OC Sand Volleyball Club...The Next Level?

Up to this point, beach volleyball has maintained the status quo more or less, without much deviation to expand, develop, or progress the game significantly.  But all of that may change in the immediate future.

We all know that beach volleyball was born and started in Southern California, and from that same region, we have seen some of the greatest players of all-time in both the indoor and outdoor game, but as the popularity of beach volleyball spread across the country we also have seen talent spikes (no pun intended) in different regions like Florida, and the Midwest.  Even with those talent spikes Southern California has remained head and shoulders above the rest, and remains the place to be to take your game to the next level.  Being anywhere else doesn't necessarily make it impossible, just improbably and illogical.  It is like being an NFL player and practicing and training in Canada with CFL players.  To be the best you gotta play against the best.

Before I expanded my thoughts on the NVL's money grab to develop beach volleyball athletes at the junior level with their Club Med facilities.  Consider their philosophy (volleyball not business), to be a growing trend in the years to come.  Here we have the next major development, the OC Sand Volleyball Club, started by Brad Keenan and April Ross.

With beach volleyball still in its infancy stages in the NCAA the talent pool is still very much spread out due to the fact that for the most part these are just indoor players playing on sand.  Outside of the few exceptions, the sophistication of beach volleyball skills and intellect is basically on par and in proportion with that of the players' indoor skills and intellect.  Expect that to change.  Yes, the SoCal school are still holding down the majority of top beach programs, but that is also because they also have some of the top indoor programs as well.  This year's AVCA Collegiate Sand Championships featured teams from Georgia State, FIU, UAB, and Jacksonville University, which let's be honest aren't the first names that come to mind in terms of volleyball, indoor or beach.

So why should be see a growing gap between the elite and the "very good" in years to come, and what does the OC Sand Volleyball Club have to do with it?  Well as you may have taken note of, top programs like UCLA and USC have brought on retired professionals Stein Metzger and Misty May-Treanor for their school's team respectively.  Schools that identify the need for specialization, that being the identification of the stark difference between the indoor and beach game and the resulting consequence of hiring different people for those jobs, will likely see exponential growth in success and development.  

The OCSVC has gotten their foot in the door first, and now has the inside track with professionals who have had very successful careers in the hot bed in the world for beach volleyball talent.  It will make it all the more likely that they will graduate athletes to nearby schools on the West coast, and as the old adage goes, the rich will keep getting richer.

But hey, prove me wrong Nebraska and Penn State.  But I think you will find that transitioning from the indoor game to the beach is just as hard for the players as it is for the coaches, so it won't be long until there is a noticeably higher class of program.  Basically, you can only drink Jameson for so long until you discover single malt Scotch.  For the athletes, there may be more money in playing for international clubs post-collegiate career, but the competition to earn roster spots is much stiffer.  With the beach game literally open to anyone who can make it through qualifiers (i.e Summer Ross), the incentive to pick a program with great indoor AND beach programs will be higher than ever, but ultimately it will be the schools that invest now that can see dividends pay out in the near future and long-term.

The Easiest Diet Rules To Follow

I could go on forever on complete vs. incomplete proteins  good fat vs. bad fat, glycemic indexes, artificial sweeteners, and sodium content, but for those of us who don't have the time, or are in a rush and don't the time to scrupulously probe line by line on the nutrition guide and ingredients list I've comprised some of the easiest rules to follow when buying, making, and eating food.

1. Protein (g) + Fiber (g) > Sugar (g)

This is probably the one that I abide by the most because these are 3 key components for a very active athlete.  We all know the benefits of protein, but fiber helps regulate blood sugar and ultimately the metabolization of the sugar you intake.  Plus sugar is an inflammatory so if you struggle with joint pain ingesting a lot of sugar will only worsen your condition.  

Think about if you were to consume a product with 20g of sugar but with no fiber.  What happens basically is that all that sugar is going to try to be processed all at once and if you are not burning significant calories then you will inevitably store it away as fat.  A similar product with fiber will have to be broken down and the more fiber there is the more sugar that will be broken down as well.  This is why apple juice is bad for you where as apples are perfectly healthy.  Without any of that flesh or pulp, there is a sugar rush that your body simply can't handle.

This rule is something I came up with myself, so this is by no means an industry standard (that I know of at least), but I found that I would be putting more items back on the shelf that were questionable than I was putting into my cart, and when it comes to health and diet that is usually the side you want to side on.

2. # of minutes to make meal > # of ingredients 

There is probably a slew of ways to abuse and circumvent this rule, but this rule isn't meant to be broken, but to be understood at face value.  The intent of this rule is to avoid highly processed, quick to make meals (think of Kraft Mac and Cheese).  Of course you could cheat and take 20 minutes to make Mac and Cheese to offset the 17 ingredients, but that isn't what you should be aiming for.  

When you get right down to it, you shouldn't be thinking about the time portion but the ingredients portion.  A simple meal of choice of fish, salad topped with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, and a baked sweet potato will accumulate an outstanding 5 ingredients.  So really this rule isn't about saving time (because you should take the time and care into preparing a nutritious meal), but cutting back on the unnatural preservatives, dyes, and contaminates, and adding whole foods will make this rule easy to follow.

3. Nothing in life is "free"

When is the last time you saw an stalk of celery have a label on it that said "Fat Free!"?  I'm sure you haven't and the point here is that if a product has to officially claim on its label to be lacking one thing, there is probably issues elsewhere.  Usually this is interchangeable with sugar and fat.  Sugar free?  Look for fat content both saturated and unsaturated.  Fat Free?  Look for how much sugar it has and revert back to rule #1.  And don't forget that if you see 0g of sugar, don't forget to check the ingredients list for often used artificial sweeteners (hopefully by now you know that zero-sugar means your body pays a larger toll in the long run).  Really the only "free" labels you should be excited to see are "GMO Free" and "Gluten Free".

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I don't want to necessarily delve much deeper into questions like "white rice or brown rice?" (but the answer there is always quinoa), because this is just supposed to serve as a starter.  So when you contemplate pasta for dinner, consider just topping off your pasta with freshly cut garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil instead of store bought sauce.  Don't expect your budget to take much of a hit either because you can actually save money on healthier alternatives, although I don't think there will ever be a substitute for Top Ramen.

The End Is Nigh

On my last drive home from work, I received the signal that every beach player dreads.  Leaves falling off of trees.  This momentous occasion for most people marks the time for pumpkin flavored everything, the affinity toward hoodies, but for beach players it basically means that summer and the beach season itself is now over.  (Here is Chicago the weather is still insanely nice for some reason, but regardless of that, many players have packed it in looking forward toward indoor season.)

But with the end of one thing comes the beginning of another.  I previously talked about physical preparations you can make in the off season that can pay huge dividends toward next year, but I want to add a few things to that list that you will inevitably procrastinate on.

Vitamin D

This is big one for multiple reasons.  Vitamin D is the number 1 vitamin deficiency in the US.  It is critical in maintaining many bodily functions as well as warding off any potentially serious complications.  Our evolutionary background has allowed us to produce Vitamin D by absorbing the sun's UVB rays (no, there is not any Vitamin D IN sunlight.  Vitamin D gets produced by your skin).  Credit this deficiency to work days that take place during day light hours, and poor diet.

Lucky for you, you know that through sun exposure (i.e. beach volleyball) you can easily obtain 90% of the Vitamin D you need.  The science on how much any individual needs and can absorb is still a bit fuzzy and your weight, genes, and even location on Earth factors into what you need.  A very general rule of thumb says that for every 25 lbs of weight you should be getting 1000 IU of Vitamin D.  So a 150 lb me should be aiming to get 6,000 IU daily (150/25 = 6, 6 x 1000 = 6,000).

Insufficient Vitamin D intake has been linked to seasonal affective disorder aka "winter depression", where a lackadaisical numbness of unmotivated nonchalance underwhelms you.  Winter can be cyclical time for good or bad.  Not getting enough Vitamin D making you less motivated in turn will make you work out less, eat less healthy, and continually compound on itself.  If you start building good habits now, you will be able to get the work out you need, boost your metabolism and endorphin and in turn your mental state.  Keep in mind though that Vitamin D is not a magic pill to cure this disorder.  Sunlight is also a big factor which directly affects your pineal gland or "third eye", whose hormone secretion is directly affected by sunlight exposure.

One thing to be cautious about is that the Vitamin D consumption goes hand in hand with Magnesium consumption.  Vitamin D needs Magnesium to be converted into its active form, so if you are Magnesium deficient (like most people are in the US), taking just Vitamin D will exacerbate this problem, and many people have reported adverse effects when taking Vitamin D.  But don't run out to your nearest drug store and pick up the first bottle of Magnesium you can find.

Magnesium supplementation, can be a bit tricky.  The cheap version, magnesium oxide, is essentially useless to you.  What you need is chelated magnesium so it can be readily absorbed by your body.  In the next blog post I'll talk more about chelates, how they work with magnesium supplements, and how you can work this in with your beach season.

Passion Doesn't Pay

Do what you love they said.  You will be much happier they said.

Very few people get to make a living as an athlete, and strangely enough it is very costly to aspire to be one as well.  That is what Johnny Manziel learned recently as he was penalized by the NCAA for "inadvertently" breaking one of their rules from uncountable list of idiocy.

I'm not sure what is more absurd, that he was penalized, or that is was only for the first half of a game.  But the penalty itself is very indicative of why the system of amateur athletics in the US is so messed up, specifically under the rule of the NCAA.  Even though this doesn't have much relevance to beach volleyball as it was recently just anointed as college sport for women, it has become such a hot button issue that I can't help but shed some more perspective on it.

Before I go any further, you should definitely check out Patrick Hruby's article on this matter and the Jonathon Benjamin story on which the article is centralized on.  I'll try to not reiterate too many things that he has already said because he pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one, but I think there is a bigger component of exploitation that doesn't get much talk.

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Alex Rodriguez has grossed over 324 million dollars in his career...yea...just let that sink in a little.

Regardless of how much we yell at our TV's in passion, sports may be a lifestyle or a culture to us fans and players, but at the end of the day it a business, and it is only one of many within the entertainment industry that compete against one another for our eyes and ears to exclusively give out attention and money to them.

The athletes then are not providing a service or delivering a product, they are the business itself but they don't get to profit off it unless the company that employs them profits.  But in the world of beach volleyball, the companies like the AVP, NVL, and FIVB don't thrive unless the players do as well.

The other side of the business is advertisement, sponsors, and endorsement deals.  This is what fuels the prize money (because ticket prices and merchandise are virtually out of the equation), and to attract more lucrative and lure more companies, those same partners need more of a reason and incentive to invest knowing that their brand will get proper exposure.  The only place they can get that is through the sport and the athletes themselves.

So you should see that when the pros are able to make themselves more viable as assets, that can make appearances, be heard and seen as athletes, that have the ability to promote products and services, then tours will have money being thrown at them.  But if I were a potential client, I wouldn't want to endorse a tour that has the majority of its athletes waiting tables, working odd jobs, or even worse, working for a competing company.  What kind of exposure is that?  You gotta spend money to make money,  but let's leave the spending to the tours and not the players.

Hot Pick Thursday: Go Ball Out

This one hits home for me and is quite personal.  At the start of this season I decided to team up with an old partner from a few years ago.  He is a real solid player, we had great chemistry, and he has a wicked lefty arm swing that was pretty much unstoppable.  We played quite well through the summer then a few months ago he got news that he had testicular cancer.  He had surgery shortly thereafter and all seemed well, but a blood test follow up indicated that the cancer had reemerged, and he is now undergoing chemo.

There isn't a nicer more outgoing guy I know and it is a shame that this happened, but he has taken everything in stride so well, and he has had a lot of support from his family and friends.  What has helped him and those who want to support him, are these blue wristbands that say "Go Ball Out", which is a type of motto to just go hard whenever life gives you an opportunity, don't hold back and give it everything you got, and at this point that is what he is doing as he is fighting back against TC.

I know that probably none of you know him, but you all are probably aware of how costly it can be to undergo serious medical treatment in this country.  It would really mean a lot to me and him as well if you could donate just a little bit, to help offset some of his medical costs so that it can be one less thing for him and his family to worry about, and as they say, every little bit helps.


Click here to donate

*Note that on the donation page, it says that payments will be sent to Jaime who set up the page, who is in fact Ryan's girlfriend

Beach Volleyball: Playing By The Percentages [Part 1]

This is going to be a bit of a hybrid post, that has both the breakdown analysis of a playing tip and the opinion based rant that you'd find in some of my other blog posts.  You should be able to notice that there is much more to sports than athletics.  There is gambling, fantasy sports, apparel, mascots, halftime shows, and numbers.  When I say numbers I don't just mean jersey numbers or point totals.  Statistics are vital to just about every sport, and broadcasters don't just provide them as filler but as an essential tool that allows the fan to quantitatively critique their team or certain players.  There is a famous saying about statistics which says:  "What's important isn't what statistics shows but what it hides".  For the most part just having numbers doesn't do much good if you don't know what they mean, but it sure beats the hell out of having no data at all, and that's where we'll start off...


What color is the number 7?
To ask this question is like asking how good Sean Rosenthal is.  You can use whatever descriptors and adjective you'd like but you still don't really convey the talent of a Rosie without actually seeing him play (unless you are a synesthete, in which case I bet the number 7 is yellow).  Just to exacerbate the stark contrast between beach volleyball's marketability to other mainstream sports here are some numbers for you...

In the past 11 years if you were an NFL team that started the season 0-2, then you had roughly an 8% chance (22/276) of making the playoffs that year.

Albert Pujols hit at least a .300 batting average, 30 home runs, and 100 RBIs a season for his first 10 seasons, which is a record for any such streak of seasons in a player's career let alone his first ten.

Michael Jordan is the definition of clutch.  How clutch you may ask.  Well, Jordan hit 50% of his clutch shots in his career where as in comparison, the league average is around 28%.  For more about his Royal Airness' clutchness and how it matches up against Lebron James, click here.

Now let's switch gears...

Who had the highest kill percentage in 2009?  Who had the most blocks in the last 5 years?  Ok, we all know it was Phil Dalhausser but we don't know how many.  Neither do we know teams' sideout percentage or their average unforced errors per game, whether teams pass better against a jump serve or a float serve or if a time zone change affects their gameplay.  All of these things would be vital pieces of information to use and help players strategize, but instead they are left to just "feel" the game out.  So if I bring this full circle, I must ask again just how good is Sean Rosenthal?  If I were to say that he was the greatest player to ever play the game I bet that you might slap me in the face, but if I told you to disprove me I think you would be hard pressed.  For beach volleyball there is really only one stat that is tracked and that is wins, which in the end is all that matters, but it would be more complex, interesting, and entertaining as players and fans to get more insight than just 21 is greater than 19.

In Part 2 I will try to describe "playing by the percentages" without actually using any numbers in a playing tip video.  Hopefully the addition of statistics in the near future will make the sport more digestible for the casual fan.

Off Season Preparations

Yes, there is still volleyball left to be played but I start seeing Leinenkeugel Oktoberfest lining the shelves of grocery stores I know it is the beginning of the end of this year's beach season, and with that it means it is time to switch gears.

Everyone will have a different approach to the end of the beach season, but if you are truly committed to your craft and the game, then you gotta be treating beach volleyball as a year long endeavor that isn't necessarily comprised of a "regular season" and "off season", but rather consisting of "playing" and "non-playing" stages.

Of course where you live, access to the beach/sand courts has a lot to do with when your "season" season starts, but you should have an idea in your mind already of when you would like to play your first tournament, and how many you would like to play.  With some of this out of the way, here are a few tips that I've refined over the years, that help me better prepare for next year's long haul from the thawed out Spring to the brisk Fall months.


1.  Sustain
You've just been through several months of hard training, and long days at the beach, so even if your body is getting tired and worn out, you're still in great physical shape.  So for the next few months you are going to be in an awkward time where you aren't quite in training mode but you aren't going to shut it down either.  At this point you goal should be simple:  Make it to next year in just as good shape as you are now.

You don't want to start next year in a hole, or waste time building up your conditioning before you even start practicing and drilling.  Of course you will have to build up your cardio, legs, and shoulder over the course of the season but there main areas that are easy to sustain.  During the next few months you should keep a workout schedule for your core and upper body, and setting time aside for stretching, yoga, and generally improving your flexibility.  I've learned this past year that flexibility is an often untapped asset for players, and in addition to helping recover and prevent injuries, it pays off immensely to have this aspect of your body built up.  Besides, you will get your beach legs in eventually, so now is the time to give them some rest.

2. Diet
Now of course you've been super disciplined these last few months to give your body the proper energy it needed to get through workouts and the matches on the weekends, but now is no time to let loose because there are troubles ahead.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, so slipping up now by indulging in some grease will make the slope you're standing on a little bit slipperier, and next thing you know you'll find yourself wearing an permanent 15 pound weight vest.  Again you don't want to waste time next year fixing last year's mistakes, so stay focused and stay on track.   Let Thanksgiving and Christmas be your rewards for being disciplined up to this point.

Nuh uh, none fo you!

3. Save
Get ahead of the curve and start saving now for new equipment, apparel, balls, and tournament fees.  Lets not forget that this is when you should be stocking up on your vacation time so that you can call off of work to enjoy those "perfect" weather days.   When summer rolls around you would much rather cap off a long day with a few beers with your buddies instead of having to pack it in early to get up for work the next day.

4. Study
The game is best played when you and your body is just reacting to what is happening.  To set yourself up for success now is the time to train yourself mentally for the different situation it may face and what it should do when those situations arise.  Visualize it over and over, believe me it helps.  Also if you can't watch video of yourself playing, just watch all the different videos online and learn from those players strengths and weaknesses.