If you’ve been watching the AVP on NBC or been able to attend an event in person this season, you’ve noticed stadium court has a new look with bamboo and palm trees. With the way the site was set up in New York being on a pier, the updated looked couldn’t fit. Fortunately for us, the skyline of the city was all the decoration we needed. And once again, the New York fans showed up and were energetic all weekend. Normally we aren’t on TV until the Finals on Sunday, but this past weekend we had some bonus live TV coverage on Saturday evening for the quarterfinal matches. From my perspective, the fans were as lively and passionate for the TV show on Saturday as they are for any finals. They were also treated to two of our Olympic Teams, Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena and Kerri Walsh-Jennings and April Ross, which made the excitement of the matches that much more enjoyable.
Our Olympians did not disappoint in New York. Kerri and April along with Phil and Nick won the tournament and are looking good as they make their way to Rio. We also had another 2-time Olympian, Sean Rosenthal, who had the highlight of the finals with a monster left handed hit (he’s right handed in case you were wondering) from the right side of the court that was in the realm of his famous “Vegas Line” hit. It was nice to see Sean back in the finals along with his new partner, Jeremy Casebeer, who experienced the finals for the first time in his career. I’m looking forward to seeing their partnership develop.
This year on the AVP we’ve been giving the fans, and the online viewers, a shot at playing DJ. A few times during each tournament we ask the fans to “Tweet The DJ” with the hashtag #ServeThatSong and if I deem the song worthy, then I’ll play it and shout-out the person who made the song request. What I like about this is it gives me the opportunity to potentially play a song I wouldn’t normally play, like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen that I played in Seattle. There will always be the popular requests like “Can’t Stop the Feeling” by Justin Timberlake and “Work” by Rihanna, but I’ll also get requests for “Return of the Mack” and “This Is How We Do It” like I did in New York.
— DJ Roueche —
DJ Roueche has been controlling dance floors for over 20 years with his seamless genre-blending style. He has been the official DJ for the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour for over 13 years now.
JRo is also the contributing music editor to Volleyball magazine and President of VALA Entertainment. He received the AVP Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and is a voting member of the USAV All Time Great Beach Volleyball Player Committee.