they use at the Olympics for beach volleyball,” Conte said.
That firm, P.W. Gillibrand Co., Inc., serves up sand that is scrubbed, washed and air-dried, making it ideal for the bump-set-spike crowd.
How much sand did it take to create the court, which is 14 inches deep and measures 52 feet, 6 inches by 26 feet, 3 inches? 100 tons!
Four trucks, each hauling 25 tons of sand, made their way up the hill to Conte’s Upper Marquez backyard. Some types of sand can be pumped directly from the trucks to their final destination, but not volleyball sand. Instead, Conte and his contractor Vidaurre had to build a ramp and get a Bobcat to hoist the sand over the backyard wall.
With the sand situation solved, there was still one potential problem. As any serious volleyball player knows, getting a ball wet ruins it, and Conte’s pool was a little too close for comfort. To make sure the volleyball wouldn’t go sailing into the pool Conte had to get creative. He ran a 100-foot cable from one side of the yard to the other from tree to tree and hung 10-foot-high netting. With tall trees surrounding the court on three sides plus the netting, the ball stays on the court.
The backyard beach volleyball court was finally completed in the Spring of 2013, and Conte soon began hosting a regular Friday afternoon four-man game. With the court right in the backyard, Conte’s son has also started learning the game and plays with his friends whenever he gets a chance.
Conte says the court is well worth the nearly four months it took to build. “It’s so much fun having a beach volleyball court in the backyard,” Conte said. “It’s great for entertaining – you can hang out, cook, eat, drink and play volleyball all in the same place. Our friends love it, and our kids love it to.”
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