Every sunny morning this summer, players and families from Bloomington Volleyball Club have been trading the gym for the beach, hauling out to sand courts for training that owner and director Todd Anderson says has become central to how the club develops players.
The club, which Anderson founded 16 years ago, has grown to 22 teams and expects to field 24 come winter. It runs through the Junior Volleyball Association and USA Volleyball, and its sand program — now 10 years old — pairs with Beach Nation Volleyball, a partnership Anderson runs with Ann Nusbaum. Sand-specific sessions are led by Kayla Holden, while Hamdi Labir runs the club's high school-focused camps.
The sand side of the program culminates in the Sand Power League, two-on-two tournaments held Saturday mornings at Dred Scott Park. Summer sessions run in packages of $160 for four sessions, $320 for 10, or $600 for 25, alongside high school camps running June 8 through July 30 and ETS performance testing for players 12 to 18.
Anderson's son Corbin, a Jefferson sophomore, trains within the program too, and Anderson has pointed to beach volleyball names like Todd Rogers, Patty Orozco Dodd and Phil Dalhausser as influences on how the sand training is run. His pitch for the whole operation, indoor and sand alike, stays simple: sports should always be fun, he said, with development built on encouragement rather than pressure to win.