Coach, Libero: Sand Volleyball Inspires the Huskers

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On the eve of playing in a Sweet 16 Regional, sand volleyball seems like an odd topic for a 28-4 Nebraska team meeting 28-3 BYU in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament in Lexington, Ky. The truth, however, is exactly the opposite.

Playing in the same regional that includes top-ranked Washington (30-2) and fellow Big Ten power Ohio State (25-9), Nebraska Coach John Cook and libero Justine Wong-Orantes both believe that sand volleyball has never been more relevant to Nebraska than it is now.

Why? Because sand volleyball’s impact inspires coaches and players year-round, enables them to increase their talent base (recruiting-wise) and improves almost all aspects of their fundamentals. When I ask Cook if all those facts are accurate, he does what he always does – finds the best way to explain the complexity built into the question.

“In indoor volleyball, we have specialized positions,” Cook pointed out. “We have liberoes, middle blockers, outside hitters and setters. They're all very specialized in what they do, which is similar to football having a quarterback, running backs, linemen, tight ends and wide receivers, so they're all specialized in what they do.”

Sand volleyball is dramatically different. “There are only two people on the court, so they have to do everything,” Cook said. “They have to be the quarterback, running back and lineman all at once because they have to pass, set and hit all at once. They have to do every single skill.”

Growing Up in California and Playing Beach Volleyball with the Very Best

Enter Wong-Orantes (pictured above right), who grew up in California dreaming and playing almost every waking hour possible on Huntington Beach near her hometown of Cypress, Calif. Justine started playing beach volleyball when she was eight years old and teamed with Sara Hughes (above left), now a starter for USC’s beach volleyball team.

No need to ask either top-tier student-athlete how sand volleyball enhanced their skills and improved their respective repertoires. "I just think that beach forces everyone to do all the skills like they do in beach volleyball,” Wong-Orantes told me. “We have middles having to pass and liberoes like me having to hit and make shots, so I think it just allows everyone to do all the skills and it also teaches court awareness.”

The beauty is having two people on the court and the awareness required to have the skills to read the game. “It really benefits going from sand to indoor,” Wong-Orantes said. “It teaches you the skills and makes you more agile and quicker going from sand volleyball to indoor."

It sounds simple, but is far from it because volleyball actually doubles the skill sets to six – serve, pass, hit, block, defend and set. “When you have to do all six with two people on each side of the net, it allows us to train two hours per week in the sand,” Cook said. “All our players have to be able to do all six skills. When I say that, you'll see them do a play that we don't practice during indoor because they're so much more specialized.

“All of a sudden, they’ll do something that's a reactionary play that they've probably learned and done in sand volleyball maybe 50 times,” Cook said. “That's where I see the crossover. The other great benefit is how much they enjoy playing. It's fun to get sandy, and they can fly all around and dive all over the place without getting sore because the sand is so soft."

Nebraska's John Cook-Boyd Epley Combo: The Cornhuskers' Very Own Beach

I ask Cook how a Northern-based volleyball power embraced sand as an emerging sport and continues to benefit from the lessons learned on sand inside The Hawks' training facility.

"Here's the story,” Cook said. “When The Hawks was built in 2006, Boyd Epley was in charge of designing the whole thing. He came to me and asked what we needed in this new championship center. I said the first thing we’d really like is a sand pit, so we could train our players in the winter. Girls are getting taller and taller, and they play a lot more volleyball now. By the time they get to college, they're really beat up because they're playing on hard surfaces. They play in convention centers on cement, basically, with a sport court overlaid on it.”

Epley remembers what had been the most popular choice to include in the Hawks – two racket-ball courts,” recalled Epley, who suggested the sand volleyball facility that featured a 16-by-16-meter court that required sand 40 inches deep and specialized equipment to anchor the net. “The Hawks was the first-ever indoor/outdoor-sized Olympic sand volleyball court,” Epley said. “We did it for the extra practice, not because we were looking for another sport.”

Nebraska wanted another way to train taller women so they could experience a lower impact on their bodies. When Cook asked how he could train with more efficiency and take the wear-and-tear off his players’ bodies, he remembers Epley’s immediate response. “Great,” he said. “We can do that. Football wants it. Track and field wants it.”

Cook remembers Epley asking him a simple question. “What if we just put in a sand volleyball court?” he asked. “I said 'you mean like a real international sand volleyball court? That would be awesome,’” Cook said. “So that's how it happened. We just put it in for training purposes.”

Nebraska Gets on the Ground Floor with 40-Plus Beach Volleyball Programs

Four years ago, Cook said the NCAA asked Nebraska to write a letter supporting sand volleyball as an emerging sport. Nebraska obliged and beginning next spring, more than 40 schools across the country will transition beach volleyball from an emerging sport to a fully sanctioned NCAA sport. “It was a no-brainer to move into sand in our winter season,” Cook said. “Some schools now fully fund sand volleyball, grant scholarships and have separate teams.”

Nebraska considered that option, but wouldn’t have any willing opponents to play in the Midwest. “We have a very limited sand schedule that happens during spring break,” Cook said. “We'd always go somewhere for spring break anyway, so we just took the spring break budget we had and applied it to sand volleyball.”

Nebraska’s volleyball team flies to Hawaii every year to compete. “They beg for teams to come over there, and they help us with our airfare because they know it's expensive,” Cook said. “We stay within our spring break budget. In addition, the NCAA gives us funds that go into our athletic budget for helping them create a sport.”

Not coincidentally, Cook grew up playing beach volleyball himself. Having played basketball at the University of San Diego, he and his wife moved to Mission Beach, next to the University, right by Sea World. “When we moved down there, we kept seeing these old guys out there playing sand volleyball,” Cook recalled. “My roommates and I asked if they could teach us how to play.”

Cook and His Friends Became 'Addicted' Sand Volleyball Players Themselves

Cook and his friends became addicted to sand volleyball. “I played hard for about five years,” he said. “I played in tournaments and got what's called a Triple-A rating. I was teaching school and had summers off, so I just played beach volleyball all summer and then went on to play in tournaments. That's how I got into it, even though I never played indoor volleyball."

Cook “definitely” believes sand volleyball has helped Nebraska’s overall program and sharpened its training. “In the old days, it helped West Coast schools because they could   play sand all year-round. Now, there's so much club volleyball, it doesn't matter where you are. You can get in a gym and train, and you can get a lot more experience than you could in the old days. That’s why there aren’t many three-sport athletes anymore. It’s also why I think you see a shift in indoor. There's no question that our players love playing sand because it helps their development and they get to be volleyball players."

Wong-Orantes and Alicia Ostrander were Nebraska’s No. 1 sand team last year. Cook is “amazed” that Ostrander, a native of Gordon, Neb., made the Huskers’ top sand team. “Justine and Alicia beat a lot of No. 1 teams from other schools with full-time sand teams. Having grown up on the beach, Justine’s became the youngest Triple-A player ever. She was only 12 years old when she got her Triple-A rating, so she has an extensive beach background. She can survive out there because she knows the wind and the shots. The sand's a great equalizer because nobody can jump in the sand."

At Nebraska, there is no pressure to play sand volleyball. “It’s up to us if we want to play, and everyone wants to because your sand volleyball experience transfers over to indoor,” she said. “Everyone just has so much fun with it that we don't seem like we're being forced or anything. Everyone of us looks forward to sand season. The coaches give us a choice. If we want to catch up on our school work or nurse an injury, we shouldn’t play sand. That’s why they give us a choice. But everyone loves it so much, we all want to play."

Beach volleyball is as fun as it is competitive. "It's such a laid-back sport because you're on the beach and playing in a great atmosphere,” Wong-Orantes said. “How can you not enjoy playing in Hawaii, Arizona and California? It’s a short season for us, so we try to take in whatever we can get. We go to the West Coast for about a week for spring break. We want to compete as hard as we can, so we can show all the sand-only schools what we can do while we enjoy the beach."

From the Beach to Destination Omaha: There's NO PLACE like Nebraska!

Wong-Orantes remembers a bunch of her young friends getting together and playing on Huntington Beach. “All of a sudden, we started getting into it and we had a coach, Bill Lovelace,” she said. “Since we were eight years old, we started going every Tuesday and Thursday every summer up until high school.  We had a group of about 10 to 12 and we’d just practice any skill or drill that we could think of. Bill started us and really got into it. Sara and I would sign up for youth tournaments, then started going to rated tournaments as we got older.”

I ask Justine what teammate has benefited most using beach volleyball skills to play indoors. “The one person that sticks out to me is CeCe (Cecilia Hall),” she said. “Before she started playing sand, I could've said that she didn't have the best ball control,” Wong-Orantes said. “I'm not sure if playing sand impacted her as much as I would think it would, but in indoor, middles have to pass those short balls, and she puts that ball on the money every time. I could see her working so hard. She's a blocker, but she also has to pass and serve receive. She’s the one person that's definitely stuck out to me in terms of better ball-handling skills."

Perhaps the Huskers’ expanded arsenal of skills from beach to indoor volleyball might be what punches the ticket for Nebraska to leave Kentucky this weekend and return to Omaha for the 2015 NCAA Volleyball Final Four.

Wong-Orantes calls Nebraska’s 'Destination Omaha' goal “special to everyone on the team, whether we're from Nebraska or not,” she said. “This is my third year here at Nebraska. I know what the fan base is capable of and how special they are to us. Everyone on the team feels it going into this weekend. We're definitely focused on the task at hand. In the back of our minds, we want to get to Omaha for our fans. They've been with us since day one. They're fully invested into this program, and I think that's the one thing that sells recruits for Nebraska – our loyal fan base. We all know that there's truly no place like Nebraska."

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