Life's a beach for this lucky volleyball duo

When Annett Davis became pregnant with her first child and went on leave from her job, Jenny Johnson Jordan was left in a bit of a predicament.

Johnson Jordan is Davis' longtime partner on the AVP Tour, the professional beach volleyball circuit in the United States. And the two had never teamed up with anyone else on the sand.

"I had to go get a new partner and it was weird having to get used to someone else," Johnson Jordan said. "But then I got pregnant shortly after that, so it didn't matter. I also stopped playing."

After taking off the 2001 season, Davis and Johnson Jordan coordinated their comeback to the AVP Tour the following summer -- and then seemingly their second pregnancies three years later as well.

"Actually, it really wasn't a conscious decision," Johnson Jordan said. "We both felt it would be a good time for another baby, and we were both able to get pregnant right around the same time."

The two then missed the entire 2005 season. Not that another hiatus mattered much.

Nothing seems to derail these two college friends and teammates from UCLA -- not extended time away from the game, not the demands of motherhood.

Davis and Johnson Jordan, who are at North Avenue Beach through Sunday playing in the McDonald's Chicago Open, have somehow maintained one of the best partnerships in sports. Together since 1997, they have played in more career tournaments than any other twosome in the history of U.S. professional beach volleyball.

And they're getting results, too.

During their first comeback, Davis and Johnson Jordan made some history when they ended the 89-match winning streak of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, the queens of beach volleyball.

Since their second comeback, they've been just as potent.

With May-Treanor and Walsh out of commission this weekend, Davis and Johnson Jordan are playing as the No. 1 seed in the women's bracket.

"We're playing pretty well right now," Davis said. "We've added a lot of different things in recent years and we've kind of evened out. It used to be that Jenny was the really good passer and defender and I was the big hitter. But now, we can both do everything. We're interchangeable and that helps us a lot on the court."

Their deep friendship and similar lifestyles help more, though.

"We just like each other," Davis said. "That's a big thing. Some players switch to a new team every week because they just can't get in a groove with the person they're playing with. We get along great.

"And we've both got husbands and families. We both lead similar lives, and I think when you've known someone for as long as we have and you're doing a lot of the same things, you're just really comfortable with them."

Davis and Johnson Jordan only casually knew of each other in high school, when they played for rival Southern California club teams. But they became fast friends at UCLA, where they were randomly paired as roommates in their freshman year.

"We got along right away because our personalities are so different and we really complemented each other," Davis said. "Jenny's the talkative and outgoing one and I'm the more relaxed and quiet one. We just always had a lot of fun together."

That hasn't changed. Only now, fun usually includes the kids, who often accompany their moms to "work."

"A lot of times we'll bring the kids, especially the older ones, to the beach and they'll play in the sand together while we practice," said Johnson Jordan, mom to 5-year-old daughter Jaylen and 2-year-old son Kory. Davis' son, Mya, is 6, and her daughter, Victoria, is about 18 months. "That's the great thing about our job. It's very flexible. And if you think about it, the beach is all about families anyway. So it's really easy for us to have our kids with us while we work."

Neither Davis nor Johnson Jordan is sure how much longer they'll keep working together. Or working, period.

"When you've got a family, you kind of have to go year by year and talk about it at the end of every season," Davis said. "But we both still love it, and I'm pretty sure that as long as we're still playing, we'll be partners.

"I think when we (retire), it will be together."

Bears blood: There's an interesting connection between the Bears and the AVP Chicago Open.

One of the brightest stars in the AVP, Logan Tom, is the daughter of the late Melvyn "Mel" Tom, who played defensive end for the Bears from 1973-75.

Tom, the AVP rookie of the year in 2006 and a four-time, first-team All-American and two-time national player of the year at Stanford, was scheduled to visit Bears training camp in Bourbonnais this week. Her dad died last spring.