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.

Most people put a hat and glasses on to go incognito. I take them off.

I didn't want to use anything as a crutch and ever have excuses heading into a match.

There's nothing worse than the feeling of wishing you had another chance at a play because you weren't ready. Every athlete has those feelings to mull over, and over and over ... Don't even expose yourself to the possibility to being caught off-guard. —

Not everything you're going to do in volleyball - or in life, for that matter - is exciting or fully functional, but if you have the willpower to make each minute count, you'll benefit in some way. And it will make you a better player and a better person in the long run.

It was really an exciting time trying to find my way from being a boy to becoming a man—being toe to toe and eye to eye with grown men, even though I was only 11 or 12.

I never did. I only prepared to win the next day.