The Viral Volley Podcast

In only the 3rd time in program history the UCLA Men’s Volleyball team named their Head Coach—and they didn’t have to go far from the Bruin family. On October 9th, 2024, the former Loyola Head Coach and former UCLA Assistant Coach under John Speraw, John Hawks steps into the role to continue the Bruin Men’s Volleyball legacy. In his first interview since the announcement last week John sat down with Rob to chat about going through the news of Speraw’s new position at USAV, what that meant for UCLA, the interview/hiring process, and having to say “Goodbye” to the excellent team Hawks assembled n Chicago.

In the episode, John talks about a recent run in he had with a State Trooper driving the Midwest while potentially being interviewed!

The CVW crew jumps back into the bandwidth to discuss some of the news that has dropped since the last NCAA MVB Championship ball dropped in May with coaching changes, hirings and other MVB related news.

From there, Brad, Dan, Jay & Theo discuss all things Pairs Olympics style! We'll recognize some former D1-2 athletes representing other countries. The guys then jump into the nitty-gritty breaking down the pools, athletes and medal contenders. Spread the word because we're diving into USA Volleyball! 

The USA is heading back to the Olympics as reigning Gold Medalists in Women's Indoor Volleyball. Part of that history-making team in the Tokyo 2020 (2021) Olympics was former Penn St. standout and current Paris 2024 Olympian Haleigh Washington!

In this Paris Olympics Episode Haleigh comes back onto the Viral Volley Podcast for a second time to talk about her collegiate and professional volleyball journeys through Tokyo, VNL 2024, the upcoming USAV Cup series vs. world No. 8 Netherlands, and the upcoming League One Volleyball movement kicking off in November 2024. Haleigh recently announced on social that she signed with LOVB Salt Lake City!

In a very high-energy and informative conversation, Haleigh tells it like it is in her own special way-- with just a little humor sprinkled in!

TCU has become a national powerhouse in Collegiate Beach Volleyball in large part due to Spanish sensations Tania Moreno and Dani Alvarez. This same pair has now become TCU Beach's program-first-ever Olympians representing Spain!

Dani joins Rob to discuss her beginnings in Beach Volleyball (from Tennis), trying indoor for 9 days, connecting with Tania and WINNING in Europe. Dani shares about how she found herself going to the USA to play Beach Volleyball and how she, Coaches Hector Guitierrez and Majo Orellana convinced Tania to follow her to Ft. Worth, TX. From there we discuss her 3 years at TCU, and the path to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

 (College Volleyball Weekly/Viral Volley Podcast Crossover)

We are just mere weeks away from the 2024 Paris Olympics-- and with that there are a handful of former College Volleyball Weekly, both Beach and Indoor who will be representing their native countries. One of those atletes is first-ever Viral Volley Podcast guest (December 2019), Tina Graudina of Latvia and USC!

Tina and Rob discuss her beginnings in volleyball in Latvi playing indoor, then transitioning out on the beach. Afterwards, we discuss Tina's Collegiate Beach Volleyall career at USC (by the way, she only has 7 career loses!), her pride in representing Latvia and her loyal fans all over the country for the first-time ever at Tokyo 2020. We then discuss her experience so far now that Tina is heading to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Tina concludes the episode by sharing 2 pieces of wisdom she has learned from her experience in volleyball.

In this special post-season episode of CVW Beach T20, Rob connects with a first-time National Champion, Ashley Pater, who was one of only two freshman starting for Head Coach Dain Blanton's 4x National Champions USC Beach Volleyball.

During Ashley's pre-collegiate career she had an enormous amount of success on the beach with multiple first place/gold medal finishes, with maybe 2 or 3 2nd/silver place finishes-- LITERALLY. Ashley was privileged to receive the offer letter and risked jumping from the East Coast to head West and continue the Trojan legacy of "Natties."

Ashley shares about her first year experience at school, training, playing with different partners, through a battle-filled season and her first-ever National Championship.

As we enter the summer Viral Volley Media will be doing episodes for relevant news for athletes, teams, coaches and/or other volleyball personalities from the National Teams (the "Road to Paris 2024"), Pro Volleyball Federation, Athletes Unlimited, NCAA Men's/Women's/Beach, and/or etc. Who knows, we may even throw in a couple AVP/FIVB athletes, top recruits and more!

Episode 233 will feature a member of the first-ever Pro Volleyball Federation Championship team, the Omaha Supernovas' BROOKE NUNEVILLER! Rob has interviewed her a few times during her indoor and beach careers at Oregon. She was named to the All-PVF First Team and now has a championship trophy, but before all that she had an illustrious career with the Ducks (indoors & beach), USAWNT, and Nilufer (Turkiye) and now Omaha!

Hear what Brooke had to say about the last few years of her year finishing up with the 2024 PVF season and what comes next!

#ncaamvolleyball

#ncaavolleyball

The CVW Coaching Panel wanted to get this Q&A Episode together because it's what our listeners wanted! 

Today we explore the expansion of the MIVA, formation of the GLVC, new teams and Division 1 & 2 expansion. Naturally, we flow into the rise of the portal and how coaches/teams view some of the different perspectives of it's availability to the athletes. Sprinkled in there are questions about ball pressure, "poachable players," favorite venues to play in and some friendly banter. Keep in mind we tangent every once in a while!

In this 2024 season finale, Kelly Belardi of Stanford Beach Volleyball and Kylie Wickley of Texas Beach Volleyball with Rob Espero discuss the AVCA All-America team honorees, along with the AVCA Top Flight recipients. In addition, the CVW crew discusses the happenings at the 2024 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship in Gulf Shores (that moves to Huntington Beach, CA in 2025).

Special thanks to the ladies mentioned above along with Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA and Alli Hansen of Florida St. for their contributions during the 2024 CVW season! Without their efforts the CVW BEACH T20 would not be possible!

The entire CVW crew of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Theo Edwards of CSUN talk all things National Collegiate Volleyball Championship week! From the opening quarterfinals, All-America Social, semis to the finals. The guys break it down for all volleyball fans alike! They guys talk about A LOT in this mega-80-minute episode.

Additionally, the remaining crew dives into a more recent trend in Men's Volleyball-- the transfer portal. Know that we ran out of time and will most likely have one or two more episodes to address our fan questions from weeks ago (and apparently, the portal will have even more athletes jumping in)! Stay tuned...