SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Kent Steffes.

Buckle up.

Steffes is one of the greatest beach volleyball players of all time, an Olympic gold medalist in 1996 who would win nearly half of the events he played. He has since gone on to become a prolific writer, author, podcaster, and, now, documentarian. He has opinions on the sport, and sports in general, and we get into all ...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Kylie DeBerg, one of the top rising blockers for USA Volleyball who is coming off a gold medal at the Xiamen Challenge with Toni Rodriguez. DeBerg’s journey in the sport is a wild one, beginning in Hudson, a tiny town in Iowa with a population of 2,700, to…beach volleyball. How? They got into it and much more, including:

• DeBerg’s rise thr...

This episode of SANDCAST features Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander as they sit down with Tri Bourne, chatting Sander's return from indoor, Crabb's off-season getting into coaching NCAA Beach Volleyball, and them playing together again in 2025. They get into:

• How Taylor Sander’s return to indoor volleyball in Indonesia went, and why he feels three years younger after playing beach volleyball
• How Taylor Crabb got into NCAA Beach V...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Rob Gray, a skill acquisition specialist, professor at Arizona State, sport scientist with the Chicago Cubs, and, simply, the father of the modern coaching movement in sports. His books, podcast, and research have formed the foundation of thousands of coaches’ coaching philosophy, including Mewhirter’s. What a special episode! They chat about:

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter where, today, Travis sits down with Stefan Boermans at a restaurant in Ostrava, Czech Republic at the Ostrava Elite. Boermans is currently one of the top blockers in the world, and one of the top teams alongside Yorick de Groot, a tour de force for a deepening Netherlands federation. On this episode, they chat about:

• How Stefan Boermans’ social med...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Nick Lucena and Brooke Niles and the entire FSU Beach Volleyball coaching staff as they reflect on another successful season for the 'Noles. They chat about:

- How Brooke Niles and Nick Lucena have managed the husband-wife, coach-coach balance at Florida State

- Both of their transitions from elite beach volleyball players to coaches at the NC...

This episode of SANDCAST features Alvaro Filho, one of the most recent Brazilian greats who is now an assistant at Stetson, and Cesar Benatti, a longtime coach who was most recently an assistant at LMU with John Mayer. This is SUCH A GOOD EPISODE, as we chat about all things Brazilian beach volleyball, including:

• Why Alvaro views Emanuel Rego as one of the best players to ever play
• What made Alison Cerutt such an incredible pa...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Mark Paaluhi, the man behind the improbably successful Hermosa Open – and the man who extended it to a three-year deal, bringing the Hermosa Open back through 2027 at least. Exciting stuff. We chat all about that, as well as:

• Why Paaluhi felt the sport needed a professional event in Hermosa, and why it needed to be pure: a true double-elim...

This episode of SANDCAST features John Mayer and Billy Allen, hosts of the Coach Your Brains Out podcast as well as coaches in NCAA Beach Volleyball. Mayer is the head coach at LMU, leading the Lions to six straight WCC titles and a berth in the National Championship. Allen is an assistant at Stanford, helping the Cardinal to a single season wins record and an MPSF Championship. With the NCAA season over, they chat about:

- How to ...

Welcome back to another solo episode of SANDCAST, where Travis Mewhirter breaks down all the happenings in the world of beach volleyball. This week, Mewhirter chats:

- TCU's historic NCAA Championship win in Gulf Shores, the first in program history and a long time coming

- This week's AVP tournament in Huntington Beach, which will decide the final two spots per gender in the 2025 AVP League

- Volleyball World's proposed rules chan...

Welcome back to SANDCAST U, where Madison Fitzpatrick breaks down all things NCAA Beach Volleyball. This is an AWESOME edition, where Madison is literally on the sand of Gulf Shores, shooting our preview episode of this weekend's NCAA Championships. She chats about:

- Is this finally the time TCU takes home the first non-West Coast title in NCAA history?

- Why she thinks Stanford is the hottest team in the country at just the right...

Welcome back to another solo episode of SANDCAST, where Travis Mewhirter recaps a wild weekend, and previews a hectic one to come, with the NCAA Championships descending upon Gulf Shores again. Meanwhile, the AVP League had two more tickets punched, and the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour is hereby renamed the Lucky Loser Tour. 

Mewhirter chats about:

- How Kristen Nuss simply wills gold medals into existence sometimes

- James Shaw...

Welcome back to SANDCAST U, where Madison Fitzpatrick talks all things NCAA Beach Volleyball. In this episode, she chats about the end of the regular season, which she thinks is the wildest NCAA Beach Volleyball regular season she's ever seen. She chats about the regular season, and previews the upcoming:

- MPSF Conference Tournament, which includes Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, and more

- Why Florida State, Texas and LSU are in an abs...

This episode of SANDCAST features Silila Tucker, a longtime professional on the AVP Tour who chats with Tri Bourne about the development of yet another new beach volleyball league called the Community Circuit, and it's one you can certainly get behind. Fun development from Lila announced on this one, as well as chats about:

- How the 15-15-15 style of the AVP League matches changes things

- How to develop mental toughness in beach ...

Welcome back to another SOLO EPISODE of SANDCAST, where Travis Mewhirter provides a comprehensive overview of a wild weekend in the world of beach volleyball, breaking down the AVP League qualifier, the Saquarema Elite16, and the Cal Poly Center of Effort Challenge. Namely, he chats:

- The surprise success of Corinne Quiggle and Megan Rice

- The more surprising success of Hagen Smith and Logan Webber

- The puzzling decision of the ...

This episode of SANDCAST features James Shaw and Molly Shaw, the newest power couple in the world of beach volleyball, who just descended upon the Quintana Roo Elite16 and both came away with semifinal finishes. James and his new partner, Chaim Schalk, walked away with bronze, while Molly and her new partner, Kelly Cheng, took fourth in Molly's first Elite16. With Tri Bourne hosting, they chat about:

- How each partnership came to ...

This episode of SANDCAST U: NCAA Beach Volleyball with Madison Fitzpatrick, breaks down LSU's Death Volley Invitational, which hosted No. 1 UCLA, No. 2 TCU, No. 4 USC, No. 5 Stanford, No. 7 Florida State, No. 10 Long Beach State, and LSU.

Takeaways from the episode:

- TCU achieved a remarkable 3-0 record at the Invitational.

- Haley Hamlett stepped up impressively in TCU's lineup.

- USC faces immense pressure as a top team. - FSU p...

This episode of SANDCAST is a solo episode! Travis Mewhirter breaks down everything you need to know (he thinks, but if you're still wondering things, please ask or drop a comment) about the 2025 beach volleyball season, from the AVP to Volleyball World to USA Volleyball. He chats:

- All the new partnerships on the Beach Pro Tour

- WTF the new Elite16 format is

- A look at the AVP's TV deal, and why it's a risk worth taking

- USA V...

This is the first mailbag episode of 2025, where Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter answer all of the fan questions we had as the boys are finally back together again. They answer the most pressing questions on the beach volleyball world's collective minds, including:

- Who is playing with who on the AVP Tour and Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour?

- How has fatherhood changed both Tri and Travis' outlook on volleyball and life?

- Would ...