ONE ON ONE
Beach volleyball world champion Jen Kessy and 12-year old Lily Dyer from San Clemente, Calif., have a common love for the beach game and a strong desire to play it really, really well.
t’s a sunny afternoon in San Cle- mente, Calif., and Jen Kessy, who forms the world’s fourth-ranked beach volleyball team with April Ross, is talking with great enthusiasm about her love for pizza. The subject came up when her interviewer, 12-year-old beach/indoor player Lily Dyer (San Clemente, Calif.), asked her to name her greatest pleasure. “There’s a place in France that makes the most amazing pizza, and every time I go there, I’ll eat the entire pizza,” says Kessy, whose boyfriend is French pro beach player Andy Ces. “Pizzas aren’t that big in France,” she adds, forming a circle with her fi ngers the size of a smile plate, presumably to prevent misconceptions that she has gluttonous eating habits. “I don’t talk the entire time, and I just savor every bite. It’s good that this place is in France so I can’t go very often.” One slice of pizza a month is about all Kessy allows herself, which goes to show that sacrifi ce is a key component to great suc- cess in pro beach volleyball. That’s a lesson that Dyer, who sets for the 14-1s team at South County Volleyball Club in Southern California and is already in USA Volleyball’s Beach High Performance pipeline, has ap- parently already learned. She used to play soccer, basketball and baseball with the boys – “When I pitched, the dads would make it tense for them by yelling, ‘You’re hitting off a girl!’’’she says – but she recently gave up the other sports so she could get really good at volleyball. Kessy, 34, reached really good status a long time ago and graduated to really great. In 12 years of pro beach volleyball, she has won 23 tournaments, including the Swatch FIVB World Championships with Ross in
I SAND CLEMENTE: Pro Jen Kessy, left, talked beach volleyball with junior standout Lily Dyer.
2009 in Stavanger, Norway. The former Uni- versity of Southern California All-American in indoor volleyball is a virtual lock to rep- resent the U.S. in beach volleyball with Ross next summer at the Olympics in London. Dyer, the fourth of six siblings (four boys, two girls), has talents that stretch beyond sports, including piano, singing and surfi ng. She’s pretty good as an interviewer, too. Her questions spawned many good answers from Kessy, who wrapped up the interview by pre- senting Dyer with a signed volleyball and a goody bag that included cool sunglasses and a stylin’ watch.
Lily Dyer: Where did you grow up? Jen Kessy: I grew up in this area that we’re in right now. San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point, San Clemente area. My parents both graduated from San Clemente High School, so I’ve been in this area forever, and I still live here.
How many days and hours a week do you play? We practice Monday through Friday from about 9:30 to 12. Then three of those days,
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we go directly to the gym and do a cardio circuit. The other two days, I’ll run on the beach or maybe run one day and do hot yoga the other day. On Saturday or Sunday, we do some type of cardio on our own, and one of those days is totally off. So we’re working on our fi tness six days a week.
When you were young, did you play other sports? I did. I started with soccer, then I was a gymnast for about 10 years. I also played softball for years – on a club team – until I discovered volleyball, and then everything else wasn’t as important.
When did you start playing volleyball? I started playing volleyball in seventh grade when it was just an after-school activity. It was on the blacktop. I was really terrible, but I could hit the ball really hard. I was a gymnast at the time, and that was when I was playing soccer and softball, too. So when I asked my mom about playing volleyball, she said, “Absolutely not. You can’t do any more.” So I just begged her and begged her and she fi nally gave in.
Lily & Jen
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