SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter

This is episode No. 8 of The Road to Paris, where Travis Mewhirter breaks down the race to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. This episode follows the  @volleyballworld  Gstaad Elite16, where Andy Benesh and Miles Partain just won perhaps the most significant gold medal since Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser won gold at the Beijing Olympic Games. That's not all, either: Twice, they topped Anders Mol and...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, is a special one, as it is the launch of our new book, Playbook of Champions: The habits, routines, and stories of Olympians, Champions, and world-class athletes. If you listen to the show – which, if you’re reading this, then you are – then this is the perfect book for you, as it is a distillation of the best golden...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Dain Blanton, the head coach of the USC Beach Volleyball team and the man who has built the biggest dynasty in all of college sports right now. Despite losing 12 players from last year’s NCAA Championship-winning team, Blanton rebuilt in a hurry, winning a third straight NCAA title this past May. Indeed, life...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Brook Bauer, one of dozens of bright young talents emerging on the AVP and Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. After a successful undergraduate career at Pepperdine, Bauer finished at Florida State, where she went 29-12 on court one. After a brief, three-month hiatus in which she pursued a full-time job putting...

This is the seventh episode of the Road to Paris, where Travis Mewhirter breaks down the Olympic beach volleyball race for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. We also have our first guest appearance from Australian Olympian and Volleyball World commentator Damien Schumann, who provides a little background on the gold medalists. This episode follows the  @BeachVolleyballWorld  Jurmala Challenge, where Au...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter is our always popular, semi-monthly mailbag episode, where our lovely co-host, Savvy Simo, moderates as we get through as many of your questions as we can! This was, per usual, a fun one, including chats on: Are Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander still making an Olympic run? Is Alison playing on the AVP full-time? What hap...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features a first in many ways. In Carli Lloyd, we have one of the first indoors-only athletes to come on the show – although that is set to change this summer, when Lloyd takes to the beach and the AVP Tour. In Riley McKibbin and Lloyd, side by side on the blue couch, we also have the first couple we’ve had on (aside...

This is Episode Six of The Road to Paris, breaking down the Olympic beach volleyball race with Travis Mewhirter. After a month off of @volleyballworld events, the world returned to one of the coolest venues in the sport: Ostrava, Czech Republic, where an extensive defunct industrial area has been converted into a beach volleyball venue. It's awesome. And apparently Americans love it, as it was a M...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features April Ross, one of our favorite people in the world, one of the greatest players of all time, and now: A MOM TO BE! As parents ourselves now, we’re stoked for April and the new season of life she’s on. We talked about the full gamut of topics, including: What she’s been up to, under the radar, for the past two...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, is an absolute treat, featuring Alice Zeimann, the blocking half of the top pair in New Zealand. If you haven’t heard of Zeimann and her partner, Shaunna Polley, you will soon. They are currently the No. 31-ranked team in the world, with a win over Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth in last fall’s Torquay Elite16. An injury...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Sarah Pavan, the most decorated beach volleyball player in Canada history, with a World Championship (2019), Commonwealth Games gold medal, Team of the Year (2019), three-time Blocker of the Year, and a pair of Olympic appearances to her name. This was such a fun conversation with Pavan as she nears the twili...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, may be the most anticipated episode since we had Kent Steffes on last summer. Finally, in the studio this week, is Miles Partain, the young jedi who is returning the force to USA Volleyball. Miles is easily one of the most curious people we’ve ever met, and that curiosity has helped him develop into the most precociou...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Hagen Smith, one of the most physically impressive players on the AVP Tour and, yes, the son of the great Sinjin Smith, who is perhaps the most important person in the history of beach volleyball (he only helped found the AVP and FIVB, so there is that…). We chatted a bit about Hagen’s well-known lineage, as...

This is the FIFTH episode of our Road to Paris series, where Travis Mewhirter breaks down the race to the 2024 Olympic Games. Just a quick one today, analyzing the moves made after the  @volleyballworld  Elite16 in Uberlandia, Brazil, including: - Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth with their second gold of the year! - Steven van de Velde and Matthew Immers playing big - Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk taki...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter is our semi-monthly fan question episode that is doubling as a celebratory episode. We popped some bubble to celebrate Tri and Chaim Schalk winning their first AVP as partners, Savvy and Toni Rodriguez matching a career-best fifth at AVP New Orleans, and Travis BECOMING A DAD to Austin Zaun Mewhirter. And yes, we also...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter is our LONGEST EPISODE IN HISTORY – by a long shot. Theo Brunner actually has a name for getting into a beach volleyball chat with Jake Dietrich: It’s called “Getting Jaked.” And we got Jaked in the best of ways, finally chatting with the man known on the YouTube chats last year as “The Beard Guy” playing with Hagen Sm...

Episode Four of The Road to Paris, breaking down the Olympic beach volleyball race with Travis Mewhirter. After two wild weeks of  @volleyballworld  Challenge events in Itapema and Saquarema, Brazil -- as well as an  @avpbeach  in New Orleans -- we've had a ton of changes, including: - Miles Evans and Chase Budinger rebounding in a HUGE WAY - George Wanderley and Andre Loyola staying the Kings of...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features the host himself, Bourne with his new partner, Chaim Schalk. The two have only played three tournaments thus far – this was recorded before the Volleyball World Itapema Challenge – and it has been an expectedly up and down journey. We chatted about their first two tournaments, in La Paz and Tepic, and a bunch...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Zana Muno, our most popular guest in the show’s history and one of our favorite people in the world. Muno had quite the interesting 2022 season, playing – and succeeding with – Toni Rodriguez (bronze in Coolangatta), Allie Wheeler (silver in Aguascalientes), Brandie Wilkerson (two AVP semifinals), Sarah Pavan...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features our annual in-house visit with our brothers up north, Sam Schachter and Dan Dearing. The top team from Canada was in Hermosa Beach for a month-long (ish) training camp before hitting the road in La Paz, Tepic, Itapema, Saquarema, and potentially Uberlandia. Yeah, a lot of travel. We talked about that, as well...

Welcome back, all of you Olympic beach volleyball fans! Road to Paris No. 3 is a FULL one, as: - David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden -- and now of Red Bull -- stunned Anders Mol and Christian Sorum in Tepic - The American women swept the golds in Mexico - The Austrians have reorganized - American men Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk and Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner debuted - Valentina Gottardi h...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Troy Field, one of the most popular players on the AVP Tour, as well known for his vertical leap as he is for his ability to connect with fans both in person and on social media. It has been a wild journey for Field, going from rookie to partnering with Reid Priddy to making AVP finals with Tim Bomgren to pla...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, is our SEASON-PREVIEW MAILBAG! The AVP season begins THIS WEEKEND in Miami, while Volleyball World begins again in La Paz, Mexico, for a Challenge. As always, we begin our year with a fan question episode, answering: - Who will win AVP Miami? - Who are the players to watch on the AVP Tour this season? -  Is the Elite...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, one of the fastest-rising teams on the AVP and Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. Just how fast did they rise? Less than a year ago, they had zero international points to their name. Now they’re No. 7 in the world and tops in the U.S. They were the 2022 AVP Team of the Year. And now...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features an absolute legend of the sport: Holly McPeak. The fourth winningest player in beach volleyball history, McPeak is a three-time Olympian and a bronze medalist at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. She also discovered a then-unknown gem named Misty May-Treanor. Now, you can hear McPeak’s voice on the br...