UCLA to add ‘sand’ volleyball to their athletic program

This news literally just hit the Twitter machine, though it had been rumored for a little while. It will be the Bruins’ 25th varsity-level sport, and the 15th for women (if that seems askew to you, remember that football has a substantially larger roster than that of any other college sport).

It’s an exciting development, because it moves one of college sports’ greatest rivalries to new shores — literal shores, maybe. USC inaugurated their sand volleyball program in 2012, and there’s nothing like a good classic rivalry to spur on a burgeoning sport. Organized amateur beach volleyball is still a really, really new thing, and if this brings in new, passionate players and fans….so much the better!

The man taking the helm as head coach is Stein Metzger, one of the better UCLA volleyball alums this side of Karch Kiraly. Metzger had previously been a volunteer coach and an assistant coach under UCLA women’s indoor volleyball (or ‘court volleyball’ as some NCAA documents call it….seriously guys?) coach Michael Sealy. Metzger’s beach volleyball credentials include 16 AVP tour titles, a world championships silver medal, and a quarterfinal appearance at the Olympic Games.

No word yet on who will be playing (surely some members of the indoor team will head to the beach…..many do anyway) or what their schedule will be, as the Bruins will take ‘the court’ as it were, this season. A sport needs at least 50 member institutions before the NCAA will sanction a championship for it (Division III men’s indoor volleyball surpassed that number last year, as you may recall), and UCLA’s addition still only makes about 25 for sand volleyball. So the 2013 championships will still be conducted under the auspices of the AVCA.

But the sport is growing. Three or four years from now the FIVB tour will start getting players and teams who had college experience, and I can’t imagine how that won’t be good for the sport. The more experience, the better. Beach volleyball requires some very different skills than indoor, and while I can’t honestly say I like it better than indoor, it’s got its own draw. I bet a lot of today’s top pros would have liked to have had collegiate beach volleyball. Tomorrow’s pros get that chance.