Each player's path to the podium on the sand is different; mine took even more turns than this column attempts to recount...

Part one of a six-part summer series for prepvolleyball.com.

Every volleyball player’s journey to the beach is different. Most start in the gymnasium with a little six-on-six, where each athlete learns the specialized skills inherent with a particular position. Middles focus on blocking, outsides focus on passing, opposites focus on hitting and setters focus on, well, setting. Usually, this learning process takes place at some point during junior high or high school and then progresses to the collegiate ranks if the athlete is good enough.

At some point during this progression, most players also get a touch of two-on-two. Whether it’s also played in the gym during practice, or on the sand for fun, each athlete realizes the skills necessary to compete are no longer specialized and that every touch requires a level of perfection previously not essential to play the game. But that’s what makes two-on-two so much more exciting. How’s that famous saying go? “Without great risk one can not achieve great reward.” Think of that risk as being your first steps out on to the sand because I’m about to tell you how great the reward is. And like I said, every player’s path to the beach is different. Yours is just a legend waiting to happen.… 

My personal story isn’t exactly what you’d call a traditional one. I never played organized volleyball until I arrived at the University of Hawaii in 1995, and my first touches came on a dorm-wide intramural team. After foolishly believing my relatively decent jump and roundhouse arm swing was enough to land me on the number one-ranked Rainbow Warriors Division I squad, I bet my roommate, a Hawaiian local, $25 that I could walk on and make the team during spring semester of 1996. After failing to clear initial medical exams due to an irregular heartbeat, I spent more than three weeks on the practice sideline investigating the intricacies involved with the game at the collegiate level before ever receiving the opportunity to actually try out. Keep in mind, I did not know how to effectively pass, dig, block or set, let alone rotate or know where I was meant to be on defense. The only skills I had were the ones that involved finding the ball in the air, max jumping and doing everything in my power to put it away.

So, how does a guy like that ever manage to earn a spot on a team with as much volleyball history as Hawaii’s? Simple answer: he doesn’t. The coaching staff had officially elected to cut me due to the raw nature of my game, as they believed I was a project not worth tackling that late in the development process. Fortunately for me, I elected to take fate into my own hands and borrow the keys to the gymnasium following, what I found out later, was meant to be my last practice with the team for some light late-night “ball.” Two redshirt freshman and UH legend Jason Ring joined me at around 11:30 p.m. before getting busted by campus security very early the next day. I took full responsibility for the “break-in” and handed over my school identification card to the guard with only a couple of thoughts running through my mind as he called our head coach to inform him of the news: I’m getting suspended for sure. There’s no chance I’m making the team. And, I wonder if my parents are going to be upset when I tell them I need to transfer schools pending criminal charges?

Without a doubt, that was one of the most stressful weekends of my life. By the time Monday afternoon rolled around, more worrisome thoughts had crept into my mind regarding my future than I care to admit and trust me; none of them included a positive outcome. So, when I rolled into the gymnasium for practice that day and the entire team was already there standing in a circle performing a unified clap in my honor, I honestly didn’t know what to make of it. Especially when Coach Wilton approached me with his outstretched hand and said these very words: “For you to break into the gym that late on a Friday night to work on your game, must mean you really want it. Welcome to the team Hans.” And that was that. Game shorts, shoes and shirts awaited me in a locker with my name printed above its door, and my life would never be the same.

I would have never been able to come to grips with the significance of that moment at that time, but looking back now, I can honestly say that Coach Wilton’s decision to keep me on the team that fateful Monday afternoon determined my life’s destiny, 100 percent. In fact, imagine for a second what my life would be like without his verdict: I would have never played four years of Division-I volleyball that included a transfer to San Diego State during junior year to obtain an athletic scholarship. I would have never been lured out to the beach in 2002 for the first time with best friend Esteban Escobar to compete in a CBVA Triple-A in Ocean Beach. I would have never been bageled (lost without scoring a single point) during the first match of my career on the sand. I would have never come back to that same beach three months later to win my first tournament and Triple-A rating. I would have never qualified for the AVP Tour with good friend Chris Kosty in 2004. I would have never won AVP Rookie of the year in 2005. I would have never won the Australian National Championships in 2006. I would have never won the Silver Medal at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007. I would have never qualified for the 2009 AVP Best of the Beach tournament in Las Vegas, where I partnered with John Mayer to give Olympic Gold Medalist Phil Dalhausser his only loss of the event en route to his first individual title. And I would have never segued my career from the beach to the office following that tournament in Vegas, where I now do my best to capture the essence of the sport in writing.      

Everything about my identity is based around the sport of volleyball. Had I not made that team at UH, what would I be doing now? Who knows? All I do know is that it would not involve the sport that has become more than just a passion. There’s a good chance if Coach Wilton had followed through with his original decision to cut me that day, I might have never played the game again, even at the intramural level. And what sports I would have played, or more importantly, who I would have become in place of the man that exists today is beyond overwhelming to even contemplate.

Does your personal journey to the sand have to be as dramatic as mine? Absolutely not. It can be as simple as picking up a ball, getting your toes a little dirty in the sand and discovering how much fun that “other” type of volleyball can be. And what’s great starting in 2011 is you can take that love for the sand and translate it directly into an NCAA athletic scholarship. Yes, that’s right. You’re going to be able to also earn a college education free of charge by perfecting the skills of a game that will only additionally help your indoor game if that’s the route you elect to choose. It’s a win-win. All you have to do now is find a court made of sand instead of wood, and believe me, the passion inherent with doing something you truly love will take over and do the rest.