The white-gray skies beyond Manhattan Beach's 14th Street volleyball courts blur into the Pacific, deceiving the eye and erasing the surfers paddling out to catch waves. It's hazy, humid and too cold for this time of year. June gloom, as they call it in Los Angeles, upbeat SoCal singsong for "Where the hell is summer?" But if June brings the gloom this too-early Monday morning, Kerri Walsh Jennings arrives with the sunshine.

"Good morning, beautiful people," says the five-time Olympian. She drops a bag of volleyballs onto the sand and hugs her coaches and new teammate, Nicole Branagh. Despite the chill in the air, she zips off her hoodie and jogs toward the water, her tight blonde braid whipping from shoulder to shoulder. Twenty feet from the surf, she stops, plants her bare feet in the sand and begins a balletic routine of stretches and breathing, centering herself before returning to the bustle of the court.

For the past nine years, Walsh Jennings has come to this place to hone her body and her game in preparation for her sport's quadrennial peak at the Summer Olympics. Here, she finds comfort in consistency and routine. There's the same baby blue lifeguard tower, the same southerly view of Manhattan Beach pier, the same steep stone stairs that mark the beginning and end of each workout.

But the thing is, had last August gone to plan, had Walsh Jennings and her then-partner, April Ross, left Rio de Janeiro with gold medals, she might not be here this morning, chasing a fourth Olympic gold and fighting for the future of the sport that's made her an international star.

"Had April and I won in Rio, it would have been easier to say I'm done, go out on top, fairytale ending like Peyton Manning, or Kobe with the 60-point game," Walsh Jennings, 38, says. "I believe in happy endings. I believe I'm going to have that happy ending. That's my mission for the next four years, to dominate on the court and to help the world realize how amazing our sport is so they'll get behind us and help us to grow."

But after a public split in May with Ross and the Association of Volleyball Professionals, the 34-year-old U.S. domestic tour where she built a career, it's understandable if Walsh Jennings feels instead as if it's her against the world.

The most recent chapter of Walsh Jennings' career began with a whisper. Moments after she and longtime partner Misty May-Treanor, who was set to retire, won their third gold medal at the 2012 London Games, Walsh Jennings gave a conciliatory hug to her opponent, April Ross. In an unplanned moment that held promise to become legendary in its foresight, she whispered in Ross' ear, "Now, let's go win gold in Rio."

The next four years are as well documented as any in Walsh Jennings' career: She gave birth to her third child, daughter Scout, (Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant during her gold-medal match in London); made a move from the left to the right side of the court to accommodate her new partnership with Ross; had a fifth surgery to repair her right shoulder after tearing the labrum from the bone; then had the first Olympic loss of her beach volleyball career in Brazil in 2016.

"We were capable of winning gold and we knew we could," Ross says nearly 10 months later. "But we never blamed each other for anything." Instead, less than 24 hours after their semifinal defeat to Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas of Brazil, the teammates regrouped, refocused and defeated Brazilians Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes to win bronze.

One week later, they capitalized on the momentum of that match to dominate the World Series of Beach Volleyball in Long Beach, California, and win their fifth international title of 2016. Until that point, Walsh Jennings hadn't been ready to commit to another four-year cycle, but she also wasn't prepared to call it a career. "It had always been in my plans to go to Tokyo, but Kerri didn't know if she would retire or keep playing," Ross says. "I wanted to go to Tokyo together. We still had a lot of potential."

In Long Beach, with her Olympic heartbreak beginning to mend, Walsh Jennings started visualizing herself competing in 2020 and picking up the fourth gold medal she left lying on Copacabana Beach. "I had to take a moment after Rio," Walsh Jennings says. "I'm a mother to three beautiful kids. I'm a wife. My journey is not all about me. I still want to chase these big, beautiful dreams. But I need to do so being mindful of my tribe. That's why the pause was necessary."

The first year in any Olympic cycle is meant to be a reset, a slow jog at the beginning of a 48-month ramp-up to the Games. For Walsh Jennings, it also has become a time to recover from the hangover that inevitably sets in once the intensity of the Olympics wears off. "It can't be gangbusters for four years straight," she says.

But as the teammates were deciding their long-term future together, players began negotiating a new four-year deal with the AVP. Ownership knew negotiations could become tenuous, as several players had expressed concern that the tour's prize money and number of annual events weren't growing at a rate that justified pledging exclusivity to the AVP, as they had been asked to do in 2013.

There were other concerns, too, and one week after their Long Beach win, Walsh Jennings made some of those grievances public when she wrote a 950-word Facebook post informing fans that she and her husband, Casey Jennings, a longtime player on the AVP, had decided to boycott the tour's Chicago Championships in September because of the way in which two experimental rule changes -- that a team must be serving to win a match point and that a serve that hits the net and lands inbounds will be served again instead of winning a point for the serving team -- were being implemented at the event.

"I am not a fan of either of the rule changes, but that is not why I am sitting out," Walsh Jennings wrote in the post. "I am BOYCOTTING because of the fact that the AVP ownership decided to change the rules of the game WITHOUT honestly or meaningfully discussing it with the Player Committee or the athletes on tour ... In my opinion, this is utterly disrespectful of each and every athlete who virtually pays to work for the sport we all love and it is utterly disrespectful to the game itself ... The sport is strong. In order for the AVP to build upon this momentum and grow successfully, it is imperative that the players and management are on the same page."

The post was shared nearly 1,000 times and drew headlines in the days leading up to the tournament, threatening both her future with the tour and her partnership with Ross. "In our sport, the athletes have very little say, so we use the media, hopefully professionally and respectfully," Walsh Jennings says.

The AVP stood by its rule changes and, in a statement, president Donald Sun said that while the tour has "nothing but the utmost respect for Kerri as a person and a world class athlete," the tour is a "relatively young, evolving business" that "must continue to be nimble and evaluate ways to improve our game for fans and the brands and networks that support us and our players."

Knowing fans would turn out in Chicago to see Ross and Walsh Jennings play and not wanting to disappoint them, Ross chose to play in the tournament. She partnered with first-year AVP player Kelly Reeves and finished seventh. "I felt like I could support my decision while supporting and respecting [Walsh Jennings'] decision, but she felt a wedge was coming between us," Ross says. "As the AVP stuff got heated, the wedge grew and grew and it drove us apart."

IT'S MID-AFTERNOON in mid-June and Walsh Jennings is kneeling in the turf behind her Manhattan Beach home, a bucket of chalk by her knees. "I'm going to draw a picture of Scouty girl," she says to her youngest, who's now 4. She pulls a piece of pink chalk from the bucket and begins to draw on the short concrete wall that borders the family's backyard. "Pink eyes. Cute nose. Big smile." Nearby, sons Joey, 7, and Sundance, 5, work on a drawing of a snake with dad. Volleyballs and baseballs freckle the faux grass. A blue tarp is folded in the corner of the lot, remnants of a recent backyard campout.

When the Jennings designed this house, they opted for a narrower frame in exchange for a larger backyard. Five months ago, it is here that they began hosting weekly meetings to help players stay informed during negotiations with the AVP. "The goal of every meeting was to give information," Walsh Jennings says. "We focused on the top players because we wanted the influencers. The first meeting was huge. I invited the AVP, [World Series of Beach Volleyball founder] Leonard Armato and the chair of the board of USA Volleyball to come and lay out their plans and vision for the sport. I wanted to see a growth plan for the next four years." (USA Volleyball declined to comment for the story.)

It had been four years since Donald Sun, a former tech company exec and high school volleyball player, purchased the AVP out of bankruptcy for a reported $2 million and promised to do what former ownership was unable to do: keep the tour afloat and help to grow the sport domestically. In 2009, one year before the AVP filed for bankruptcy for the second time in 30 years, the tour featured more than $4.5 million in prize money. In the four years since Sun bought the AVP, it had expanded from two events to eight and annual prize money had increased to $1.2 million, which the players deemed insufficient to demand exclusivity.

"My goal is to fight for the players to have opportunities to play on the off weekends," Walsh Jennings says. "If the AVP is not playing on a weekend in July, let the athletes play on the NVL. One of the worst things about volleyball for the past 30 years is that everyone wants to hoard over their little fiefdom."

“It's not sustainable. I want our sport to be professional, and right now it's a hobby.” Kerri Walsh Jennings

Players wanted the opportunity to compete domestically in other events, including on the six-year-old National Volleyball League, which was formed in 2010 by former player Albert Hannemann. Few players in the U.S. have the means to compete internationally, so the NVL, which has been largely considered the minor leagues to the AVP, represents their only other real opportunity to make money.

Players made the same argument during negotiations in 2013, but most acquiesced and signed the contracts. And although the AVP granted dispensation, or exemption from the rule, for players to compete in FIVB (International Volleyball Federation, the sport's world governing body) events, including the World Series of Beach Volleyball, the same consideration was not extended to the NVL. Over the next few years, several players, including Chara Harris, Brooke Niles and Travis Schooner, were banned by the AVP for playing in NVL events.

"The athletes were unhappy with the AVP, but they were so afraid to seem ungrateful. And I fully appreciate that," Walsh Jennings says. "I am so grateful for the opportunities in my sport. However, unless you push for more and better, the status quo is going to be the same and the status quo right now is unsustainable. The lifestyle is beautiful, but you're living on the couch. You cannot make a living playing on the AVP."