I N S I D E B E A C H Snow bros by Travis Mewhirter • Photos: Bruce Kluckhohn
IT’S JAN. 26 AND CASEY PATTERSON IS SHOVELING AGAIN. It’s a routine chore this time of year for the world’s 11th-ranked beach volleyball player. Nearly 2,000 miles away in Minnesota, two other pro beach players,
Tim and Brian Bomgren, are shoveling too. There’s a slight difference, though. While Patterson shovels sand to smooth out his training court in Hermosa Beach, California, the Bomgrens are shoveling snow out of their driveways in Woodbury, Minnesota. Nineteen inches of the stuff, in fact. On this day, the Woodbury natives have to skip practice, just as
they did the day before. It’s tough to play beach volleyball with a blan- ket of snow covering your court. “There are probably guys out in California training right now,” says
Tim, 28, a technical support engineer for a software company. “That’s not us.” And they’re okay with that. Minnesota is home. Where it’s always
been. And, more than likely, where it always will be. It’s an unusual situation for a beach volleyball team, not to mention
one of the top duos in the country. Check the AVP rankings, and you’ll fi nd that 41 of the top 50 players are California natives. Several who aren’t – Robbie Page, for example – have since relocated. The Bomgrens have not. They’re Minnesotans, born and raised.
They love their Minnesota Vikings, and they appear immune to cold weather. “I can remember a number of times that we were out there chomp-
ing at the bit to see a ball in the sand, and we’re out there in pants and long sleeves and sand socks – not because the sand is hot, but because it’s cold,” says Brian, 32, a quantitative portfolio manager. “When the ball bounces off the court, it’ll go into the snow. That’s early season practice for us.”
Not moving west, but moving up It’s fair to wonder: How exactly is a team from Minnesota, which
sometimes can’t begin training until early May, making its ascent in the pro beach rankings? One answer comes from Chris McDonald, who played the Bomg-
rens in an AVP qualifi er in New Orleans in 2015. “Because they’re brothers, their team chemistry – you can’t beat that. They just have this unbelievable connection. It’s almost like when twins fi nish each other’s sentences.” McDonald should know. It took 37 minutes for the Bomgrens to
dismiss him and his partner in New Orleans and move on to the next round in what would become the brothers’ best career AVP fi nish – third. No team came within three points of the Minnesotans in the qualifi er, and the only teams to beat them in the main draw wound up in the fi nals – Patterson-Jake Gibb and Phil Dalhausser-Sean Rosenthal.
32 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag
With permanent roots in Minnesota, Tim and Brian Bomgren have to wait out the winter weather before ramping up their beach volleyball training. But that hasn’t kept them from being a top contender on the AVP Tour
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