It’s winning time, with volleyball’s most dominant player

Editor’s note: Kent Steffes, this week’s guest, and Travis Mewhirter recently published a book, Kings of Summer: The Rise of Beach Volleyball. You can find it on Amazon. 

Kent Steffes almost died two weekends ago. Honest to God. Made a surprise appearance at the Manhattan Six-Man and felt his heart rate double then triple and then his brain began dumping memories, so many memories, into the forefront of his mind that, had he actually gone down that day, a coroner may have proclaimed it death by nostalgia.

You have to hear him talk about it on our podcast, SANDCAST with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter.

“That’s why I can’t go,” Steffes said of beach volleyball tournaments. “I was so excited my heart was pounding, I was going to have a heart attack, which would have been really bad because I would have died. I was so excited, my heart was pounding, I was about to pass out. That’s how great it was.

“I loved playing beach volleyball. I loved playing tournaments as a kid. As a player, I couldn’t wait to get out there and it all floods back to me. That’s why I can’t get out there. It’s too exciting. It’s so fun. Beach volleyball’s an amazing sport. I still think about it, and I’m 54.”

Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times and you won’t find a quote like that anywhere between the years of 1988, Steffes’ first professional season on the AVP, and 1998, his last. On that matter, you can trust me. I’ve done it. Spent hours upon hours upon countless hours at the Newport Beach Public Library researching for Kings of Summer — much of the research was done when I still lived in Costa Mesa, California — reading through every Los Angeles Times story that mentioned the word beach volleyball.

For somewhere around a year now, I’ve either talked or met with Steffes multiple times a week as we hashed out the final details of Kings of Summer. The difference between the perception of Steffes as a player in the ’90s and the actual man is staggering. The man painted by the Los Angeles Times is one of a cold, calculating, win-at-all-costs player who was savage in his relationships, a man who cared about two things in life, and two things only: Winning, and money.

There are, of course, truths to these stereotypes, much of which is also Steffes’ own doing. He’s one of the sharpest, more brilliant men I’ve ever met. He knew what the…