Molly Phillips’ last hurrah as a Texas student-athlete won’t be played in the familiarity of Gregory Gym but rather on the sand.
After announcing that Texas would add beach volleyball as its 21st varsity program and 12th women's sport in 2023, longtime UT volleyball head coach Jerritt Elliott, who is overseeing the program in the interim, determined that the best way to approach the inaugural season was to have assistant Erik Sullivan coach the spring volleyball roster to play in a 14-match shortened season.The first match is in March.
While Sullivan’s résumé includes professional experience in indoor volleyball as an Olympian and beach volleyball as part of the Four-Man Volleyball Beach Tour, he isn’t Texas' long-term solution as head beach volleyball coach. After the season wraps up in Fort Worth at the end of March, the reins will be passed on to whomever UT athletic director Chris Del Conte hires.
Texas hopes this will help, not hurt, fall volleyball
There isn't a head coach. The team is working out on the sand courts at Whitaker Sports Complex. There isn't a beach volleyball roster yet on UT's website although there is a schedule. Texas isn't scheduled to host any matches. The Longhorns' season opens March 10 in Honolulu, against host Hawaii as part of the Queens Cup tournament on Queens Beach.
Texas also has scheduled matches there against Oregon, Nebraska, Cal and Washington that weekend, then another match with Hawaii the following Tuesday, followed by a four-match weekend in Long Beach, Calif. The season concludes on the final weekend of March with four matches in Fort Worth.
While Texas is hopping on the beach volleyball bandwagon to complement its existing blue-blood indoor program and participate in one of the fastest-growing women's sports in the NCAA, this inaugural season provides a unique opportunity for Texas' existing volleyball team to grow into more well-rounded athletes.
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Sullivan said he doesn't think the hybrid training schedule — three weeks on the sand, two weeks off it — won’t hinder Texas’ quest for repeat national championship this fall on the court, but rather clean up elements such as the sacred serve-and-pass game.
“The indoor game has become so specialized,” Sullivan said. “You have a middle blocker that really only plays at the net for three rotations. You have small players that play in the back row and don't really attack. (Beach volleyball) forces you to do everything.”
In contrast to traditional volleyball, where there is typically only one player that can play all six rotations, there are no substitutions or even positions in beach volleyball, where teams are composed of two athletes that serve, pass, dig and attack. Opposing schools square up in five simultaneous matches, composed of three sets played to 21 points that have to be won by two.
Transitioning from wood to sand
Despite Elliott and Sullivan planning on this season being transitionary, with the eventual beach coaching staff beginning to recruit sand-specific players to the program this May, Phillips is itching to put her versatility to good use.
“I'm excited to see what we can do,” Phillips said. “Being able to break that up and do something that's also going to help our indoor training is really exciting and something that we're happy that we're doing.”
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Phillips, in her four years with Texas volleyball, was dubbed "the surgeon" by Elliott for her hitting precision playing the right side. For opposing teams, she was often referred to as an X-factor that could take over in kills or blocks during any given match.
As an opposite hitter, Phillips is likely to emerge as the face of Texas' beach volleyball program as an all-around player with developed sand legs and the experience to share with her teammates.
Setting expectations for the first year
On the sand, Texas volleyball is an unknown. But on the court, the Longhorns are coming off a national championship season — their first title since 2012 — but have been one of college volleyball's elite programs, having produced one run of five consecutive Final Fours. Texas' win over Louisville in the NCAA championship match in December was the program's sixth title match appearance under Elliott.
Phillips, one of Elliott's key players, didn't grow up soaking up the sun playing beach volleyball in Mansfield. Rather, she began playing it as a means to train. Her Mansfield High volleyball coach, Taylor Elrod, suggested that learning to play on sand would improve her passing and overall versatility on the court.
"My coach was like, 'go try beach, you have to be good at everything,'" Phillips said. “(Then) my sophom*ore year of high school I was thrown in there and started getting more reps.”
Sullivan has told his athletes that they need to begin becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable to grow in the sport. Even though the Texas volleyball team has championship endeavors every season and is coming off winning a national title, the expectations have to be managed accordingly.
“Our girls have some expectation of that success," Sullivan said. “I think that's gonna be the uncomfortable part. It's managing those expectations, knowing that we're not going to be probably as successful initially as our indoor program and being okay with that.”
Regardless of expectations, Phillips claims that the team is excited to learn and play a new sport, and that it could turn heads during their excursions to Hawaii, California and their season finale close to home in Fort Worth.
“We can be really good, I think we all know that," Phillips said. "We're all really good volleyball players. I think just as soon as we get used to being in the sand, everything will come together.”
