COLLEGIATE SAND VOLLEYBALL
Sand in the city
Creating a collegiate sand volleyball program at the University of San Francisco presented many challenges, including crossing the Golden Gate Bridge to practice
by Eyal Zimet and Gilad Doron with Connor Hastings
a sand program at USF. He didn’t expect it would be as early as the following year, but he and cousin Gilad Doron – head coach of the Dons since 2007 – were committed to making the dream a reality. They gained the support of the athletic director just in time to have their indoor players competing on the sand in the spring of 2013. Offi cially, Zimet and Doron are co-head coaches of the sand program, and the two share a strong passion for the sport of volleyball. Both had extended stints playing for the Israeli men’s indoor national team, and Zimet spent several seasons playing on the AVP professional beach tour. Now their focus is on helping the sport grow at their university and beyond. In the following article, the two coaches share their perspectives on building a collegiate sand program and the bright future of sand volleyball.
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GETTING APPROVED - SHARE THE VISION We both saw the momentum building with collegiate sand vol- leyball, and we wanted to join the movement early so our program could be one of the pioneers of the sport. Fortunately, there were multiple universities in Northern California starting sand pro- grams, so we were able to form a league (the NorCal Consortium) that would enable us to play the minimum number of competitions to be an NCAA varsity team. This allowed us to present the idea to our administration, which signed off on the creation of the sand program at USF. With Eyal’s background as a pro beach player, it was an opportunity and challenge that we felt motivated to take on, and we knew it would be a great experience for our indoor players.
32 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag
hen Eyal Zimet joined the University of San Francisco women’s volleyball program as an assistant coach in April of 2012, he did so with the intention of starting
THE FIRST SEASON - FOCUS ON FUN We were really excited to have the program up and running and wanted to make sure the players had a good time and got the spark for sand volleyball. We might have had eight practices before our fi rst match, so it was hard to set any expectations or goals for the season other than enjoying the sport and being better at the end of the year than we were at the beginning. Initially, a lot of things were not in place. We didn’t have facilities or uniforms, and players would often have to miss practice for class because they had made their schedules before it was announced that we would have a sand team. For practice sites, we ended up using nearby Ocean Beach and a local city park, and we often had to adapt to having just one court – or sometimes no courts at all. All of our matches were on the road, and we only had enough funding to play the minimum number of competitions. A few of our indoor players had experience on the sand, but most had none at all. One of the fi rst things we worked on with the players was getting their sand legs and developing the strength to stay balanced while changing direction in the sand. Stepping on the sand for the fi rst time can be very humbling for players because they can’t do everything
PHOTO: USAV/JORDAN MURPH
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