HERMOSA BEACH, California — The first thing you notice about the criticisms of Kelly Cheng is that none of them make much sense.
Then again, fleetingly few of them ever have.
When Cheng and Sara Hughes announced their landscape-altering partnership last fall, forming what would quickly become the top-ranked team in the USA, and Cheng’s husband, Jordan, was kept on staff as the head coach, a whiff of potential nepotism was difficult to miss.
Despite Jordan helping Kelly — then Claes — and Sarah Sponcil to a pair of four-star gold medals in 2021 and a berth into the Tokyo Olympic Games, where they became the youngest team in USA history to compete in an Olympics, the online community, as it goes, was divided over whether Jordan was actually the right man for the new job … or if he was simply Kelly’s husband, along for the ride.
Which, when you take more than half a second to think about it, doesn’t make any sense at all. At first blush, the husband-wife link may appear to have played a factor. Kelly, after all, gets to spend the five or six months out of the year on the road with her husband. Their relationship, unlike many on the AVP and Beach Pro Tour, is not limited to pixelated FaceTimes across the world at odd hours of the day. It’s an undeniable benefit, and not an insignificant one.
“It is amazing that we get to do this together,” Kelly said.
It’s also nearly impossible, a perpetual testing of patience, emotional acuity, and Jedi mind tricks to deliver constructive — and occasionally pointed — criticism to your wife, who is also your player, who also, technically speaking, is your employer, who earns your paychecks, the size of which depends on her ability on the court, which is largely influenced by you, and who also wants to just, you know, enjoy the occasional minute or two not talking about volleyball, the sport around which your life and relationship revolves.
Good luck.
“We’re not doing it because it’s easy and comfortable,” Jordan said, laughing. “I told Kelly, ‘Hey, if I’m going to coach you, it’s because I believe I’m the best fit and I believe I’m one of the best coaches out there and I believe I can help you win a gold medal.’ I’m not going to sabotage my wife’s career, I’m not going to sabotage my own coaching career that I’ve worked really hard on.
“It’s funny, I think people get the…
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