By Balan Selvamuthukumaran
Before coming to Pomona, I vividly remember going through the lists of clubs and organizations, thinking about what I might join or what events I might attend at Pomona. As someone that’s played sports all my life, I was interested particularly in intramural and club sports, so I was particularly struck by the beach volleyball club at Pomona. To my prefrosh self, this seemed like the perfect club to join, even if I had absolutely no experience in volleyball. After all, I was headed to sunny Southern California, making this the ideal thing to do—after all, I just assumed everyone either played beach volleyball or surfed down in SoCal (I wasn’t necessarily wrong).
After actually coming to Pomona, I realized that I was a bit mistaken. The beach volleyball club, as it turned out, was created recently to give students an option to play volleyball without playing on one of the competitive club teams, and didn’t actually play beach volleyball. Instead, the club was actually the All-Gender Volleyball Club; a club for anyone at any level to play volleyball and improve at the game. While I joined that (and later went on to help organize events and practices), I was still interested in beach volleyball.
Luckily for me, beach volleyball was an option as an intramural sport in the fall. I had also joined a volleyball class (so I could actually learn how to play), and I ended up making a team with some friends from the class. We were of course, set to win the league, but as a result of generational bad luck (jokes), we ended up losing in the semifinals of the playoffs. Either way, I loved playing beach volleyball—it was a great way to learn how to play the game, and though I didn’t understand the different play styles in beach and the indoor game, I had a great time, and spiked the ball for the first time playing in the sand after lots of practice.
This year, I’m playing in not one but two beach teams, and I’m excited to have another shot at winning an intramural title (the highest honor an athlete can receive, of course). Perhaps the sand will bless me this time.