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