Costa Mesa’s April Ross reflects on nearly two decades in beach volleyball

April Ross remembers beach training with the Newport Harbor High girls’ volleyball team some 25 years ago.

Her indoor volleyball coach there, Dan Glenn, always told her that she would be a great beach volleyball player. Not that she ever believed him as a teenager.

Glenn was big on cross-training at the beach, so the team would go there to train in the off-season.

“I just hated those days, because usually they involved conditioning on the sand,” Ross remembered. “I thought that was so hard, and it is so hard, even though now I know that Newport has almost the most shallow sand in Southern California. If you’re going to do conditioning, that’s where you want to do it, but at the time it felt really hard.”

Ross, now 42, made her career look easy, moving from a dominant indoor career to nearly two decades on the sand in beach volleyball.

She won three Olympic medals, including a gold with partner Alex Klineman in 2021 in Tokyo. Now, the Costa Mesa resident is walking away.

April Ross celebrates after capturing the Olympics Beach Volleyball Women’s Gold Medal Match at Shiokaze Park in Tokyo in 2021.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

She announced on Instagram on Monday that she is retiring at the end of the season. Ross and Klineman play together for possibly the last time this weekend at the AVP League stop in Oceanside at Frontwave Arena.

Ross and Klineman, competing for the Miami Mayhem, play in Saturday’s opening match against Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles of the L.A. Launch, then play Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon of the Brooklyn Blaze in the third match on Sunday.

If the Mayhem qualify for the first AVP League Championship — they enter the weekend 7-5 and in the fourth and final qualification spot from the eight-team league — Ross will play again Nov. 9-10 at Dignity Health Sports Park.

Still, this could be it. Either way, a retirement ceremony is planned for Nov. 9 at the year-ending championship.

“I would really like to do well this weekend so we make the championship,” Ross said. “I will have family and friends in the stands, for sure, just in case it is my last match. If it is, I’ll definitely be sad, but my overwhelming sense of my whole career is that I’m very happy and feel lucky to have lived it. I’m very content with retiring.”

April Ross, right, shown celebrating with teammate Alix Klineman at the 2019 Huntington Beach Open, won an Olympic gold medal with her in Tokyo.

(Courtesy of AVP)

Ross was the Gatorade National Player of the Year at Newport Harbor High as a senior in 1999-2000. She went on to play indoor volleyball at USC, where she helped the Trojans win back-to-back NCAA championships in 2002 and 2003 and was a four-time All-American.

Beach volleyball has proven to be plenty fruitful, too. She won 41 tournaments on the AVP Tour with six different partners. Her 71 career domestic and international tournaments won is third-best all time among women, behind only Kerri Walsh Jennings (135) and Misty May-Treanor (112).

May-Treanor, herself a Newport Harbor graduate, was one of many beach volleyball standouts to comment on Ross’ post on Instagram.

“April you are a rockstar!!!,” she wrote. “Thank you for carrying the torch. You are an amazing player and now a mom.”

At the Olympics, Ross and partner Jennifer Kessy won silver in London in 2012. She then won bronze with Walsh Jennings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016.

“After Rio, for a minute, I considered how much longer I wanted to play,” Ross said. “Did I want to go for another Olympics? I didn’t know who I was going to play with. I decided that I wasn’t done, I still had this motivation to chase a gold medal. Obviously, I’m so glad I did and found Alix Klineman. It really feels like my career is complete because I did that. It makes this retirement much easier.”

Ross said without having the Olympics as the end goal of a quad, it takes away some of the motivation to train at the highest level.

Three-time Olympic medalist April Ross receives not only a certificate of recognition and the key to the city of Costa Mesa from Mayor John Stephens, but also a sign naming April Ross Court after her during the Orange County Olympians Parade in 2021.

(File Photo)

“Without that, it’s hard to justify doing all of that just to have it as my job, even though it was the best job in the world for me for 20 years,” she said. “Going forward, I think it makes more sense to do other things.”

Both Ross and Klineman, together known as the “A-Team,” came back from having babies to compete this year with Miami. Ross’ son with Josh Riley, also named Ross, turns a year old next week.

April Ross and Riley got married last month. She also was hired to be the beach volleyball coach at El Camino College earlier this year.

“I want to see what my schedule is like with El Camino, and then I might add some more things,” she said. “I’d really like to commentate, then possibly do more after that. I’ve just been on the grind for so long — my whole life almost — that I want to make sure I have time with my family.

“I definitely also want to stay involved in the sport, and I’d like to use my experience and the knowledge I’ve acquired to mentor younger athletes and help them chase their own dreams. They don’t have to be the same ones as mine, obviously, but whatever they’re trying to do in their lives.”