Happy Monday, all,
This is supposed to be spooky season, but for SANDCAST, it hasn’t been spooky at all. Why? We just hit 1 MILLION views on our YouTube Channel, which we only started in earnest last year. We have all of y’all to thank for that. Huge, huge kudos to everyone who has stuck with us during our crappy audio and camera days — we love you. And to all the newbies who are subscribing now or did at the beginning of this year: We appreciate you, and you have no idea just how bad we were when we began this lovely journey.
Now that our ego is properly outsized, it’s time to inflate another ego, that of DJ Klasnic, our VolleyballMag Rookie of the Year and the guest on this week’s podcast.
This week in SANDCAST-Land
This week’s podcast featured DJ Klasnic, who at 28 years old made his long-awaited debut on the AVP. It was quite the debut, too: A runaway Rookie of the Year campaign that was six years in the making, with a little someone named Phil Dalhausser to thank. Fun stuff with DJ:
Have you gotten your playbook yet?
We have more than 100 guests’ worth of wisdom in our new book, Playbook of Champions. If you like the podcast, or beach volleyball, or learning from word class individuals, you’ll love this book.
You can get it on Amazon and if you already have, we’d love it if you could give it a review!
News Around the Beach
- Delaney didn’t miss beach volleyball much this season. She loves being a stay-at-home mom, which we’ve found kind of has a weird stigma to it.
- The Lion King just pulled a Brett Favre. We all thought Aleksandrs Samoilovs retired with his longtime partner, Janis Smedins. Wrong! He was back on Tour again at last weekend’s Mallorca Futures with younger brother, Mihails, and promptly took a silver medal. “Lots of things to work on,” he wrote on social media, which means that we’re likely to see much more of this team. Could be fun.
- It’s officially Awards Szn. We dropped our annual VolleyballMag men’s AVP Awards on Sunday. Check it out to see who took home some hardware, and feel free to debate our picks. They were not easy this year.
- McKibbin Brothers steadily dropping fours videos. If you missed the inaugural Newport Beach Volleyball Invitational, a star-studded fours exhibition, worry not: The McKibbin Brothers have you covered. They’ve dropped two matches thus far, which you can watch here and here.
- To China we go! The Olympic race continues this week with a Challenge in Haikou, China. Three men’s teams are straight into the main draw — Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk — while Tim Brewster and Kyle Friend are in the qualifier. For the women, there are three USA teams in the qualifier: PanAm Games bronze medalists Corinne Quiggle and Sarah Schermerhorn, Carly Kan and Katie Horton, and Jade Race and Kylie Wickley. Of supreme interest to me is the debut of Heather Bansley and Sophie Bukovec, and the Swiss family civil war between the Verge-Depre sisters, Zoe and Anouk, who are in a tight Olympic race.
- Coming up on Wednesday we have put Tri Bourne firmly on the hot seat with a Fall Fan Question Episode. Does he regret his partner decision? Is he still in the Olympic race? That, and a whole lot more coming to you on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and wherever else you consume SANDCAST content.
If you enjoy the podcast or this newsletter — or both! — we’d love it if you could share it out! Word of mouth is the best way we grow, so share the love, and as always, let us know any content you’d like to see more of (or less of) and we’ll make it happen!
Much Love to the sponsors
We finally have an alcohol sponsor! Bartender in a Box is fueling some fun conversations on SANDCAST with its Mai Tais and Margs. $20 for a box that’ll feed 12? We’ll take it! Be sure to check them out for your libation needs!
Hydration is absolutely everything to a beach volleyball player, especially staying hydrated in a manner that helps our beautiful environment. Which is why we are STOKED to partner with Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic Water for THREE YEARS! They offer all kinds of fantastic deals online, and good news for you (and us), you can get 20 PERCENT OFF using our discount code, Sandcast, at checkout. Aloha, y’all.
SANDCAST is fueled by a lovely mix of three main ingredients: We LOVE to do it, people enjoy listening to it, and sponsors fund our ability to do so. We only partner with sponsors we love, and we are so fired up to have Athletic Greens join the show! And they’re hooking up our listeners with a full year of Vitamin D for FREE, as well as five totally FREE travel packs!
We’ve been with Wilson Volleyball since day one, and we love the products they make — the best ball on the market, hands down, no questions asked. With season coming up, if you’re looking to get some new equipment, use our discount code: sandcast-20 for 20 PERCENT OFF.
Appreciate y’all for listening, reading, and loving the beach like we do.
Have a great week!
SHOOTS!
Tri and Travis (and Savvy)
