It's hard to give a career like this up, when I tell my wife I'm going to the office, and it's the beach.
The beach game taught me great lessons about how to elevate the play of my teammate, or teammates, and how to anticipate and expect the ball so much more than the indoor game ever could. It taught me - even forced me - to be a much better all-around player. That allowed me to help our USA Olympic Team in many more ways than I ever could have otherwise.
The indoor game is much more of a team game, having to work effectively with a group of 15 to 20 people, striving to improve every day, every drill, even every contact. The beach game is much more of an individual game within a team sport, much less about organized practices with coaches and much more about just playing the game.
We play at the world's most beautiful beaches but in the world's most challenging conditions. It is not like you play one match and you go back to air conditioning. We do it all day long.
I played a kid's game, I got to do it at the beach, and I was able to support my family. I consider myself incredibly lucky.
I was fortunate to start the sport at a young age. I was 6 years old when my dad started teaching me. We started playing tournaments together when I was 11, in the lower ranking of beach volleyball in California. We weren't playing against kids; we played against grown men, so immediately, I had to raise my game to compete.
