UNCW added beach volleyball this year; its tenth women’s sport. This was the first season for the brand new program, and despite a record of 10-15, the Seahawks’ inaugural season was a great success. Any new NCAA athletic program is going to struggle at first and take time to develop.
“I knew the challenge we were going to face with so many of our girls learning beach volleyball, there was going to be a learning curve. The main challenge was converting indoor players, which were the bulk of our roster, into beach players,” commented new beach volleyball coach, David Fischer.
When asked about how he thought the season went overall Coach Fischer said, “I like the fact that we competed, I mean we didn’t always get the results we wanted, but we competed well against some established programs.”
UNCW faced a difficult schedule having to go against four top ten ranked teams, including a match against the number one ranked Pepperdine.
“All the people we played against said we didn’t look like a first year program,” says Freshman Courtney Mullinax.
Courtney grew up in Wilmington and was a fan of the indoor team. She was excited to be apart of something new and go to her favorite school in her hometown.
When asked about her favorite part of the first year, Courtney said,”The high point was definitely when we were in Siesta Key Florida and we play University of Louisiana Monroe which is where Coach David had coached for the past three years. We really wanted to get that win for David. It was great to take them, this would be their fourth year, and us in our first year to beat them was awesome.”
After cutting the women’s indoor and outdoor track teams due to budget concerns, UNCW officials looked to add another women’s sport to comply with Title IX requirements. Beach volleyball was an emerging NCAA women’s sport and seemed like a perfect fit for the coastal school.
Beach volleyball first appeared in the United States on the beaches of California in the 1920’s. Through the 50’s and 60’s, the sport spread across the beaches of the country. The game’s popularity was due to how easy it could be learned, combined with the challenge it provided.
Beach volleyball is one of the most popular women’s sports in the NCAA and the fastest growing NCAA sport ever. In 2012, the first year as a NCAA sport, there were just 16 programs. This year the season began with 41 programs and more on the way. Many schools find beach volleyball an attractive sport because it increases female participation and has very low costs associated with building a program. It is a great way to show the athletic prowess and skill of the women involved.
Any discussion of the rise of beach volleyball’s popularity would not be complete without mentioning the role of USA women’s beach volleyball in the Olympics. Beach volleyball has seen a recent rise in popularity. The sport really gained momentum in the United States after the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. That was the game’s first year as an Olympic sport and America’s first chance to see the sport on a large scale. This exposure every four years is a major reason for the sport’s growth. The USA women’s team of Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor have had three gold medal finishes in a row. The USA has dominated the women’s sand game and been an inspiration for a whole generation of young women to get involved with the sport.
Beach volleyball is very popular in the Wilmington coastal area and always seemed like a great fit for UNCW athletics. UNCW has joined the now nearly 50 schools that have a beach volleyball program. UNCW is the first NCAA Division 1 school in North Carolina to offer beach volleyball. The majority of beach programs reside in California and Florida.
*Infographic created by Jeffrey Boulden using Google Maps. All data retrieved from www.collegesand.org
The first ever NCAA Beach Volleyball National Championship was held this year at Gulf Shores, Alabama, where USC defeated Florida State in three sets. The tournament consisted of the top eight teams in a double elimination format. The teams had five pairs of players with the win going to the best three out of five games. UNCW hopes to compete in the championship tournament in the years to come and has brought in two coaches that should help them get there.
Coaches Amy Bambenek, David Fischer, and assistant Brittany Fennell all bring a wealth of playing and coaching experience at all levels of play. Coach Bambenek also coaches the indoor team where she resurrected the team from one of the league’s worst to an NCAA tournament bid and a CAA championship. That same success should be in store for the beach program. Coach Bambenek began her playing career at Coastal Carolina where she was a four-year starter and help lead the team to a conference title. She also ranks in the top five in several all time stats for the team. She began her coaching career as an assistant for Florida State where they won an ACC conference title. Next, she took a job as Assistant at George Washington University, where she coached several players to all-conference level status.
Coach Fischer comes to UNCW after several successful seasons as the head coach of The University of Louisiana Monroe. While at ULM, Coach Fischer helped several players become All-Americans. He started his playing career at Stanford University where he led the team to the NCAA finals. After his collegiate career, Coach Fischer played professional beach volleyball on the AVP tour. He also finished fourth in the 2003 Pan Am games.
Assistant Brittany Fennell comes to UNCW after coaching the Village Christian Academy in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her playing career began at Clemson University in 2008 where she won the team’s rookie of the year award. She helped lead Clemson to two NCAA Tournament appearances. She has also played for a USA Development Team in international competition.
The coaching staff agrees that having a successful indoor program will help to build the beach program. Some have questioned whether the top players will play beach volleyball.
“With indoor volleyball, you have more teammates for support, but you also have multiple players in each position that you have to compete with for playing time. I feel like when it comes down to it, the players are going to go where they will get the most playing time and where the scholarship money is,” says former UNCW volleyball player Kelli Clear.
Kelli played for UNCW from 2007 to 2010 as a defensive specialist. Indoor and sand volleyball are very different and require different sets of skills and different types of players.
Kelli compares the two this way; “The main difference is that indoor volleyball is played consisting of a team of six players and beach competes with two players. Also, the speed of indoor volleyball is much quicker than beach. Since you only have two players in beach volleyball, the court is smaller but the net is the same height. In beach volleyball, you have to change the way you play in order to be more efficient.”
Having a beach volleyball program gives some girls that don’t have the prototypical Division 1 Volleyball game a chance to play and earn a scholarship. UNCW suited up six full-time beach players for their first year and filled the rest of the roster with indoor players. In the future, the program should be able to recruit more players specifically for the beach game. The proximity of the UNCW campus to area beaches should help to attract top-level recruits. The sand program could help attract indoor players by giving them another way to play and compete in their off-season. The two programs should be mutually beneficial with each bringing a different perspective to the game.
“It was a really big factor for me because through the recruiting process I was mostly looking for schools that have both, just so I could have the opportunity to play both,” says Halle Hunt, a Freshman from Greensboro, North Carolina.
With the first season in the books, Coach Fischer now sets his sights on the recruiting trail to try to upgrade the talent. The first year was a great success with 10 wins. Coach Bambenek and coach Fischer have been successful everywhere they have been. The future looks bright and with a few years of recruiting and coaching, the program should be very competitive.
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