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By the time I walked out of the athletic office carrying a clipboard and a guilty conscience,
they were already loading a backpack into the trunk of an old Honda while their father
folded a beach chair that had somehow become part of every tryout, even though nobody
ever sat in it.
I expected anger.
Disappointment.
Maybe tears.
Instead, the player looked up and smiled.
“Thanks for the chance, Coach.”
That made it worse.
I stood there for a moment with my hand resting on the truck door.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
The player shrugged.
“It will be.”
Then they climbed into the passenger seat and drove away.
I watched the taillights disappear toward the highway and realized something nobody had
warned me about.
Playing beach volleyball breaks your heart every now and then.
Coaching does it on purpose.
When I was twenty-three, I thought coaching meant fixing volleyball players.
Teach better footwork.
Improve serving.
Build stronger blockers.
Develop smarter defenders.
That was the entire job.
Or so I believed.
Then I inherited a junior beach volleyball program with thirty-seven athletes, four courts,
two assistant coaches, one bucket of volleyballs that should have been retired years
earlier, and parents who expected miracles before Labor Day.
The first practice lasted eighteen minutes before someone cried.
Not because of conditioning.
Because another athlete rolled their eyes after a missed serve.
Volleyball had nothing to do with it.
I blew the whistle.
“Everybody sit.”
The group gathered in a crooked circle.
I picked up the volleyball lying nearest my feet.
“Who here thinks we’re going to spend today learning how to serve?”
Almost every hand went up.
I nodded.
“We’re not.”
The confusion was immediate.
One player finally asked,
“Then what are we doing?”
“Learning how to be teammates.”
Silence.
A few disappointed looks.
One assistant coach quietly smiled.
They already knew.
Every season started the same way.
Parents introduced themselves by telling me about volleyball.
“My daughter plays club.”
“My son was an outside hitter indoors.”
“They’ve been training since they were nine.”
Almost nobody introduced themselves by telling me about the person.
Nobody said,
“They’re stubborn.”
“They’re funny.”
“They worry too much.”
“They hate disappointing people.”
Those were the details I needed.
Volleyball usually revealed them anyway.
One athlete apologized after every mistake.
Another refused to speak after making one.
Someone else laughed whenever they felt nervous.
One player became quieter the better they played.
Another became louder.
The beach never created personalities.
It exposed them.
Every Tuesday and Thursday we practiced at the public courts.
No tournament.
No announcer.
No championship court.
Just sand, ocean, and enough daylight to get honest work done.
One afternoon I paired two athletes who couldn’t have been more different.
Emma never stopped talking.
Jordan rarely spoke at all.
After fifteen minutes Emma walked over.
“We’re not communicating.”
I looked toward Jordan.
“What do you think?”
Jordan shrugged.
“I am.”
Emma threw both hands into the air.
“They haven’t said anything.”
Jordan looked confused.
“I called every ball.”
Emma blinked.
“Oh.”
Communication, I explained later, isn’t measured by how many words people use.
It’s measured by whether the right information arrives at the right time.
That lesson stayed with both of them longer than any serving drill.
Recruiting season changed everybody.
Parents stopped watching volleyball.
They watched coaches.
Athletes stopped celebrating good rallies.
They searched sidelines after every point.
I hated showcase weekends.
Not because college coaches came.
Because players started believing every mistake carried permanent consequences.
One afternoon after a difficult loss, a player sat alone behind the equipment trailer.
“I blew it.”
“You lost a volleyball match.”
“I lost my chance.”
“Who told you that?”
“No one.”
“Then stop speaking for people you’ve never met.”
They looked up.
“What if nobody recruits me?”
I sat beside them on the trailer hitch.
“When I was your age, I thought recruiting was the finish line.”
“What is it?”
“The address where the next chapter starts.”
They laughed quietly.
“That’s not very motivational.”
“It isn’t supposed to be.”
Parents often asked what separated successful athletes from everyone else.
They expected complicated answers.
Training volume.
Nutrition.
Mental preparation.
Film study.
Those things mattered.
Just not first.
The athletes who stayed in volleyball the longest all shared one habit.
They remained curious.
Curious players asked questions after practice.
Curious players watched older athletes instead of comparing themselves to them.
Curious players lost matches without believing they had become losses themselves.
Talent opened doors.
Curiosity kept people walking through them.
One windy afternoon we canceled practice.
The athletes looked disappointed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“So why aren’t we playing?”
I pointed toward the flags.
“The beach is teaching today.”
Nobody understood.
For thirty minutes we stood quietly watching.
The wind shifted.
The tide crept higher.
Loose sand skipped across the courts in little waves.
Experienced players warming up nearby changed where they stood before serving.
No coach told them.
The beach did.
“What did you notice?”
Hands slowly went up.
“The wind isn’t steady.”
“The sand’s firmer near the water.”
“Everybody good changes something before the weather changes.”
Exactly.
Volleyball begins before the first serve.
You simply have to notice.
Every season ended with the same conversation.
Not awards.
Not statistics.
Just one question.
“What did volleyball teach you?”
The youngest athletes always answered with skills.
“I learned how to jump serve.”
“I can hand set now.”
The older ones rarely mentioned volleyball.
“I learned I don’t have to apologize every time I mess up.”
“I learned asking for help isn’t embarrassing.”
“I learned my partner can’t read my mind.”
One player surprised everyone.
“I learned my dad worries more than I do.”
The parents laughed.
Mostly because it was true.
Years passed.
The juniors graduated.
Some played in college.
A handful reached the professional tour.
Most didn’t.
Every now and then I’d walk into the coffee shop before a tournament and hear somebody
call,
“Coach!”
I’d turn around expecting one of my current athletes.
Instead I’d see someone in their thirties carrying a toddler on one hip and a volleyball bag
over the other shoulder.
They always said the same thing.
“You probably don’t remember me.”
They were always wrong.
I remembered.
Not because of wins.
Because of habits.
The player who organized everybody’s water bottles.
The one who laughed after falling.
The athlete who always stayed to roll boundary lines.
The one who needed three years before believing they belonged.
Those details stayed longer than tournament results.
Last spring I retired.
Or at least I announced that I was retiring.
The beach has a habit of ignoring announcements.
The following Tuesday somebody called.
“Coach…”
“I’m retired.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“We’re short one court monitor.”
I laughed.
“Of course you are.”
“You coming?”
I drove to the beach.
Old habits.
The courts looked exactly the way they always had.
Buckets of volleyballs.
Parents carrying too much equipment.
Teenagers pretending not to be nervous.
A volunteer struggling with a stubborn referee stand.
Without thinking, I walked over.
“Need a hand?”
They looked relieved.
“Please.”
Together we lifted it into place.
One of the younger coaches watched from nearby.
“I thought you retired.”
“I did.”
“So why are you here?”
I looked across the beach.
Athletes warming up.
Parents unfolding chairs.
The coffee shop owner carrying breakfast across the boardwalk.
The old equipment trailer sitting open near registration.
Then I smiled.
“I retired from coaching.”
I picked up a rake leaning against the trailer.
“I never retired from belonging.”