Grayhawk Beach is a beach-only volleyball club teaching and training the skills of doubles beach volleyball. Training will encompass the mental, physical and technical components of beach volleyball to foster the development of athletes as players and young adults.

The club is designed for girls 10-18 years of age at a variety of skill levels. Whether you are a player who may be stepping into the sand for the very first time or aspiring to be recruited for college, we have the passion, dedication and knowledge necessary to assist each individual in achieving their goals.

Grayhawk Beach will practice year-round with a Fall, Winter, and Spring season. Summer seasons are designed for travel tournament preparation have a slightly different format from the other seasons.

Practices are 90 min, Little Hawk classes are 60 min.

Grayhawk Beach in process of partnering with local training facility, TBD

YES…we respect and understand athletes want to play both sports and it is possible to be successful as an indoor/sand athlete. The foundation for success in sand is based on experience and knowledge of the game as well as a strong partner relationship. We will expect athletes to attend practices, workouts, and tournaments on a regular basis. When conflicts arise, we expect communication with your coach and partner. Communication is necessary to have a positive experience.

YES! We highly encourage any athlete to compete for their school if they are offering it. Take pride in playing for your school. We do suggest you train at least 1-day /week with Grayhawk Beach while in high school beach season.

Athletes will be responsible for choosing their own partner. Coaches are always available to offer guidance with selection of a partner. Whether you stick together with your partner for the whole season or have a new partner for each tournament there are a few qualities you’ll want to consider.

• Can I be successful with this partner?
• Will she push me to be the best I can be?
• Am I comfortable communicating and being honest with this partner on and off the court?
• Will I have to play up a division with this partner? Sometimes a team will have to play up a level because their partner is older.

Click here to access the WellnessLiving site for Grayhawk Beach with full core functionality

The Grayhawk Beach mobile application available for iPhone and Android is designed to make scheduling your player as easy as possible

The Grayhawk Beach mobile application only allows one player to login. Mindbody is working on being able to access more than one family member, but at this time siblings must be logged into different devices. Browser based web-access from a computer, tablet, or mobile device does not have these limitations.

Here is a compilation of information regarding sand tournaments and how it works for local / California events. I want to provide as much information as well as roles and responsibilities of the parents, players, and coaches when it comes to beach volleyball tournaments without information overload.

The Grayhawk Beach Volleyball mission is to provide year-round training and events for all age. Players will gain knowledge of the beach game, grow their skills, increase strength, improve stamina and most importantly gain confidence in themselves and abilities both on and off the court.

Tournaments

Beach tournament season has traditionally started in the Spring / Early Summer and goes until the end of October. The weather is most favorable on the California Beaches during these months. With the addition of beach volleyball as a women's NCAA sport and 30+ high schools in Arizona offering women's beach volleyball in the Spring, the training season is never-ending.

The competitive beach juniors tournament scene is constantly in flux and there isn't one organization (like USA Volleyball) that owns competitions on the beach. There are numerous local and out-of-state organizations that run beach volleyball tournaments (including Arizona Region of USA volleyball).

Norm and Kathy Anderson (Revolution Volleyball Academy) run tournaments in the Summer, Fall, and Spring out at Victory Lanes. Great for girls new to beach competitions. The divisions and number of pools are determined by who shows up. Its $15 a player and you just have to make sure your USAV Beach membership is up to date. Check the tournament calendar.

Locally thesandclub.com is the most consistent host of regional AAU qualifier events (any club can host, but only certain number of bids given per region), Winners and Finalists can earn “bids” or invitations to the AAU Junior Olympics in California in July 2018.

Scheduled AAU Events: Jan 20th, Mar 17th, May 19th @ Mesquite High School Registration at thesandclub website and others at GCU, Check the tournament calendar and hosts website for most up to date info.

Locally the sand club.com is the most consistent host of regional AVP First qualifier events. Winners and Finalists can earn “bids” or invitations to the AVP First National Championship in California in July 2018.

Scheduled AVP First Qualifiers: Feb 17th-19th, April 21st @ Mesquite High School Registration at the sand club website.

In California, there are organizations including the CBVA (May – Nov), VolleyOC (Huntington Beach, all-year), Tamarack/Relentless, Endless Summer, JBVL, BVNE and others that hold tournaments throughout the year. California is where most beach players exist and will have the best competition in all age groups. Players from all over the world relocate to California to train to get better at beach volleyball.

Grayhawk Beach took 2 teams to California this year for the BVCA and plan to take more next year. Over 60 clubs from all over the country bring their best teams to compete. It's a great time and college coaches are scoping out the competition at these events.

Most of the AZ beach clubs are tied to indoor clubs. Club One, East Valley Juniors, Aspire, and others have beach programs, but their main focus is indoor (because thats where the money and numbers are ). Grayhawk Beach is one of the very few that is beach only and we like it that way.

Make sure you look at the weather and dress appropriately. If it will be cool, bring sweats and a jacket for both player and parents. Bring water and healthy snacks, light lunch or dinner (depending on the tournament times).

Bring lounge chairs and blanket ( sometimes it gets chilly) Check-in with your partner on time. After check-in, the tournament director will typically go over the rules with the players and parents. Most directors (including myself) are on-board with the philosophy that girls advocate for themselves when it comes to the accuracy of score, making a call on lines, nets, throws, and mishandled balls, etc.

Parents are there to support their children during these events, but must stay out on controversy and issues that arise with the game. This is handled by the players, work team and tournament director. Issues such has missed calls, scoring errors, violations must be handled by the players and work team. Coaching during play is prohibited by both coaches and parents. This includes calling the ball in/out or anything other than cheering your team on.

Coaches are allowed to help the girls warm-up and talk to them before the match starts. Coaches cannot coach during a match including hand signals or other non-verbal communication. Coaches are not allowed to coach during side-changes, and can only coach during timeouts and after the match is over.

QOB/KOB - Queen of the Beach or King of the Beach Girls sign up individually and will get pooled and initially seeded by age division. Director will create pools of 4 girls who will play 3 games in a round-robin fashion. There will then be a re-seed and re-pool, the top 1 or 2 girls from each pool will then move to the next round until a winner is crowned. Games will typically either be to 15, 21, 25, or 28. The number of points is determined by the number of pools, courts, and tournament timing.

Sign up with a partner, and girls are usually pooled in groups of 4 or 5. Teams play each other in round-robin fashion then seeded into the brackets. The top teams usually get a bye for the first round, then the other teams play each other by seed. For junior tournaments, games are usually to 21 or 25. Again, its up to the tournament director to determine the actual format on tournament day and is determined by number of courts, number of teams / divisions, estimated finish times, and number of guaranteed games.

I'm positive I'm missing things, but want to get this information out.
Mike Hawkins
Coach / Program Director
C: 602.882.3364
mike@grayhawkbeach.com
grayhawkbeach@grayhawkbeachvbGrayhawkVB