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Volleyball from sport court to the sand court-- from the preps to the pros and beyond. Home of College Volleyball Weekly Indoor/Beach. Episodes drop “most weeks.” Follow the pod on Instagram at @viralvolleymedia or host Rob Espero at @therobonthemic!
Episodes
Friday Jan 15, 2021
Friday Jan 15, 2021
In this episode UCLA Beach and 2019 Pac-12 All-Freshman Team honoree Abby Van Winkle joins Rob Espero to discuss her success with her collegiate career partners her first two years, playing at the No. 3 spot behind names like Megan & Nicole McNamara, and Sarah Sponcil & Lily Justine-- along with playing with fiery partner, Zana Muno, while chipping in time in a few duals with long-time friend, Lindsey Sparks.
Abby then talks about hers (and Zana's) part in winning the backend of back-to-back National Championships in Gulf Shores in their dual-clinching match. Also in this episode Abby takes on some Volleytalk fan questions, and takes a stab at an "NCAA Sisters Ranking"-- as she ranks all the sister pairs between the McNamaras, Nourses, Hallgrens and Van Winkles.
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
Paige Tapp joins Rob Espero in a continued conversation from VolleyballMag.com (https://bit.ly/3nKGCFX) to discuss the upcoming oppotunity to compete in the United States in a women's professional league, Athletes Unlimited. Paige discusses the "Minnesota Middle" connection, playing with a high-caliber program, which will result in matchups vs. MANY former Golden Gopher Middles, athletes and friends.
Paige then discusses the scoring methodology and discusses the opportunity to play with and against some some of the top volley-ballers in the the world. She closes out the episode by "drafting" who she would want in Week 1 of the competition (if she was a team captain) and who she would consult to help build her team-- citing that Hugh McCutcheon's and Karch Kiraly's phones would blow up from text messages from former athletes in the competition!
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
On this inaugural episode of College Volleyball Weekly: Coast 2 Coast Collegiate Beach edition, standouts and contributors Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. discuss COVID impacts, 2020 season recaps, 2021 team outlooks and 2021 athlete/team watchlists. In addition, Rob discusses some of the social media tidbits and semi-recent news regarding collegiate beach volleyball.
Monday Dec 28, 2020
Monday Dec 28, 2020
The CVW crew (aka the Collegiate Consortium of Coaching Intelligence) welcomes aboard Pepperdine Men's Volleyball Head Coach, David Hunt as a contributor to the show! Jay Hosack of George Mason and Dan Friend of Lewis chime in with Rob Espero to discuss some heavy topics that occurred this last year like the cancellation of Stanford Men's Volleyball after the 2021 season, the NCAA FBS minimum sports waiver request, training during COVID, status of the 2021 season, and schedules.
We finish the show on some positive notes with team outlooks, players to watch, and top 2020 moments for each contributor. We also delve into David Hunt's "Knee Injury" in front of USA WNT OH and Team Captain, Jordan Larson.
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
Easily the two of the most dominant athletes in the world of women’s volleyball representing the National Teams of the USA and Germany, Jordan Larson, Louisa Lippmann and Rob Espero virtually gather for this week’s Viral Volley chat.
Jordan and Louisa are fresh off of winning the bronze medal in the Chinese Volleyball Association professional league after 22 matches in 35 days. They share how they spent their unplanned time off due to the “p-word or c-word” (I just don’t like typing them out anymore), their journey to playing this year in China and doing so in a time of multiple adaptations due to the “p-word.”
We close out by talking about their performances during the bronze medal round and their reflections during this time in history.
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
We slowly edge closer to the NCAA Collegiate Beach season—assuming COVID doesn’t wreak any more havoc. In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, we bring in College Volleyball Weekly and chat with Seminole Team Captain, Madison “Mads” Fitzpatrick.
Mads talks about the Seminole team that had only one dual loss in the 2020 season— which came in her dual-deciding, nail-biting 15-13 3rd-set-match vs. USC at the Hilton Head Invitational. Although that loss came early in the season Mads pulled off an excellent season playing in the No. 2 spot with Alice Zeimann and Maddie Anderson before the abbreviated pandemic season.
Mads is an influential leader who works hard, plays hard and embodies the encouraging and mentoring characteristics that Coach Brooke Niles infuses in her program.
We close out the episode discussing the Seminoles’ acquisitions of some pretty big “Bigs” in indoor All-American Torrey Van Winden (6’3” Cal Poly) and Sydney Wetterstrom (6’4” Michigan), talented first-years as well as an arsenal of returnees from last season.
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast former Big West rivals put aside their differences to “colab” in the Italian professional league with Tonno Calippo Calabria Vibo-Valentia (yes, that is the FULL name of the team they’re on)!
4x AVCA All-American and 2x National Champion TJ DeFalco of Long Beach St. and All Big West honoree Dante Chakravorti of UCI share their current experience in Italy with competition during COVID times, their careers so far and their thoughts on the situation for all NCAA athletes, particularly their former teammates, coaches and programs.
We end the episode with the release of a special toy for the Christmas 2020 season behind the creative spark of TJ’s sister, Teagan DeFalco (Indoor/Beach Grand Canyon University).
Friday Dec 04, 2020
Friday Dec 04, 2020
After the shortened 2020 Collegiate Beach Volleyball season an unexpected partnership formed between AVCA Beach and Indoor All-Americans Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth. From it we saw 12 tournament finals with victories, with 2 of them being AVPNext tournaments with highly reputable names in the game.
In this episode Kristen and Taryn share about the 2020 season, how they came to play in tournaments during the pandemic, how they trained during this time and what to expect to see come the 2021 season in the CCSA and the LSU Sandy Tigers!
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast USA Men’s National Team Middle Blocker David Smith drops in to talk about his Zaksa team and how they are 8-0 to kick off the Plusliga season. With the team not having to go to a single 5th-set this season so far it would seem they are unstoppable, however living in pandemic times means that there is another opponent hovering about—COVID.
With leagues and sports teams attempting to maintain safety protocols worldwide nobody is invulnerable to the detrimental effects of an outbreak. David shares his experience with being the last team in Plusliga to experience a COVID outbreak with 10 of 14 teammates contracting the coronavirus.
Wednesday Nov 11, 2020
Wednesday Nov 11, 2020
Professional Men's Volleyball is planting seeds in the USA! The NVA, or National Volleyball League now fields 8 teams across the United States with former NCAA athletes that played in D1-2 to NAIA institutions, and American professionals and Olympians with a few international athletes from Puerto Rico and Canada in the mix.
This last weekend in Salt Lake City, UT, the NVA Showcase took place with all 8 teams combating in 20 matches over 4 days to win the NVA Showcase Cup. In episode 65 of The Viral Volley Podcast courtside reporter, Olivia Phelps and Play-by-Play Commentator and Las Vegas Rambler, Nick England took the time to discuss the competition, top teams and top performers of the NVA Showcase.
Nick shares the official All-Showcase team while both hand-pick their favorite athletes and stories of the weekend as well as what's next for the NVA.