There is a dynasty forming in beach volleyball, and it is not, for once in this century, a reference to the United States women (although one, of course, would not be wrong in calling the American women a dynastic force).
It is, and has been, whoever is working under the tutelage of Adriano Ticao.
Not that this is new.
For decades, Ticao has been quietly building a lengthy resume of somewhat unheralded success. A native of Brazil, he learned under renowned coach Leticia Pessoa, the woman who headed Emanuel Rego’s Hall of Fame career, complete with five consecutive Olympic appearances from 1996-2012 and medals of every color.
But there is where Ticao took the path decidedly less traveled by.
He could have remained in Brazil, alongside Benjamin Insfran and Harley Marques, and Ana Paula and Leila, both of whom would eclipse the top-10 in the world, standing on podium after podium. Ticao could have remained with Evandro Goncalves, a towering Brazilian who would go on to win eight consecutive Server of the Year awards – and counting.
Indeed, Ticao could have remained in Brazil, the deepest hotbed of talent the sport had then yet seen, as most any coach would. Who in there right mind would leave the country that produced medal after medal?
Yet after producing a World Championship in 2008 for Brazil, a curiosity remained.
Could he replicate that success elsewhere?
Could he blend the distinctly Brazilian style with the swaggering American bravado in Southern California?
Could he develop previously dormant countries all over the globe from Costa Rica to Australia, Azerbaijan to Russia, Bulgaria to Colombia?
Questions he asked of himself.
Questions he definitively answered to the world.
In just two years coaching Americans, he boasted a pair of teams in the finals of the Hermosa Open, long one of the sport’s most iconic stops, in Matt Prosser and John Mayer, and Rachel Scott and Elaine Youngs.
In Azerbaijan, a country with no established national structure prior to Ticao’s arrival in 2014, he led them to a ninth-place finish at the European Championships, an achievement arguably equal to that of the World Championship he won with Brazil the year prior.
The world took notice.
Russia plucked Ticao for the run up to the Tokyo Olympics, and from 2018-2021, Ticao built Konstantin Semenov and Ilya Leshukov into one of the world’s most formidable teams, winning six medals in three years while finishing fifth at the Olympic Games, losing only to eventual gold medalists Anders Mol and Christian Sorum.
In the midst of that stretch, Ticao’s passport continued filling up with stamps. In 2019, he took a stint with the Bogota Beach Volleyball Team, leading Colombia to a gold medal at the Leuven Futures in Belgium.
Another small yet dormant pocket of talent noticed, in Sofia, Bulgaria. There, Ticao organized international training camps, hauling in pairs from the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Serbia, and more during a remarkably busy stretch – one that, of course, led him elsewhere, to Canada.
While in Bulgaria, Ticao coached Amanda Harnett and Alina Dormann. So impressed were they with their development under Ticao that they moved him to Toronto.
If it is true that opportunities, once seized, create more opportunities, then it should come as no surprise that his success led to still more phone calls for his services. John Sutton tabbed Ticao to prepare him for a partnership with Olympic gold medalist Phil Dalhausser. When that partnership ended, however, the relationship there did not.
Ticao volunteered to coach the developing talents in Charlotte, North Carolina, aiding Sutton in his vision to build the beach volleyball community on the East Coast, implementing his own coaching methodology developed throughout more than two decades of international experience. It is of little shock, then, that suddenly North Carolina was soon a destination for NCAA coaches, recruiting the previously quiet state, finding it to be a previously untapped gold mine.
Ticao could have taken the easy, mostly obvious road: He could have stayed in Brazil. Could have collected medal after medal, accolade after accolade. But what he sought was challenges. Could he build something there? Develop talent here?
Could he replicate his success?
Oh, could he.
He is the dynasty builder.
