Orange County Register vb article Courtesy Lynn
Chu Breaking news!!!<br>Beach break: Armato seeking
volleyball unification<br>The agent is trying to combine the
AVP and BVA, putting both on hold.<br>May 3,
2001<br>By SHAWN PRICE<br>The Orange County
Register<br><br>Dark clouds once again are hovering over professional
volleyball's beach party. For better or <br>worse, the sport
is going through its latest evolution while a
familiar face tries to unify the <br>sport into a more
Olympic-ready colossus.Super agent and former beach game player
<br>Leonard Armato has purchased the Beach Volleyball of
America tour from owner Charlie <br>Jackson. Now Armato,
a co-founder of the Association of Volleyball
Professionals in 1983, <br>is trying to buy that league by
Monday and unite it again as one tour if he can
gather<br>enough interested investors.The players' future is
uncertain and their patience is growing <br>thin. The
entire AVP schedule has been retracked and a BVA event
scheduled for this<br>weekend in Miami was canceled."I
don't think anybody really knows what's going on," said
<br>Olympic and BVA star Misty May of Costa Mesa. "I was in
China for a tournament when I <br>got the E-mail and I
sent it to my parents."In it, both men's and women's
players were <br>notified that Armato had filed a letter
of intent to the AVP majority owner Spencer Trask
<br>Ventures in New York to buy the AVP by April 30. That
decision has been extended one <br>week as both sides try
to agree on the deal.And while the unifying of the
two competing <br>tours is seen almost universally as
a good idea, some AVP athletes are less than
thrilled with <br>the idea of playing with international
rules, as Armato is expected to use."If going
<br>international is what they have to do, then it's what they have
to do," said Brent Doble of <br>Capistrano Beach.