Depending on the context, to say Ryan Doherty is “just a volleyball player” could be an insult.
But in the 31-year-old professional athlete’s case, it’s music to his ears because of what it took to reach the pinnacle of his current sport.
Doherty and his teammate, John Mayer (no, not that one), are among the favorites to win this weekend’s AVP Chicago Open at Oak Street Beach. While Doherty has been able to make a living solely by playing volleyball for three years now, his path from Notre Dame pitcher to one of the top athletes in a different sport strains believability.
“My summer job as a kid was helping set up a volleyball tournament,” said the native of Toms River, N.J., a baseball hotbed. “I’ve been around beach volleyball, so I picked it up. I used to pepper [practice] with my brother and stuff like that. But I never actually played until I was about 24 years old.”
After a brief minor league baseball career that ended in 2007, Doherty ping-ponged between odd jobs. So. Many. Odd. Jobs. That is until 2009, when he left South Carolina, where he was living at the time, for California to become a pro beach volleyball player.
Even for an experienced volleyball player, moving to Huntington Beach—America’s de facto beach volleyball capital—would be gutsy. For Doherty, who at the time was losing to virtually every pickup-game opponent in South Carolina, it was beyond insane.
Except to him, of course. It didn’t matter that he had only $5,000 in his bank account, no place to stay and no job prospects.
“It really always was full speed ahead,” he said. “There were some lean years in there where I didn’t have a lot of money. I had to work two jobs to basically get by and not starve to death. But I was having a ton of fun. … I had very little stress in my life aside from the fact I didn’t have any money.”
In 2012, he teamed with Casey Patterson, and the two won the first tournament they played together. More impressive, they beat Olympic gold medalists Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser in the final.
“That was a pretty good moment of saying, ‘You know what, I could be pretty good at this game. I think I’m going to keep playing and see where I could take it,’ ” Doherty said.
“I quit my pizza [delivery] job after that. … For the past three years I’ve competed on both the domestic and international tours and made enough money doing that to where those have been my only jobs.”
He and Mayer won their first AVP tournament together a few weeks ago in Seattle. The organization, which went bankrupt in 2011, is holding an event in Chicago for the first time since 2009.
“Ryan has improved as much or more than anyone on tour these past three, four years,” Mayer said. “He isn’t afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. He doesn’t fear the big moments. I think he’ll continue to improve and impress.”
Doherty has had success in Chicago; he and a different teammate finished first at a Jose Cuervo-sponsored tournament in 2012. If he and Mayer continue to play well, they could qualify to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics.
Of course for Doherty all that is secondary to, well, whatever he’s having fun doing. He plans on using a simple formula once he’s done competing.
“I find something that I really like and then I trick somebody into paying me to do it,” Doherty said, laughing. “So if I can continue that streak, then I’m going to do all right, whatever I find.”
Chris Sosa is RedEye’s sports editor. @redeyesportschi