Dana Camacho: Entertainer, competitor

Dana Camacho: Entertainer, competitor

Published Aug. 24, 2012 11:08 p.m. ET

"That was too easy. I'm not going to lie."

Dana Camacho is only getting warmed up.

It's less than one set into the qualification tournament on the eve of the Manhattan Beach Open - now part of the popular Jose Cuervo Beach Volleyball Series - and Camacho has just earned his team a point with a deft tip past his net-crashing opponents. He's also opened the event up to some friendly – and some not as friendly – trash talking, one of many aspects that make him among the most entertaining and compelling players on the sand.

"That was a bad move. Keep that s--- away from me," he yells across the net after winning a point.

"Better stick to volleyball, Dana!" yells a fan after an errant ball from an adjacent court is drop kicked by Camacho towards the general location from which it came, if "general" was used loosely.

It is apparently an open forum of opinions on Court 6, and Camacho has several poignant observations directed towards his opponents. Some are even weathered by his partner, Pepe Delahoz.

"It's definitely an advantage with a lot of people," Delahoz says of his partner's gamesmanship. "If you don't know how to handle that, it's definitely going to affect you. So we definitely have a very tough mental game. I'm already used to playing with Dana, so I know what kind of things are going to happen."

One of those "things" happens to be the most unique serve in beach volleyball. Camacho has perfected a "sky ball" serve, in which he stands perpendicular to the court and uses his entire force to underhandedly punch the ball skyward, applying enough spin to allow the wind to direct the ball to where he'd like it to land. Though he's been known to cue up the serve on demand, on Friday it was the only one he chose to use. He tallied four aces and mis-served only once in his second round victory (21-16, 21-10) over Mason Chevron and Andor Gyulai Friday afternoon.

Camacho, a Venice Beach resident who grew up outside of Miami and won his first A-tournament at age 11, began practicing the sky ball serve at 14 and had mastered it several years later.

"When I was around 14, 15, I just was bored, and it's always windy in Florida, so you get to practice crazy spin serves and stuff. Just practiced one day, and it worked."

It's hard not to immediately think of a knuckle ball when first exposed to the sky serve. Imagine Phil Niekro discussing how he developed his knuckle ball – if Niekro was shirtless, tattooed and smoked an occasional cigarette between games.

"In terms of wind or moving, you've got to make sure you move your feet, because the ball's going to move on you on the last second," said Gyulai, a 1998 NCAA volleyball champion at UCLA and the creator of Volleyball1on1.com, an instructional website that features videos of Camacho's serves.

"It's as good as it's going to get," Camacho said of the serve's development, "but people learn how to pass it, and they get used to it, and then it's easy."

Camacho and Delahoz's third round opponents Friday – the pair received a bye in the opening qualification round – were able to withstand the freakishly useful serve, dealing the pair a three-set loss.

It was a disappointment when considering some of Camacho's earlier successes this summer. He won two California Beach Volleyball Association tournaments with Olympian Sean Rosenthal, and teamed with Andrey Belov to win a pair of tournaments while also finishing in a respectable ninth place at the well-attended Jose Cuervo Series stop in Hermosa Beach last month.

Though his throwback style is both captivating and entertaining, don't mistake it for a lack of competitiveness. He doesn't sugarcoat anything when discussing his objective at every tournament.

"It's about the money for me. If I don't win, I don't get a paycheck. That's not good," the 35-year old said. "It's always trying to do as good as I can and get as much money as I can. If it doesn't work out that way, it's considered a bad weekend."

With that in mind, the head games he's played with his opponents serve a greater purpose than that of simply trying to belittle his opponent. He's searching for any dent in the armor that will allow him access to that next game.

"Some people don't like it. Some do," Camacho said. "We're friends. I'm friends with all of ‘em, so they can take the s--- talking. People like it."

Inch for inch, the 5-foot-9 Camacho is one of the most talented beach volleyball players on any circuit. Though the sky serve gained him attention and added to his notoriety, he possessed some of the best ball control out of any of the competitors during the tournament's qualifying round and a keen instinct of knowing exactly where to be. His positioning and his digging ability allowed him and Delahoz to be in command of most of the volleys in their two-set defeat of Chevron and Gyulai, two players with a significant size advantage.

Beach volleyball has exploded in popularity through the last two Olympic cycles, and despite the collapse of the AVP, the Cuervo Series has been able to sustain the sport's scope and outreach with a party-type atmosphere.

There are players like Olympians Jake Gibb and Rosenthal competing at this weekend's Manhattan Beach Open, while Whitney Pavlik and Jenny Kropp will be vying for their fifth Cuervo tournament win in 2012 as they appear on the precipice of testing the waters for an international career that, if successful, could culminate in a spot in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

As for Camacho? He's making a living playing and coaching a sport he loves, one that allows him to stay in shape, earn money by virtue of his athletic skill, and maybe even talk a little bit of smack.

"If there's anyone who can get you frustrated, it's him." Gyulai said. "You know what I mean? He's Dana. I don't know what else to say. It's just part of the thing, you know? You just go with it, and you know it's going to happen."

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