By Tris Wykes

Dick Whalen's Monday was full to the brim.

The director of the North American Sand Soccer Championships was up at 5:30 a.m. to read the paper. An hour later he gave his wife a lift to a yoga class, and by 8 a.m. he was at the Oceanfront, where the three-day tournament kicks off today. Once there, Whalen stepped off beach areas with a tent contractor, met with hotel officials, stuffed media information kits, persuaded one of the tournament's professional entries not to withdraw, ran errands to silk-screening and sign shops, and spent the evening putting together a tournament briefing book for his staff.

But here's the catch: This was no last-minute scramble. Whalen regularly keeps this kind of schedule. It's absurd. It's foolhardy. It's also who Dick Whalen is and why the North American Sand Soccer Championships is the world's largest event of its kind. ``It's not just this time of year - it's all year,'' said Matt Whalen, 25, the youngest of the director's three sons. ``The final whistle will blow Sunday, and Monday he'll be on the phone and making an improvement list. ``He hits the ground running.'' In doing so, Whalen, 60, sets a pace that all but guarantees him an unaccompanied journey. Who else could keep up? Who else would even try? Whalen's drive and determination are his primary attributes but also the cause of his greatest irritations. ``He's a frustrated admiral. He has a vision of what he's trying to accomplish, and you'd better just agree with it because he's not going to let up until it's that way,'' laughed Karen Knott, administrator for the Hampton Roads Soccer Council and the sand soccer tournament. Revenues from the event fund the development of the Hampton Roads Soccer Complex and its 19 fields near Virginia Beach's Princess Anne Park.

Since returning to Hampton Roads 14 years ago and late in his 30-year career as a Navy officer, Whalen has become the region's Mr. Soccer. He successfully lobbied to raise the profile of Beach District high school programs, served a six-year stint as president of the Beach F.C. club organization, and in 1994 launched the North American Sand Soccer Championships with 26 teams and 200 participants.

This weekend, 546 teams, more than 5,000 players and an estimated tournament ``population'' of 20,000 will converge on 39 fields from Rudee Inlet to 13th Street. And still, Whalen is irked that it isn't larger and more far-reaching. ``We had to turn away 100 teams this year,'' he said. ``If we'd had the referees, we could have gone all the way to the fishing pier at 14th Street. Every time we add a field, we can bring in 14 more teams.''

There's no denying the tournament's benefits. Whalen estimates it will have poured more than $600,000 into the soccer complex after this year. But how big is too big? Kevin Denson, the Kempsville High School boys soccer coach, chuckles when he says Whalen won't be satisfied until the tournament ``has 1,000 players and is making $1 million a year.'' But the director says his creation has carried itself to the limit of its current volunteer form. From here on out, Whalen and others believe, a paid staff must take over if the tournament is to grow. Frankenstein has lurched out of the lab and his beleaguered handlers deserve combat pay. ``My biggest frustration is that we're not able to generate more revenue,'' Whalen said. ``The teams come out, but it's hard to find anyone to go after sponsors and advertising to any real extent. I've wanted to quit every year for the last three or four years. But if I bailed out, I don't know anyone crazy enough to step in and run this thing year-round.''

That's because few love a challenge as much as he does. Few have his bull-headed energy, his organizational skills and his military training. ``If he steps aside, you're going to need three people to replace him,'' Denson said. Born in Honolulu three weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Whalen and his Navy family landed in Norfolk by his teen-age years. He graduated from Maury High School in 1959 and the Naval Academy in 1963, and captained his first vessel in 1981. ``I've lived in a world of work lists since the day I got out of high school,'' he said. More significantly, he tends to complete those lists. Matt Whalen says his father fills sheets of paper - front and back - with things to do, ``and if they're not done, he gets all ticked off and the whole process starts again the next day.''

Marti Whalen, Dick's wife of 38 years, says her husband is a perfectionist. He's been known to labor at yard work in epic shifts and to stalk his children and grandchildren with a camera and zoom lens, taking 25 or 30 photos to produce that one memorable shot fixed in his mind. ``If it's got his name on it, it's got to be done the right way,'' Marti Whalen said.

That extends to artwork. Whalen has done commissioned paintings of more than 200 ships but applies exacting detail to anything he sketches. In the early 1990s, he used a photograph to create a portrait of Denson and his wife that hangs in the coach's living room. ``People think we paid a full-time artist to do it,'' Denson said. ``Dick's this big, burly Navy guy and his hands are the size of basketballs. You'd never think he had artistic ability.''

Given his soccer workload, you'd never think Whalen had a full-time job, either. But he does, as Old Dominion's director of military activities, the university's primary liaison with the Department of Defense. He helps create academic programs useful to the military and builds research relationships between the two entities. Whalen takes vacation time each June to tend to the North American Sand Soccer Championships' stretch run. And each year, he and Marti hurriedly celebrate their June 6 wedding anniversary at a restaurant while Dick's mind is on tournament troubleshooting.

So why does he do it? Whalen says he enjoys the networking, the nonstop cajoling and team-building needed to pull off the event. But Knott also senses something else. ``I think he does it because he wants to leave a legacy,'' she said. ``This is his baby and with it, he's leaving his stamp on this area and on this sport.'' Said Matt Whalen: ``He always needs to be doing something. I'm sure he's made enemies along the way, but he's also got an awful lot of allies. And the community and soccer here are better for it.''

By Wednesday, Whalen had moved into overdrive. Awake at 4:30 a.m. to watch the U.S. team in the World Cup, he put in a 12-hour work day that included a photo shoot, a radio interview, a television special and assorted last-minute crises. Back home by 7 p.m., his first move was to mow the lawn. His second? To compose a list of things to do for Thursday.