In 2014, when the NCAA approved beach volleyball as a championship sport, elevating it from its previous status as an “emerging sport,” there was no telling the immediate and vast impact it would have at the grassroots level.

Just seven years later, 148 schools sponsored beach volleyball programs: 62 Division I, 16 Division II, 5 Division III, 20 NAIA, 36 CCCAA, 9 NJCAA.

The result? Volleyball is now the most played sport by girls and young women in the United States.

With how quickly the sport has changed the landscape of the NCAA, and with how many programs are added every year, it begs the question: How do you get recruited to play NCAA beach volleyball? As with any sport, there is no single answer. But there is a progression you can take, whether you’re a junior in high school or an incoming freshman, that will get you on the map.

“Colleges are starting the recruiting process earlier and earlier,” said Jo Kremer, a current professional player on the...

There are a lot of great volleyball coaches out there. Think Stein Metzger, Dain Blanton, Jenny Johnson Jordan, John Mayer, Betsi Flint, Mark Burik, Brooke Niles, Brandon Joyner -- the list could go on and on and on. 

There are also a lot of not so great volleyball coaches out there, but we're not going to name names. We're just going to leave it at the fact that we're all human and, well, sometimes those human fallacies become very apparent when we're coaching. But if you'd like to join the first list, the one with some of the best coaches in the country currently, here are the seven deadly sins of volleyball coaches you'll want to avoid. 

1. Monday Morning Coach

Have you ever watched your favorite football team -- say, the Baltimore Ravens -- and explode off your coach, screaming obscenities at Lamar Jackson for throwing an interception in the AFC Championship Game? (me neither...)

How could he not see the defensive back? 

Didn't he see JK Dobbins wide open in the...

Thank you for reading! We love that you're interested in beach volleyball! We also run beach volleyball classes, private lessons and training camps for adults and juniors in Hermosa Beach, CA and Salt Lake City, Utah. We run volleyball vacations in exotic locations around the world. We can even run beach volleyball clinics for your group, club or team in your hometown! Send an email to [email protected]

Casey Patterson is known for, among a wide variety of elements of beach volleyball, his personality. He dances. Laughs. Talks more than your typical beach volleyball player -- sometimes, as was the case this past year at AVP Seattle, in the middle of a swing, when he wondered, audibly, what in the world Troy Field was doing when he dared to peel on Patterson. 

It didn't end well for Field. 

This might not seem to be like strategy in the typical sense of the word. That strategy is the Xs and Os -- who to serve and...

It's not only the setter's responsibility to put the hitter in a good position. Great attackers put themselves in a position after the pass where it's easy to set them a perfect ball -- and if you'd like the most effective, fastest way to become the best setter on the beach, give our setting course a try!

When you have great footwork, and you religiously create a great distance relationship between yourself, your hitter, and the volleyball net, it becomes more likely that you will score points.

I want you to take special notice, that none of what I...

One of the most formidable aspects of AVP pro, and Better at Beach CEO Mark Burik, beach volleyball skill sets is his serve. He has so many different types of serves it's a little difficult to count: jump serve, standing float, jump float, jump serve with side spin, jump serve with no spin. It's difficult for any player, at any level, to be comfortable passing, especially since he...

Beach volleyball pro Mark Burik talks about Defense in this 1-on-1 video...

Hey everybody and welcome to another Better at Beach video analysis. This is a match showing beach volleyball pros Mark Burik and Tri Bourne playing against Brazil but did you know you can get your game analyzed by real pro's right here?! If you've ever wondered how  an AVP or World Tour player would fix your game, looking no further than our one on one online beach volleyball coaching. We guarantee you will have a deeper understanding of beach volleyball strategy.

Open a tab by clicking one of the links above, then come back and let's show you how much you can learn through online beach volleyball coaching.

We have about a minute of clips here and we just want to go through the details of each point with you and see if we can pick up some new skills, new tips, and discover how the pros are doing it.

In this video we take a look at what goes into scoring points in beach volleyball at the World Tour level. This is one of my qualifier matches in 2016 in...

You guys asked, and we're going to deliver: You wanted to hear more about defense in beach volleyball, so that's what we're going to cover today. 

The video below is our match -- Mark Burik and Ian Satterfield -- vs. Sean Rosenthal and Chase Budinger at AVP San Francisco. One of the...

It's a mental game, beach volleyball defense. Doesn't matter if you're playing in Hermosa Beach or Austin, Manhattan Beach or New York City, San Jose or the South Bay. It is, as a popular saying goes, "chess, not checkers."

Which is why we wanted to show you this video. Austrian Olympian...

Have you ever tried to move in the sand? Chances are that you have -- you wouldn't be reading this blog on beach volleyball if you haven't. So, because you know how difficult it is to move, you know, then, how imperative it is to be in the right spot -- you can't depend on blazing speed in the deep...