Mark Burik (00:00.984)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Burik of course here with Brandon Joyner and today we have a very special guest who has built and maintained his own volleyball community, leagues, lessons, clinics. He's also got a high finish of a ninth on the AVP, tremendous athlete and we're gonna hear about how he's gone from indoor player to grass champion to beach volleyball all while building a community.
full time and we will get into that in just a moment. But first our camp dates Seattle, Washington, March 13th is sold out yet again. Thank you, Seattle. We love you. Can't wait to see you. We got five full courts sold out. We're sending six coaches and our guest today is actually going to be there. So it's good chance to get to know him in advance.
March 20th, we'll be in Long Island, New York. March 20th, we will also be in St. Pete, Florida. We still have one spot open. So if you're a men's double A player or higher, we have one spot available. You can go ahead and sign up or you can DM me and I will give you the info, but that is a small group, 10 person only at my private Airbnb in St. Pete, Florida. March 27th, we'll be in New Orleans.
April 10th in Virginia Beach, April 17th in Fort Myers, April 24th in Scottsdale, Cedar Rapids I.O. We're coming to you May 15th, May 22nd in Lowell, Michigan, May 29th again in Long Island and in San Diego at Wave Beach. June 19th, we are headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with Volley Life and our very special guest today. So let's get into it.
This is Thomas Goldsmith. Hello, Thomas.
Tomas Goldsmith (01:56.514)
Hi there, thanks for having me on the show.
Brandon Joyner (01:59.717)
Tomas you do your own podcast too, right?
Mark Burik (02:00.172)
You're welcome.
Tomas Goldsmith (02:06.154)
Yes, we do. It's called Roll the Tape. It's like a video format. So we have it on YouTube right now. And we're trying to tell a bit of the legacy and the evolution of grass and beach in the Midwest. So a lot of kind of local legends, local stars. And one of the elements we do is we review.
Mark Burik (02:09.166)
Brandon Joyner (02:10.031)
Nice.
Tomas Goldsmith (02:31.298)
footage if we can find it of our guests and talk through the match with them. it's kind of fun to learn different perspectives on how to play the game that way.
Mark Burik (02:41.506)
So if they're wanting to learn grass and study the game with you, they can follow along on that YouTube channel.
Tomas Goldsmith (02:49.75)
Yeah, that's correct. Grass and at some point we'll have some more beach matches on there, but mostly it's been grass so far.
Mark Burik (02:57.422)
All right, shout it out again one more time, the title, so we can put it in the link. Roll the tape, cool guys, we're going to link that in the description for this podcast and this YouTube video. Well, that's exciting. So, I mean, first things first, do you like grass, indoor, or beach better?
Tomas Goldsmith (03:00.116)
It's called Roll the Tape.
Tomas Goldsmith (03:14.102)
Yeah, it's been fun.
Tomas Goldsmith (03:20.514)
I think at this point in my career, I like playing beach the most, but that's not always been the case. I have kind of shifted back and forth when one gets maybe a little repetitive. I've made a bigger push in the other. It's also about chasing goals. So when indoor felt like I had reached all my goals in indoor.
Brandon Joyner (03:20.645)
You
Tomas Goldsmith (03:48.928)
The next challenge was to go to the grass or go to the sand and see where I could take my game in a new place.
Mark Burik (03:57.228)
When did you start in indoor and what were those goals that you were like, nailed them, I'm ready to move on.
Tomas Goldsmith (04:03.706)
Yeah. Um, so actually both my parents played volleyball. So I kind of grew up in and around the sport. Um, there's a decent grass double scene in Tucson, Arizona, where I'm from. So my parents played a lot of that. Um, so I actually started playing grass before anything else. Um, I started playing indoor, like when I was a kid in club.
like middle school, something like that. Yeah, my goals there were I wanted to play in a Division I program. And then when I transferred out of that program, I wanted to win a collegiate club championship. I never achieved that one, but then I wanted to win an adult, you know, like national championship. I was fortunate to play with some great teammates and was able to do that a few times.
Brandon Joyner (05:02.009)
What team are you on for that?
Tomas Goldsmith (05:02.032)
And...
I did it with Lights Out and I did it with Pineapple and then I did it in Denmark as well with Gintofta. once I was, yeah, playing overseas was another goal of mine. And I just was super fortunate to know Dan and Kole Polikowski, it kind of fell on my lap. And I had a supportive wife who allowed me to go paint the most of it.
Brandon Joyner (05:13.093)
There you go.
Mark Burik (05:14.018)
and.
Brandon Joyner (05:29.889)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (05:33.097)
Yeah, once that was kind of done, I had a lot of concurrent goals in grass, winning basically major events, culminating with Wapaka Boat Ride. And Sand has always been kind of like the most competitive, like difficult place for me to win at the highest level. think I've won a handful of big-ish events, but I would love to keep working towards trying to win an AVP.
event.
Brandon Joyner (06:04.741)
So you're back on the training grid.
Tomas Goldsmith (06:09.438)
Yeah, not as much as I would like. It's been a very slow, methodical process to try to be consistent and not flare up my knees. So I had surgery on both knees in 2024 in July, so almost two years ago. And it's just been a really challenging process to get back. I'm able to play for about an hour at
max effort, which is enough to, you know, if anybody wants an injury sub for the league, I could play one match a week for an hour, but no, it just feels like a really long road to compete in a multi-day event at this point. So I'm trying to find joy in the process and play local for the meantime. So we'll see if I get back that far. That's the goal, but
Brandon Joyner (06:46.789)
.
Tomas Goldsmith (07:07.854)
I don't think it's worth adhering to that goal without enjoyment along the way. So it's kind of a balance right now.
Mark Burik (07:16.814)
For all of our grass fans and students out there, if you were to kind of lock it into the utmost, most important thing to win on the grass, what would be like your top three in order of priority that you need to win grass championships?
Tomas Goldsmith (07:35.97)
I think number one is your serve needs to be a weapon.
Tomas Goldsmith (07:43.373)
That's probably been my greatest strength as a player. And if I look at the history of people who have won most of the biggest events, almost all of them have a weapon of a serve. That's not necessarily a great jump serve, but usually it is. It could also be an extremely challenging and tactically used float serve.
but at least from statting my own matches, I think the jump serve is the way to go. Number two, at least somebody on your team needs to be a great hitter.
In triples, it doesn't have to be you, but in doubles, you probably both need to be very good at it. That's how you turn difficult side out situations into points. And it's also how you get transition points if you're playing something like Pottstown. It doesn't make any sense to dig a ball and not get a kill on it. You you have to do that. And I'd say ball control is the third most important element.
being able to turn if people are bombing serves and you have a really high pass out of system being able to put that on a platter on your second contact. So your great hitter can have an easier time terminating as a.
Mark Burik (09:12.268)
And we're talking just big court grass, right? it, cause out here in Florida.
Tomas Goldsmith (09:16.084)
No, I think that applies for small court as well. The serve is less effective because there's less room. But I think like, because the surface is still easy to jump in and move in, like the block is not as impactful as it is on short court sand doubles, for example. It can still be super important, but I don't think it's like.
like a great hitter in the grass is still going to deal with the great blockers pretty well, I think.
Brandon Joyner (09:50.691)
Are there a lot of tournaments out there where in the grass they play on short court?
Tomas Goldsmith (09:56.053)
Yes. especially because the AVP grass tour has become more involved. so most of their events are played on short court. They allow let serves to play out. so it's, it's kind of different. Most of the ball here in Wisconsin is, on a big court, it's triples and there's no let serves. so the rules and the block doesn't count as a touch. So the rules are a little different. It's, it's more of a power game.
Mark Burik (10:27.18)
Is that so, cause the only grass triples that I know about, know there's one in the Southeast, like maybe South Carolina, I'm not sure. And I know what packer, but that's a regular, like everyday thing, every weekend tournament for Midwest Wisconsin. Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (10:34.893)
the cloud.
Tomas Goldsmith (10:44.417)
yeah.
Yes. dad, that's kind of what I did to pay my rent when I was in college was every, every weekend I would go play grass tournaments around the state or in, the Chicago area. There's, there's a ton of that. There's a handful of like modifications. There's one of my favorites was an event, still running called circle tap, which is like an old school side out scoring, no hand passing serves.
Brandon Joyner (10:54.635)
Hahaha
Brandon Joyner (11:02.84)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (11:16.035)
that you play but it's triples on a big chord. That's kind of one of my favorite ones.
Brandon Joyner (11:24.575)
That's fine. It's mostly up in Chicago though, right? Like, or up in the Midwest kind of area?
Tomas Goldsmith (11:30.807)
There's different pockets, like around Appleton, which is north, it's kind of near the location where Boat Ride is. There's a lot of events in that region. There's a lot of events in Milwaukee, Chicago, parts of Iowa, parts of Minnesota. They're kind of pretty spread out here. There are a lot of pockets of good activity.
Brandon Joyner (11:38.895)
What that is,
Mark Burik (11:59.608)
What do you think for sand players? Because it's fairly typical, I would say, to see somebody who plays beach all year long and then will show up to Pottstown and in general, a few differences. But you always see beach players who haven't played grass all year long. They show up for one tournament.
and they can take that tournament down, even though it's a completely different court size, completely different surface. So do you, have you found that beach players excel easily on the grass? Or is there something that, that grass players are missing?
Tomas Goldsmith (12:39.927)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (12:43.587)
Yeah, if we look back at those three things, you know, number three, I think is ball control. And I don't think there's a better way to train your ball control than playing sand doubles. You get the most amount of touches in the most challenging environment. So for myself personally, I have not practiced grass in almost my entire career. I've practiced indoor and I've practiced sand doubles. Occasionally.
I've done some sand triples to mess around with it, sand fours. I've throw some big court lines out to like prep for Pottstown just to get used to receiving the ball in a bigger space. But I think, yeah, playing sand is not only great for your ball control, it's great for your athleticism. So when you move from sand to grass, it's a really easy transition, I think. Moving from indoor to grass.
is easier than moving from indoor to sand, but you're still dealing with the elements of the wind and sun and that can definitely shake people up. But I think if you're only playing grass, you're, I mean, there are some guys who have been incredibly good at it, but you know, like I think it's, you're leaving something on the table with the amount of reps you can get and the, the, the overall athleticism training that you get out of sand.
So yeah, when you move to Pottstown from playing elite sand doubles, you're going to be a contender.
Mark Burik (14:15.746)
I always like, I never understand hitters in pool play. if you can't, you're a capable, like high level player, the guys that are just bombing for the first day of Pottstown in grass. I'm always like, you have a football field to shoot into. There's so much room back there. And so I always spent pool play like quarter jumping and shooting until like you said,
Transition situation. Okay, we got a rough set like now I need to put some juice on it, but Man, I'm a shooter on the grass for sure And then I want to save until like the last three matches I want to save my jumps in my jump serve like I'll I'll get going then but I Don't like hitting on the grass. I don't think it makes
Tomas Goldsmith (15:02.124)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (15:05.827)
I've always, I've debated that approach. I felt like, especially at Pottstown, well, I mean, maybe most other circumstances, there's a little bit of like, of play your way into the tournament if you know that you're probably going to win this match. especially Pottstown being two days, like when I played with Nolan Albright,
Brandon Joyner (15:06.021)
That was the only thing I liked.
Tomas Goldsmith (15:33.163)
We knew that our serve was the best chance of us scoring a point. And so we might as well go for an ace and get off the court as soon as possible. Even though it was like max effort for that one rally, hopefully it was going to be fewer rallies. And it was definitely less effort than like running down a high line and trying to score in transition. So I think.
Brandon Joyner (15:53.509)
When you're playing with Nolan's big old body, you need to save as many points as you can.
Mark Burik (15:58.914)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (15:59.307)
Yeah, yeah. He is, you know, he is very smooth and reliable. You know, his ball control is good and he's great for like an on two option that's super easy. So we had a lot of easy side outs, but when we were, yeah, when we're trying to score a point where we decided to go max effort on the serve.
Brandon Joyner (16:07.98)
is.
Mark Burik (16:21.774)
Yeah, there's something to be said about not sitting there at 2-2 when you're 45 minutes into a side out match.
Tomas Goldsmith (16:30.467)
95 degrees.
Brandon Joyner (16:31.506)
especially on a game that you're supposed to win.
Mark Burik (16:35.107)
Yeah.
Hmm. Do you think that the people who look more are more effective on the grass or on beach? Or do you think that people should be primary hitters? Because I've had this discussion with a couple of people, and one of the guys is a good friend of ours, his father, who dominated sand for a long time. He was just like, I was just always hit first, like, because if I make a mistake when I hit
They still got a lot to deal with, know, digging a hard driven ball and do that. But if I accidentally shoot to the wrong place or they run it down, this is a free ball situation for them now. So do you think that being physical and we can go grass and sand, but do you think that being physical is more important or less important than being looky and accurate?
Tomas Goldsmith (17:35.297)
Yeah, I think if we start, actually I want to start on the indoor side to answer that question. When there's six defenders, it seems like the solution is obvious to bring it to be physical, right? Now, the risk of being physical is that you make more hitting errors. And certainly if you make four hitting errors, probably three hitting errors and as
game to 21 in the sand, you'll probably lose that game. So if you can't be physical and consistent, what does it matter if you give the other team a free ball occasionally? At least you're not hitting it out. The other element that is kind of interesting, I remember looking at the 2010 World Championships and Wallace was...
for indoor from Brazil, the opposite was the MVP, top right side, top attacker. And he had something like a 65 % kill rate, a 5 % error rate, and a 5 % block rate, which is like unbelievably good. It's like no wonder Brazil won and he was the MVP, right? So if you want to be world-class as an indoor attacker, like that's your benchmark, right?
Mark Burik (18:55.118)
That's a tough pitch,
Brandon Joyner (18:56.069)
Benchmark. Just be like the Olympic gold medal MVP.
Tomas Goldsmith (18:58.529)
Yeah. In the sand, think we're just starting to get more good analytic data on the game. There's not like a ton of money for some coach or some analyst to go in and have the secret to sell to somebody, you know, like there is in the NBA, for example. So that question of is it
Mark Burik (19:04.48)
and beat me.
Mark Burik (19:25.454)
Mm-hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (19:28.021)
more effective to bring it physically or to shoot high line a lot or to be vision and shot oriented. I don't know that there's really anybody in the world that has a like if I was trying to train somebody from a young age to become the best possible player, which one is better? Like, I don't, I don't know if we have enough data to like say which one is the right approach. I think
For myself, whenever I'm in trouble, I think I should just hit the ball. And if I can see the block, that's enough, because I can hit through or around it. And it's pretty hard, like you said, to dig a hard-driven ball and put it away. certainly, having good vision bails you out in a lot of situations, especially against teams that are not that disciplined on defense.
It's an easy way to score a point. So I think you kind of try to build your consistency as a physical player. And in the meantime, you make sure that you have a way to see what you're looking at on the other side.
Brandon Joyner (20:42.661)
I think it's also kind of interesting to see how different the, like, while you're saying that, the demographic of beach volleyball seems to be a lot more diverse than the demographic of indoor. Like, you look at the top 10 NCAA teams.
their outsides look the same, their opposite look the same, their middles, they're all freaking large, know, setters are now like, if you have a five-eighth setter, you're like, they better be really good at soft blocking. But on the beach, like we still have like the Kristen Nusses, who is like, if if Kristen Nuss was playing in college and they didn't have a beach team, she, she's a libero, you know, she's not, she's not even getting a chance to swing. So it's kind I wonder if that,
Mark Burik (21:30.135)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (21:34.841)
That answer is harder to answer in that aspect as well because some people just don't even have that ability. know, like Kristen Nutz, if she goes up and swings at every single ball, she's limiting her skill. Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (21:47.031)
Right. I think too, that's an interesting point. The homogeny in indoor may be even somewhat misguided because you see how diversity and different ways of playing the game have been successful at the highest level in Sand. I think a lot of it is copycat. If you see another team do something, then you're like, they're super tall, so we should get super tall maybe.
Mark Burik (22:16.973)
Mm-hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (22:17.059)
But I think also there's maybe a limit to people's understanding of what makes a good volleyball player that comes into play and they use things that are visual in nature to make decisions instead of, you know, science or statistics and analytics to make those decisions.
Brandon Joyner (22:17.637)
Alright.
Mark Burik (22:36.406)
Yeah. Six nine guy who can bang. Don't recruit them yet. Let me see 20 sets. Like let's check your setting out first. I know that you look huge on the beach, but just because they're tall, like if they're going to put you out of system, you know, they're not going to serve the tall guy anyway. So the first thing I need to set it sea out of a big man is get, show me your hands in your platform when you're setting. if that's dialed, I'll take you even if you're
a weaker hitter, you know, just because you might intimidate people out of out of serving the big dude.
Tomas Goldsmith (23:12.705)
Yeah, you know, can always, as a partner, can help that too. In warmups, you can hit a couple on the net on purpose so that they serve you early.
Brandon Joyner (23:22.125)
tried to get my partners to do that my whole career. And their egos were so big. We could have won so many more games if my partner had some more balls in the net and warmups.
Tomas Goldsmith (23:24.899)
you
Mark Burik (23:28.366)
Yeah, it was interesting like a few years back when you're talking about size that Middles started becoming the shorter of the attackers, especially in the in women's game. They were choosing the lateral speed. And then they said, if we've got this monster on the outside, like in the women's game, six, four or six, five girl, we want that bigger.
taller reach for blocking since most sets go to the pin and for attacking. we've got a higher operating height and we need to close more double blocks. So if our big person, if our tall person is slower, we're getting single blocks anyway. So then they started transitioning a lot of the bigger, you know, typically like goofy, long legged, long arms.
to the pins to the outside and then like let's get our speed athletes on the inside so that we can really close some blocks.
Tomas Goldsmith (24:30.029)
Sure. Yeah, and then you have the people who are just freakishly tall and freakishly athletic and they ruin it for the rest of us.
Brandon Joyner (24:36.953)
Yeah. I wonder if that was, wonder if that was employed by like the indoor coaches that were like, Hey, we need to make middle exciting again. So we're going to call it like the athletic position. When I was growing up, it was like middle is like, if you got stuck in there, you're like, sucker.
Mark Burik (24:39.254)
Yeah, and we hope they never come to beach so we can keep surviving these 6'3 athletes.
Mark Burik (24:55.372)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (24:57.025)
Yeah, we do.
Mark Burik (25:05.578)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (25:08.023)
Definitely the least fun position, I think.
Mark Burik (25:10.286)
Yeah, they are the old lineman. There's just like all work, no glory. But I saw the, um, this one kid, I shoot now I'm bad, but I saw this one kid just absolutely dominating. think he hit like 800 in an indoor college match, um, as a middle one, they were just feeding him. You know, and the person that doesn't get the credit of course is the passers, you know, but you got that guy and you're set.
Brandon Joyner (25:15.236)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (25:35.971)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (25:40.047)
Yeah, there's that.
Mark Burik (25:40.302)
So tell us a little bit about volley life. So you played in college, went overseas to play, and continuing to compete on the grass, continuing to compete on the sand. So volley life, not to be mistaken with volleyball life. Okay, volleyball life is the tournament platform where you can look at all tournaments in your region. Volley life is Tomas's community that runs in...
Bradford Beach, where else?
Tomas Goldsmith (26:11.779)
Grant Park Beach in South Milwaukee. So they're kind of nearby, but two locations that we run our leagues at. So Volley Life, it's not my community. It is my company and one of our pillars of the company is community.
Mark Burik (26:16.589)
Mm-hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (26:39.555)
There's actually been a pretty strong beach volleyball community in Milwaukee for a number of years. In the early nineties, there were some AVP events that they held here. A lot of the older guys still love to talk about it. And if you go on the Facebook group of like old school volleyball, they post the matches on it. But so kind of starting at that point was when volleyball started to kind of take root here.
Mark Burik (27:00.077)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (27:09.219)
Um, we used to just have one court and people would, you know, do pick up on it. And if you win, you stay. And if you lose, you might wait three, four hours to get back on that, that one court. So, um, that was kind of where it was at for a long time. And then, uh, a man named Todd Goronsky, um, yeah, his brother Joel and a handful of others started.
Mark Burik (27:33.26)
Legend.
Tomas Goldsmith (27:38.839)
building more courts, running leagues, holding more tournaments, and growing the scene that way. I there's always been barley, volleyball, you know, in many different places in Wisconsin, but there's never been like a beach with a bunch of courts on it until Todd started doing that. And I actually worked for Todd back in...
I think 2012 and 2013. So I kind of learned a little bit of how to run leagues and support that scene. And then a different restaurant group kind of took over named Surge in 2015. And I had been bugging the county saying, hey, like you should hire me to run the volleyball. Well, they had hired Surge to do it. And then they told Surge to hire me. And I was lucky enough to get that position.
I was like applying for jobs as like a bank teller for lack of a better idea. So, cause I would, I'm a musician. I went to school for music. have a couple of performance degrees, but, I didn't really enjoy teaching private lessons and I wasn't prepared to like go full out on music. I was a little burnt out from it. And, so I I needed some kind of job, right. And then this
They called me in the middle of applying for these bank teller positions and I said, yeah, I can do an interview. Like give me 30 minutes. they said, we need somebody who can do this, this and that. And I'm like, yep, I can do that. I'm your guy. And so I got the job and I ran all the volleyball operations for them for two years, which was a nice learning playground for me because I was playing with somebody else's money instead of my own.
Mark Burik (29:10.817)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (29:31.875)
but it went really well, until it stopped going well. We didn't quite see eye to eye on how valuable volleyball is. so just to understand the setting, there's, we have three Tiki huts at the beach plus a concession stand. And, we don't get a lot of sun and warmth here in Milwaukee, but for 12-ish weeks in the summer.
everybody wants to go down to the beach as much as possible and be outside. But even in that 12 weeks, there's plenty of days where it's slightly cold, it's gray, there's rain. And volleyball leagues are a way to guarantee that we're going to have several hundred people come down to the beach on days that normally nobody would come to the beach. And so the restaurant has such a small window to make money.
Mark Burik (30:20.59)
Mm.
Tomas Goldsmith (30:26.147)
that volleyball is a way to make it more consistent, as well as the events we might bring in. While we were there, we had the NBL one year. Another year, we had the Junior Beach Tour National Championships for USA Volleyball. I think there was something like 800 teams that attended. We ended up building a bunch of temporary courts. I think we had like 55 courts on the beach that year. And the restaurant group was upset with me that they were like,
Mark Burik (30:42.637)
Wow.
Tomas Goldsmith (30:54.723)
there was like too much volleyball and it's like, think they did like three and a half times the average in sales for food and like two and a half for alcohol or something. So it's like, guys, I just made you all that money. But so anyway, when they, they eventually stopped renewing their contract with the county and they went out for proposal. And a friend of mine and I started volleyball life in 2017 and
after I was fired, guess, or not renewed my contract with Surge. And so then the reason we started Volley Life was somebody needs to support this community. Somebody needs to run leagues in a professional way, needs to try to bring in outside events, host events, and keep doubles alive because obviously the dollar signs are at sixes. And
Mark Burik (31:52.003)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (31:54.913)
We were able to win the bid from the County. So we started 2017. We won our first contract with Grant Park in 2018 and then started doing Bradford in 2019. And apart from the pandemic, which halted almost all operations, we've been able to grow every year. Our events are continuing to improve our leagues. We're on track to get 600 plus teams this year.
in our leagues and
Mark Burik (32:26.67)
600 teams.
Tomas Goldsmith (32:28.931)
Yeah, it's around like 3,500 players. Six nights a week we're playing. We have 36 courts at Bradford Beach, another four at Grant. 36, actually it's 37. I keep one court as like an instructional court and it's also where we train in the.
Mark Burik (32:39.64)
Did you say 36?
Mark Burik (32:48.376)
So are those temporary or permanent? Do have wood poles or you just got to set it up every time?
Tomas Goldsmith (32:52.811)
They are wooden poles. They are, I believe, 14 feet long and they go five feet in the sand, but we have to take them out in the winter because the lake can freeze and the ice can come so far up the sand that it would splinter those poles if that were to happen. So we take them down every winter and we put them back up in the spring.
Mark Burik (33:12.654)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (33:17.998)
It's the same way East End volleyball in Long Island does it like each summer they go out with their auger, drop in the poles and at the end of the summer they take them all out.
Tomas Goldsmith (33:28.291)
It's a tremendous amount of work. It takes a lot of people to get the nets back up. But yeah, as soon as they start going in, people start playing in them. So it's a really neat moment when they do go up.
Mark Burik (33:33.454)
Now, when you
Mark Burik (33:44.206)
When you say won the contract, because I get a lot of emails, messages, people who are trying to build communities, maintain communities, or figure out how to set up a facility or leagues, what's the process for you and what do mean you won the contract?
Tomas Goldsmith (34:04.225)
Yeah, so Bradford Beach and Grant Park Beach are Milwaukee County parks owned and operated. And I think every city is probably a little bit different or county is different, but they have a mission to activate the space, which means they want people down there enjoying it and using it as a resource for the public. so that's something that
I agree with that we have all your life strongly support. and in order to achieve that, the county parks needs to do these public slash private partnerships. The county doesn't have the resources to create and maintain, you know, volleyball leagues at that level. So, but they did is they put out a request for proposal on how to run it.
Mark Burik (34:46.926)
Mm.
Tomas Goldsmith (35:01.303)
There's different elements to the bid that you put in for the RFP. Part of it is your vision and other parts your experience. And then also there's the bottom line. How much money are you paying for the space? So technically we're like leasing the space from the county. And then we're making sure that our programming also matches their mission. So even though we have leagues,
where we have every court filled five nights, five and a half nights out of the week. That's only for like a couple hours. There are no lights down there, so we have to squeeze in between the end of work and sunset. The rest of the time, those courts are open and free to the public. We don't leave the lines out, but people bring their own lines and we'll play all weekend. Tons of people just put sandals where they think the corners are.
a lot of people would draw lines in the sand, which is kind of hilarious. They always draw it right from the pole, which, it's technically like three to five feet out of bounds, but, that's, that's how they do it. So, we create that space. We'll run camps. We'll do, rentals, third party events, birthdays, company outings. we do things like, if there once like there's a
Latin music festival that they have. They've been doing a few years now. So we'll take down the nets. Obviously we'll leave the poles, but create space for them to have their festivals. So we work with a lot of different community events to make sure that the beach is still a public asset, not just like wildlife's private domain.
Mark Burik (36:43.702)
Hmm. That's an important part of your proposal process that you say that you're going to do this and that you allow for it.
Tomas Goldsmith (36:53.633)
Yes, that's part of the vision component. So the parks, you know, gives a percentage value to each of those three things, experience, vision and finances. So part of our vision component was to align ourselves as a as a community partner and a partner of the parks department.
Mark Burik (37:15.15)
Yeah. Do you in Milwaukee, do you have to pay in upfront? Like we promised we're going to pay this much or is it a percentage? Because I know in Long Island, they have to submit silent bids for access to some of the beaches. And these bids between a few organizers are well, well over a hundred thousand dollars.
Tomas Goldsmith (37:18.627)
you
Mark Burik (37:43.342)
where they say, we're going to pay you this much in order to do what we want for the whole summer. So do you have to promise them a certain dollar amount or are they taking your percentage and seeing how successful you are after a little bit?
Tomas Goldsmith (37:56.001)
Yeah, so our current contract is a percentage of just off the top of everything that we generate at that facility for Bradford. At Grant Park, it's a combination of a minimum and then a percentage over a threshold. And the contracts are good for X amount of years. There might be a couple of extensions.
Mark Burik (38:13.73)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (38:22.254)
Whoa.
Tomas Goldsmith (38:22.293)
and then we have to go through the process again. So we have a number of years left on our current term. We're definitely going to seek to respond to the RFP in the future. I think we've shown ourselves to be a great partner for the parks and I think we're doing a good job. So we're always trying to get better though and planning ahead for the future.
trying to make sure we position ourselves as the best choice for that. But also, it's, you know, we have to think about ways to diversify our impact and our revenues so that we're not beholden that we can't, you know, that we can't exist without this one piece. So maybe that changes, but we're doing things like running the Fresh Coast Champions Cup, which is a grass triples tournament.
and we have a sand doubles tournament called the summer forever. have camps. I started volley life university to do more education and player growth. So there's a number of other things in the work that we're in the works that we're trying to pursue, not just running leagues, but just kind of providing as much support as we can to everybody as players and spectators in the community.
Mark Burik (39:43.372)
Yeah, so you are kind of disaster planning where if County at some point just comes in, yoink, you've it'll be a tough reset, but you're getting ducks in a row in case that were a possibility. Because the same thing I know in Long Island any given year, like the amount of city council meetings that Rich Highless has had to go to battles with like the local cities. And he's like, do you know how?
Like our leagues have brought in thousands upon thousands to this city, like of people, and that's generated millions in revenue for the city. And then you put me on the chopping block. Like what?
Tomas Goldsmith (40:26.891)
Yeah, yeah, I think I definitely empathize with that. Fortunately, like I said, I really made an effort to really foster a positive relationship with the County Parks Department. You know that we don't always see eye to eye on everything. There are things that I wish were less difficult for us, but you know, they apply it fairly to everybody and
So we do our best to make sure that they can rely on us to follow the rules and promote the park to everybody and help them achieve their mission. And they're also beholden to kind of the political elements of the day. I think that's important to remember that you can't create these personal grudges and...
make the business too personal. think we're a part of the greater Milwaukee space. And so it's important that we make sure to operate as valuable partners in that space rather than takers.
Brandon Joyner (41:38.99)
Tomas, I have a quick question. At the beginning when Mark was kind of introing you or talking about volley life, he said, your community. And you said, it's not my community. And I think that there's some depth behind that statement. Do you mean like so many people have helped you create it or that the city's involved or anything like that? I just, want to hear a little bit more because.
Mark Burik (41:39.502)
Hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (42:05.003)
Yeah, well, let's say we lose that bid.
In some form or another, people are still going to play volleyball down at the beach. And, you know, I think we're best positioned to, to support that. you know, more than other people at this time, but, it's also like something that, is bigger than just me or my company. and so we're kind of stewards of the community. We're helping to.
maybe steer it in some way and to welcome in more players and to be thankful for the people who part of it and give them the best opportunities to play the sport that we can. But, you know, I didn't create it. I've just fostered it and helped it grow. And I'm hopeful that in the future somebody else can take the torch of that responsibility. So I can go do, I don't know, birding and hiking or something else.
Brandon Joyner (43:12.6)
Thank you.
Mark Burik (43:13.166)
I'm burning.
Tomas Goldsmith (43:15.715)
Um, so yeah, it's definitely, uh, I don't want to take ownership over the community. take responsibility and ownership for my company. um, you know, I'm, I'm super proud of the work that we've done and the people that I've worked with along the way. But, uh, yeah, the, community is kind of its own thing and, they, they've, you know, 10 years from now, maybe nobody will remember me. And then I think,
Brandon Joyner (43:42.222)
Thank
Tomas Goldsmith (43:45.473)
you know, that's kind of okay with me.
Brandon Joyner (43:46.766)
You know, when I hear that statement from you, it doesn't surprise me at all just knowing you and getting to know you over the years. But I think it took me a while to get to where you are mentally with that relationship. And I think that people who are starting an organization or something like that, going into it with the mindset that you just kind of explained, think sets you up so well.
because it makes you realize that you do rely on other people, right? Like you rely on all these older names or people that have done it in the past. You realize that other people came from other people and being willing to be a steward of the sport. like that verbiage that you used. think that that's huge. It's a good reminder to me as well. So I appreciate you being that kind of person and
putting it into words so eloquently, which is normal for you as well. I always learn a couple of new words when I'm hanging out with TomΓ‘s. You got a good vocabulary on you.
Tomas Goldsmith (44:50.102)
Thank you.
Mark Burik (44:58.158)
And you see it like I've seen, I've seen all versions of it. The people that are like focused on getting people there. we at Oklahoma city, in boom box, he's like fighting to get public schools there. He goes, you don't have to pay us anything. Like just come, like we want you here. We want the sport to grow. And then there's other places in the cities where it's like,
Tomas Goldsmith (45:02.37)
Thank you.
Brandon Joyner (45:08.893)
Okay.
Mark Burik (45:24.794)
It's all about me. Like there's nothing that that individual can't touch or won't touch and wants credit for. And those are ones that get so stagnant. Like they hit this cap. There's no more growth. And then eventually the me show just it runs out of juice. And who's left to carry it on if you can't.
If you can't pass on your skills, pass on the idea of the community, it does though. It does take somebody's active hand in planning, organizing, communicating with people. Like there's no community that was built without the go-getter, but the ones that stagnate are the ones where the go-getters like this is mine. You know, it's, it's all me. So.
Tomas Goldsmith (46:06.776)
Right.
Also like a really stressful way of operating a business. know, like tournaments are for me are like the most challenging and difficult thing to run. Right now we just run two of them and try to do those two to be like really big, great events as opposed to lots of small ones.
Brandon Joyner (46:13.858)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (46:26.85)
Really?
Mark Burik (46:37.622)
Mm-hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (46:38.849)
Yeah, I think the reason they're so challenging to run is because it's hard not to feel like this is my thing. This is me putting myself out there. And if you don't register, means you don't think I'm worthy of your participation or your money. And so it can be, yeah, just and also the habit people have of signing up last minute can can just really drive a lot of stress in my life. So.
I've tried to just over deliver on every bit of service that I can to make the event as good as possible. And by focusing on those efforts about making the event great, even if you lose in the first round of B, then it takes a little bit out of that.
Mark Burik (47:07.139)
Yeah.
Tomas Goldsmith (47:29.195)
It's a judgment on me. Actually, it's a judgment on the event and I can pour myself into the event and that's my work and my preparation.
Mark Burik (47:37.73)
What are some telltale signs of a bad tournament director or organizer or just things that you go, I'm never going to do that. I'm not going to run my events like that. This is how I would do it different.
Tomas Goldsmith (47:52.789)
Yeah, well, I incompetence is probably the biggest one. There are a number of events that I've participated in. I'm not going to go out of my way to name anybody or any events, but where it's just like not run professionally or not run to standard, there might be some highly questionable formats. The seeding come out of pool play might be wrong.
There might be an obvious slant in the seating or the bias that goes towards pulling somebody into a certain part of the bracket, et cetera. Those things are really unprofessional, especially in some of the events that I've run, like I play in them. Like I can't have any hint of any of that happening because...
You know, like I would lose credibility, my events would lose credibility. So incompetence, not knowing how to handle the situation. Making sure you're prepared for things like this person gets injured. Can we bring in somebody off, you know, the sidelines to fill that space? So having rules in place to handle that. You know, that kind of stuff comes from experience.
You know, have to learn as you go. So somebody who has run their tournament the exact same way for 30 years and has never listened to anybody on how to change it. You don't want to be that guy. You want to be somebody who adapts to try to make the event as fair and competitive as possible. You know, that means listening to players on occasion. It also means that you probably shouldn't be changing things on the fly.
But it is like, need to have a space where you reflect on the success of your tournament and where you need to improve things in the future. So people who are obstinate will probably not run a successful event for the long run. I think the last thing is you need to be like a good listener and just a nice person. You don't have to acquiesce to all their...
Mark Burik (50:01.102)
Mm-hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (50:10.467)
you know, quite frankly, there's a lot of BS that players might come up to you with, but, you, you do need to be, approachable and you need to have, you know, listen and respond in a kind way and a professional way. because if you're an ass to somebody, they, they probably will not come and play in your event in the future.
Mark Burik (50:31.798)
Yeah. How do you deal with making sure tournaments finish on time? This is of all the tournaments that I've played, like they're easy solutions. remember going down to Florida. They never had a problem finishing these massive tournaments compared to a couple other places. And it was always to me, it was always the look at like these 30 minute pool play warmups before going. But then I go down to Florida tournament director.
Tomas Goldsmith (50:56.963)
next
Mark Burik (51:01.294)
Who is normally nice is no nonsense with that. Like if the first serves not up, you guys are starting at 15 or you guys are starting at five, five. Okay. You got 30 more seconds. First serve still not up. It's now a game to 11 and period cut it hard there. So I kind of grew up in my twenties and thirties with the mentality with a great tournament director at some point has to be the jerk to get it.
Tomas Goldsmith (51:12.291)
Thank
Mark Burik (51:30.674)
moving, but just like very quickly. Like you've got to be stern and focused on that. But how do you, how do you make sure tournaments are well enough organized to be finishing on time when people want a 30 minute warmup or just off getting a sandwich when it's their time to play?
Tomas Goldsmith (51:45.909)
Yeah, so the way I structure the day is I look at what my end time is and then I work back how many rounds I can fit in from there. So sometimes people are overly ambitious in their format and how they think it's going to finish. that's part of the problem. But once you establish that format, we definitely use a forfeit rule. So if you're starting late, you know, you're giving up a point or so per minute.
Mark Burik (52:03.234)
Hmm.
Tomas Goldsmith (52:15.683)
At some point you drop the first game. Now in terms of enforcing that.
You can be a jerk about it as long as you're a jerk to everybody about it, right? It needs to be distributed fairly across the board. Generally, we have not had too much cause to enforce that, but one of the ways we handle that is, one, we have a microphone and we'll pester people about it. Two, I have staff that is like responsible for a certain division.
or section of courts. And all they do all day is go around and make sure that their matches are starting, that people know when they play next, where they play next, that their scores are being reported. So they kind of learn throughout the day where different teams are sitting and then go find them and bother them. So only rarely have I ever had either matches or tournaments run long or that we've had to like
Mark Burik (52:56.888)
Nice.
Tomas Goldsmith (53:24.717)
tell somebody to forfeit. Now, one thing that has been kind of difficult with that is, you know, you get towards the end of a tournament, it's a lot of back-to-back matches for the winning teams, and it might be, the heat index might be like 98, 100 degrees or something like that, because the humidity can be pretty high here. So sometimes knowing when to, for player health, give a little bit of extra time.
it can come into play as well. So I think there's a balance of that. But yeah, we always want to try to start on time and make sure our next matches are going. And we do that with staff and we do that on the mic. way to help your matches run on time is have the off team ref because they don't want to stick around and wait for you either. having a ref will help keep things on time as well.
Mark Burik (54:16.252)
huh.
Mark Burik (54:21.004)
Okay. If somebody is traveling to Milwaukee, how do they find you? Are there opportunities to play every day? Are you running clinics for what ages? What's the best way for somebody who's got a business trip to Milwaukee to get into volleyball while they're there?
Tomas Goldsmith (54:44.331)
Yeah, so if it's a nice day and you're willing to meet new people, you can absolutely come down and find some play. There's a lot of pick up random level of play going on all the time. Mostly at Bradford Beach, a little bit at Grant. Grant's kind of a much chiller atmosphere. It's not as close to downtown. Bradford is pretty close to downtown. So there's just...
Mark Burik (55:00.408)
and that's mainly at Bradford Beach.
Tomas Goldsmith (55:13.987)
within 20 minutes, there's several, there's probably like a few hundred thousand people living within 20 minute drive. So yeah, like coming down and just having an open mindset and willing to play, you can probably find some games. If you're hoping to play more doubles, you can come down on a weekend morning and there's groups of people playing men's and women's and co-ed doubles pretty regularly at the kind of B and A level range. So just.
bring a four pack, six pack down with you and make some friends. Obviously if you're solo, it's a little harder to fit in, but there's plenty of welcoming people looking to play. So I think you'll.
Mark Burik (56:00.622)
Is there a Facebook group or a WhatsApp group or?
Tomas Goldsmith (56:03.907)
Yeah, there are a handful of Facebook groups. There's one called like Bradford Beach volleyball. There's another one called Bradford Beach volleyball junkies. There's Milwaukee volleyball. We have a sub group, volleyball league sub something like that. And then yeah, you're definitely, I encourage you to look online at volley-life.com. We have an upcoming events section that details when.
of our tournaments are or when like the Latin Beach Festival is if you're interested in that. We have all of our clinic dates on there. We do about one a month for adults and juniors are welcome. Junior camps. So there's plenty of plenty of ways to get involved.
Mark Burik (56:43.732)
nice.
Mark Burik (56:51.21)
Awesome. Cool. Well, Tomas, thank you so much. I know we've had talks off camera, but I lucky to be getting to know you better. for our campers who have gotten to experience you as a person, as a coach, they are extremely lucky to get to work with you. And you're going to be in our Seattle camp, which is unfortunately sold out. the campers are going, hopefully that they enjoyed this.
Tomas Goldsmith (57:19.307)
Yeah, looking forward to it.
Mark Burik (57:20.818)
And then we're also coming up to you. What date do we have there? June 19th.
Tomas Goldsmith (57:27.265)
Yeah, 1921.
Mark Burik (57:30.35)
Great. So we'll be heading up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with Tomas leading the way and partnering with Volley Life. And you guys can find him on the website. Do you also have an Instagram?
Tomas Goldsmith (57:43.587)
Yes, at Bolly Life LLC is our Instagram account.
Mark Burik (57:49.646)
Sweet. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for the chat and yeah, we'll see you at some camps.
Tomas Goldsmith (57:58.775)
Yeah, thanks so much for having me guys. Looking forward to coaching in Seattle and seeing everybody in Milwaukee when summer comes.
Brandon Joyner (58:04.684)
Thank you.
Mark Burik (58:05.696)
Awesome. All right, everybody from the Better It Beach fam, we'll see you on the sand.
Tomas Goldsmith (58:14.093)
you
