Good morning, beach volleyball fans,
Years ago, Michael Phelps produced a phenomenal documentary titled The Weight of Gold, which digs into, amongst other things, the stress related to pursuing — and even achieving — an Olympic gold medal, or a medal of any color. While we are not in the documentary-producing business — not yet, anyway — we did have Melissa Humana-Paredes, she of the historic silver medal won in Paris alongside Brandie Wilkerson, on the show to talk about that silver, which is, as silvers go, as haunting as it is rewarding. In our preview of the episode, Mel, Tri Bourne, and Tri’s now-no-longer-pregnant-wife (they welcomed young Mox Bourne to the family last week!) Gabby, chatted about the forever-existential question: Was all that stress to attain the medal worth it?
If you’re interested in the full episode, which I cannot recommend enough, we got you covered below.
The week in SANDCAST Studios
This past week’s podcast featured, as we mentioned, Melissa Humana-Paredes, who, side note, has a wonderful team chemistry with the Pod Mama, Gabby Bourne. They talked all things Olympics, recovering from a non-stop two-year sprint to the Paris Games, life off the beach, and more. It’s awesome:
The Debut of Film Room
We have accidentally stumbled into a new type of content: Film Room. Last week, Tallahassee was the recipient of a record amount of snow, which meant practices were canceled. But we still had a sport at which to improve, so a Zoom call was set up to break down the Olympic quarterfinal matchup between Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes and Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli. I figured I may as well record it and put it up and see if people enjoyed it.
People enjoyed it, I enjoyed it — I’m a nerd, I’ll watch and break down film all daggum day. So, the Film Room is here to stay.
Here’s the first episode, I guess you could call it, of the Film Room.
The next episode (installment?), where I break down what I think is the signature block of Anders Mol, is already up and scheduled to post February 14, but if you’re a member, you can already watch.
Valentina Gottardi MIC’D UP!
As part of our growing collaboration with Volleyball World and Beach Volleyball World, we have another edition of MIC’D UP! Today features Italian stars Valentina Gottardi and rookie Reka Orsi Toth during their matchup with China’s Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia at the Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha, Qatar this past December. Such a fun look at a wildly athletic team, and one with a blindingly bright future:
Previous mic’d up videos:
Coming up next Monday: Agatha and Rebecca
SANDCAST and Volleyball TV are partners! You can get 20 percent off your VBTV subscription if you use the code SANDCAST20.
News Around the Beach
- FSU plants its flag overseas. If you haven’t been able to tell just yet, part of my deal with FSU is also beefing up its media department with at least one feature per week. This week’s feature is on how we landed Shira Tal, our first Israeli recruit ever, and Julia Tennoy, the first from Norway to don the garnet and gold.
- Huntington Beach is going to be SPICY. Mark your calendars for April 12, 26, and the weekend of May 8-11, all in Huntington Beach. I’ll let the AVP take it from there, as I’m not really in the interest of breaking news while my primary focus is at Florida State, but there’s your carrot dangle. Things are going to get wild.
- VBTV strikes streaming deal with PVF. Fun news for PVF fans: You can watch matches on VBTV now, a welcome sign for the league which is losing its chief member, the Omaha Supernovas, to the upstart MVL. Better news: It’s free for Americans.
- Easiest way to help SANDCAST. Our financial numbers are in for 2024, kudos of our CFO Tri Bourne, and we had a total of $78k of expenses (videographers, SANDCAST Tour, etc.). We want to continue pouring into the show and delivering high quality content, and the best way you can help FOR FREE is by signing up for a free trial with Aura, which is back on with us again for 2025. It takes maybe five minutes to sign up, you get 60 days for free, and is easy to cancel, and the show gets $250 per sign up. It’s one of the most lucrative affiliate deals I’ve seen, especially when our fans don’t actually have to spend any money for us to get a kickback. We basically break even with the show — everything that comes in gets reinvested to produce higher quality content, with increasing quantity as well. So, signup, send the link to your friends (https://aura.com/sandcast is the exact link) and let’s make some awesome stuff.
- SANDCAST memberships are live. We’ve opened up memberships for anyone who wants to watch full podcast episodes on YouTube a day or two early.
- Coming up on Wednesday we have Ian Capp, the head coach of the Stevenson Men’s Beach Volleyball Team. Wait…that’s a thing?? Yep! And we chat all about it.
Much Love to the sponsors
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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: SANDCAST63 for 20 PERCENT OFF.
SANDCAST adds another year with AG1. One of our longest-running sponsors, AG1, is back on the pod for another year. We’ve re-signed with the brand, and have changed our model with them, to a fully affiliate-model. So if you want to stay healthy AND help the show, please order with this link, which comes with a full year of Vitamin D for FREE, as well as five totally FREE travel packs!
We’re officially partnered with Better at Beach! Don’t know how this took so long, seeing the massive overlap between our audiences. So if you want to get Better at Beach, use our code SANDCAST for 10 percent off all of their products, from online classes to in-person camps and more.
Appreciate y’all for listening, reading, and loving the beach like we do.
Have a great week!
SHOOTS!
Tri and Travis (and Savvy)
