Power and Grace: Misti May-Treanor of the U.S. in the 2008 Olympics gold medal match. Photo by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

By Ashley Harris

In the summer of  1996  I was formally introduced to spandex. Not long after my cousin, former U.S. National Volleyball Team member Penny Lucas-White, accepted the head women’s volleyball coaching position at the United States Air Force Academy; I spent the first of what would become many summers in Colorado Springs training with the some of the top players in the country. When I arrived for the first day of camp I was surrounded by young ladies my age who had at least two years playing experience on me. These girls wore their unadorned hair in high ponytails or buns. The sleeves of their t-shirts tucked lazily into the straps of their sports bras to keep arms bare, and yes, they had spandex on. Clearly, I missed the memo that an integral part of this sport is not only comfort, but also image, which are not mutually exclusive entities.

This is especially true in the beach variety of the game. Since the introduction of beach volleyball at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the two most frequently asked questions have all been variations on this theme: “Isn’t this terrible that the players are half-naked?” and “Isn’t this awesome that the players are half naked?” As a player I learned that the answers to both questions basically came down to this: Yes, there are a lot of practical and competitive reasons we wear these uniforms. And, no, sexualization of the sport isn’t one of them.

Sure, there are legion beach and indoor volleyball fans that tune in to watch hot girls in bikinis, and, you know, if there’s a game involved, so much the better. At least in the minds of some 15-year-old--or 60-year-old--males, watching taut, half-naked bodies drip in sweat as they dive into the sand is some version of nirvana, but there are actual reasons for the skimpy uniforms. First is comfort: the reduced amount of clothing helps cool body temperature in matches that are often played under a grueling mid-day sun. Some critics have argued that more dermis level injuries came from the lack of clothing. Possibly, but the majority of my injuries came from areas not normally covered by clothing anyway. I have left plenty skin on the court, but it came from my elbows, shins and wrists.

The uniforms are practical and more comfortable than wearing loose fitting clothing. Those first weeks of camp, while I was wearing my old baggy basketball shorts and t-shirts, I noticed the girls moved more efficiently on the court than I did. They seemed to jump higher and land faster. Not only did they seem lighter in the air, they were diving and getting up quicker - not drowning in mesh shorts that seemed to always get in my way. They were able to roll over their shoulder and see the net, not the hem of their shorts. Suddenly, my shorts felt like a parachute, impeding my blocking and hitting. Many of the players I admired, like the current U.S. women’s indoor captain Danielle Scott-Aruda, wore the smaller uniform and was able to command the court without looking self-conscious.

In fact, as I learned, it was just he opposite. There is nothing more intimidating than watching a group of twelve six-foot tall women slam a ball down at speeds of 90 mph and seeing nothing jiggle, wiggle or move on their bodies. Watch The University of Nebraska Lady Cornhuskers play one day. Watch May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. Watch the current Olympic team. They take their opponents out of the game before they step foot on the court by physical appearance alone. More than anything, they carried themselves like volleyball players. All sports have it, that certain swag that says “hey, I’m an athlete and I’ll kick your ass on the court/field/track/pool.” A 27-inch vertical didn’t matter to me anymore; I wanted to look like them.

I bought an acceptable pair of spandex shorts and a control top bikini to play in. At first, it was a bit of an unnerving, self-conscious experience. But soon noticed an improvement. I slid across the ground without worrying my shorts were going to fall off and expose my undies. I could get in the “ready” position--full squat, one foot slightly forward, and on the balls of my feet--prepared to pass the ball without having to constantly adjust my shorts before the whistle blew. The same applied with beach volleyball. Shorts and shirts were for amateurs. The effect was the same, I wasn’t stuck in my clothing after diving in the sand, I wasn’t fooling around with the waistband of my shorts and I wasn’t overheating under the blazing Colorado sun. Plus, I looked like I was about to hurt someone’s feelings on the court. As the years went on and I became a serious player, the shorts got shorter and the uniforms got tighter. It was great not to get stuck in my shirt or my teammates shirt when coming down from blocking the ball in tandem.

So to the naysayers I say, get over it. Consider that beach volleyball athletes have the option to wear one-piece bathing suits, but the majority choose not to. There’s function to the form, and as these gold medals keep rolling in from our nation’s top volleyball competitors people will soon remember that this is sport, not mud-wrestling.

For journalists, the Olympics is a marathon, not a sprint. But today is my sprint version, touching briefly on 10 items of Beijing business that are on my mind.

1) What an embarrassment that the IOC president Jacques Rogge bashed Jamaican superstar sprinter Usain Bolt for over-celebrating. Bolt has been one of the most appealing and engaging athletes of the Games and nobody I talked to thought his style reflected any disrespect for his rivals. Why doesn’t the IOC pick on somebody its own size? Like China maybe. It couldn’t work up the same righteous indignation when the Chinese reneged on key agreements like dispersal of information. And now they have reluctantly taken up the matter of China’s transparently underage gymnasts, flagrant cheating that is the moral and practical equivalent of doping.

2) The Beijing Games may be the best competitive Olympics I have seen in my long tenure. And credit the Chinese with brilliant organization and execution. But the obsession with security and keeping the buses running on time has kept us in a cocoon. There are no casual intersections between reporters and real people from Beijing—unless you leave the sports arena and venture into the city. But when most of us venture out, it’s to the not-so-real city, the tourist places like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. I loved how at the Sydney Olympics total strangers would beckon and say, “Buy you a beer, mate.” Here the Chinese who approach want only to take our picture—not even with them, but alone. We are simply curiosities

3) When I was a younger man, the winner of the medal count was the country that won the most medals. Somewhere along the way that switched and gold took on a primacy. Now the country that tops the charts is the one that wins the most gold. That will be China for the first time (and presumably forever now), though they probably won’t catch the United States in total medals. But the U.S. Olympic Committee today suggested a new, improved method of counting that would boost America’s standing: the total number of athletes who leave Beijing with gold medals around their necks. That new view is a reflection of the renewed strength of the United States in virtually all the team competitions.

4) The American softball team exited Beijing and the Olympics on a teary note. But the upset loss to Japan may come back to help them when the IOC considers reinstating softball for the 2016 Games. One of the complaints that led to softball getting booted from the Olympics in the first place was America’s dominance of the sport. With Tokyo and Chicago two of the four contenders to host the 2016 Olympics, that American loss could pay dividends when the IOC votes on softball’s future in the fall of 2009.

5) You couldn’t help but sympathize with the Brazilian women’s soccer coach, whose team had outplayed the Americans for the second straight Olympics and lost the gold medal in overtime for a second straight time. Brazil could have used a victory to bolster the support for the women’s game at home and perhaps throughout Latin American, where it is given short shrift. Still, he had nothing to be embarrassed about when it came to his team’s performance. The same can’t be said about Dunga, the Brazilian men’s coach. Brazil has not only abandoned its “beautiful game”, but it has adopted an ugly one, embracing the thuggish tactics of underskilled squads. Pele and others must be weeping as they watch.

6) The most frequent question we reporters are asked in correspondence from home is: What do you think of the NBC coverage? We see none of the NBC coverage so we have no opinions. If we see the Olympics on TV, it is on a private Olympic broadcast or on CCTV, Chinese television. CCTV has revealed to me the universality of sports broadcasting. Having watched so much sports on TV, I feel like I know what the Chinese commentators are saying based on the pitch of their voices.

7) The most pleasant surprise for the American team at these games is the indoor volleyball revival, with both the U.S. men and women reaching the gold-medal game. The biggest disappointment, without a doubt, is the track and field team. None of the biggest names on the team—Tyson Gay, Allyson Felix, Jeremy Wariner, Bernard Lagat, the shotput trio, Lolo Jones—took gold. And the performance in the 4X100 relay—dropped batons by both the men and the women was an embarrassment. It’s getting to be a bad habit. If U.S.A. basketball can command Kobe and LeBron to make a three-year commitment, can’t U.S.A. Track & Field stage a mandatory relay camp for its sprinters? The only consolation was that both teams spared themselves a whipping by Jamaica. As one press wag handicapped the men’s race, “For the U.S. to beat Jamaica, they would not only have to drop the baton, but lose it completely.” (Update: The Jamaican relay teams one-upped the Americans in every way. The women dropped the baton and, in their desperation, managed to collide with the British runners and knock them out of the race too; the men, however, held on and set a world record--a third world record for Bolt in one week!)

8) It’s been years now since Hollywood told us what all sports fans already knew: “White Men Can’t Jump.” But America’s black jumpers have come up short and low at this Olympics too. It would be bad enough that no American won a medal in the long jump, the high jump and the triple jump, events at which the country has long excelled. But no American even reached the finals. Are all our leapers going for the bigger money in basketball?

9) What the United States needs to catch the Chinese at future Olympics is more new “X” sports that were invented in America. Today was the debut of BMX and, while the American riders did not win a gold, they took three of the six medals. Can't do that in the longstanding Olympic cycling competitions. Where would the American medal count be, winter or summer, without the steady addition of non-traditional Olympics sports like half-pipe, short-track speedskating, snowboard cross and beach volleyball?

10) Sorry, boss. I have no idea who Michael Phelps may have been necking with at some party and—I know this comes as a shock—I couldn’t care less.