The Viral Volley Podcast

In this Episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, ascending pro volleyball athlete Alaina Chacon jumps after she and partner Maddie Anderson go 2-0 at the opening weekend of the AVP League in Belmar, NJ.  Before that weekend, Alaina has always been one of those "watchlist" athletes from her days in HS indoor, to Florida St., and now the Beach Pro Tour and the AVP. One of three tallented sisters, Alaina...

After taking a much needed week off the Coaches' Panel of Nickie Sanlin of McKendree, Jay Hosack of George Mason, Brad Rosstratter of UC San Diego, Theo Edwards of CSUN and Dan Friend of Lewis (for a brief moment) jump into this mega-closeout episode to talk about the NCAA Championship match crowing the University of Hawaii as the 2026 National Champions. Along with that a lot of news of top names...

It's the first Viral Volley Podcast of the summer! To kick it off former Florida St. and LMU Beach standout Avery Poppinga shares about the start of her volleyball journey struggling with scoliosis, playing in Texas, to Florida St. and finally to Loyola Marymount. Avery talks about the wonderful, yet different coaching she received from Brooke Niles and John Mayer and additional back issues she su...

The title speaks for itself, but specifically the panel taks about the AVCA Player of the Year, and the TWO great semfinal matches! May add more to the description later but I've got to jump on the mic. Posted at 2:49 PM BEFORE the championship match! 

This week only Jay and Rob were available for this week's discussion amid the AVCA and NCAA Men's Volleyball Committee members' responsibilities this week (Yes, Rob is also "doing stuff" for the AVCA). That being said, the discussion goes to the 2026 NCAA National Championship Volleyball Tournament at their regional sites, the top performers, interesting stat lines, and other related issues that a...

Sydney Miller of Hawaii and Rob touch on the conference tournaments across the nation winning automatic berths fand punching their tickets to Gulf Shores for the 2026 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship! Announced recently was the AVCA Collegiate Beach Player of the Year Finalist list and as expected, it should be a tough decision for the AVCA panel to choose between the FSU or UCLA...

The CVW crew is joined once again by McKendree Head Coach, Nickie Sanlin, as we talk about most of the big conference tournament results. We bounce all over the place with a few of the contributors having to attend to other responsibilities, but we try to hit on all the top matches, performances and news of the last 7-10 days! We discuss whether the NCAA Committee (with Dan Friend) got the right t...

It’s a MEGA episode this week with special guest contributor, Nickie Sanlin of McKendree. Nickie has been one of the most influential coaches in the game not only in the NCAA but in the USANTDP and is what some may classify as a “mover and a shaker.” Our almost-2-hour discussion delves into all the panelists’ matches, key performers and the state of where their teams are at in conference play as s...

This week's format is an open-forum for the coaches' panel to select the matches and topics we discuss from Week 14. Everything from multiple red cards to "Libero of the Year Award" for the AVCA! With Hawaii sweeping the series vs. UCI, the Bows appear to be in the driver's seat for the No. 1 seed in the Big West Men's Volleyball Championship. The MIVA will be entertaining to see how it settles be...

This week Kelly Belardi rejoins CVW Beach to recap the week that was for the Stanford Cardinal that had them reclaim the No. 1 AVCA Coaches' Poll ranking for 3rd time in 2026. Kelly also gives some insight on couple of the top 10 teams to watch in the final 3 weekends of regular season play. Last weekend, Kelly achieved the 100th Career Win milestone so she also shared how important her teammates...

In the Week 13 recap, we saw a week were there were no upsets in the top 10, however it didn't mean there was a shortage of action! Long Beach St. took down Theo's Matadors twice, while Brad and his Tritons were in the battle but UCI found a way to get it done in 3 and 5 sets accordingly. Dan and his Flyers only had one match for the week in the Battle for Chitown on Rae Strong Night, where the Ra...

This week saw top teams like UCLA, Stanford, USC and TCU idle, however that didn't stop the rest of the other top teams from pulling off big wins, like #9 Cal over #4 Texas, and #16 GCU over #12 LSU. University of Hawaii's Sydney Miller and Rob review and recap Week 5 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season as we inch closer to conference tournament time and begin looking at At-Large berth scenarios!...

This week we remember Ann Davenport after her unexpected passing last week. She was truly a volleyball pioneer helping the game grow in so many aspects. In our “Social Media Shoutout” segment, @lewismensvb is recognized for their viral post of the week—a celebrity doppelganger with one of their current OHs, Daniel Haber. We got through our Week 12 recap focusing on some of the top 20’s matches tha...

After a two-week break, Sydney Miller of Hawaii and Rob Espero breakdown some of the top tidbits of the top-10-ish teams in the most recent AVCA polls. There were minor shifts in the top 10 this week, but all within expectations. A lot of discussion on East Meets West in Manhattan Beach and the FAU Invitational where a few unexpected results arose involving USC, Florida St. and TCU. Thanks for lis...

As always, we start off "shouting out" some of our Men's Volleyball digital content providers, and this week it's Lee Feinswog of 900 Square Feet and @flicksbyry_! In the 300th episode (on Viral Volley Media) we’ve got an NCAA Men’s Championship Volleyball Recap in Week 11 that saw No. 1 UCLA remain undefeated—which beckons the question, “Can the Bruins be beaten?” Also, Penn St. makes a West Coas...

In Episode 299 CVW Men’s Top 20 is graced with the guest appearance of Princeton Head Coach, Sam Shweisky. Sam joins the crew to talk about some of the top 20 matches during the 10th week of the Men’s Collegiate season. Each week, the MIVA seems to have more mayhem as teams jostle for positioning for post-season play. The Waves split with the Bows for an entertaining series, Belmont Abbey and Mt....

This week, we go through our normal routine of recognizing digital content creators in the Men’s game. This week it was reported that the Official Fan Account for NCAA Men’s Volleyball, @ncaamvb surpassed 22.6 MILLION views! Great news for #ncaavb, but even better news for Men’s Volleyball! In our news segment we remember Steven Lee Sander, father to Taylor and Brenden, two wonderful personalities...

This week’s episode brings on Arizona St.’s Arden Besecker and Kendall Whitmarsh fresh off the most recent AVCA poll and the first named conference pairs of the week across the nation! Arden and Kendall discuss last year’s journey for the Sun Devils as they had another great season under Head Coach Kristen Glattfelder being on the verge of heading to Gulf Shores!  Both the Sun Devils share a littl...

In our Week 8 recap of the 2026 season the Coaches’ Panel (minus Dan out with the flu) discusses the action that happened in D1-2 Men’s Volleyball at our half way point!   But first, we shout out our Instagram content creators @1stseedvolleyball’s John McNallly and Holly Wong of @hykchora for putting out excellent and engaging content in Men’s Volleyball!   From there we discuss the start of a new...

As we kick off the 2026 NCAA Beach season, Sydney Miller of Hawaii jumps on to chat with Rob about the first-ever AVCA Player of the Year Watchlist while breaking down the top-10-ish teams in the AVCA Preseason Poll. Of course we drop a lot of names because that list could have been bigger, but there is such an abundance of talent on teams' rosters-- to a point where some did not get mentioned! CV...

Our Week 7 recap mean’s we’re coming upon the half-way point of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Collegiate Volleyball season! Tteams are turning heads as conference play in the EIVA and MIVA have made us expect the unexpected! Meanwhile, Non-conference clashes have teams butting heads to keep records unblemished, establish nonconference superiority and get quality wins under teams’ belts! The CVW crew runs do...

Illness and technical difficulties made this episode a little choppy but it didn’t matter as the Coaches’ Panel dropped their recaps, insights and opinions on an action-packed Week 6! Discussion includes “Social Media Shout Outs” to Vinnie Lopes of Off-the-Block Blog and a family of digital media creators of the Zapanta family (Jay, Rachel and Noah)! From there we chat about some of the top matche...

"No Average Joe" episode!" This week we bring on Men’s Volleyball Influencer, Joe McCurdy (@jtmvball on Instagram and TikTok) on the show to talk about the happenings in week 5 of the NCAA Men’s Volleyball season from a digital journalist perspective. Joe and Rob bounce between select matches of the top 20 and highlight key performances in those matches. Of course they take a stab at top athletes...

The Coaches' Panel is back after a busy week for Rob (apologies for no episode) at the Southwest Boys Classic after the First Point Collegiate Challenge!  Rob mentions a few news items for the week with some first-ever victories for first year programs, (but he forgot to say, "Congrats," to Ohio St. Head Coach Kevin Birch for his 100th victory).  The panel discuss the top 20 matchups that caught t...

Episode 290 of Viral Volley Media’s, College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20 for Week 2 of the 2026 Collegiate Men’s Volleyball season is coming in HOT! This week we acknowledge two content creators covering the men’s side, then go to the “Elephant in the Room,” which discusses our coaching panelists’ results from last week’s play. From there we venture into the “Eye-Catching Matches” of the week f...