One-on-one: beach volleyball coach Moritz Moritz

Just five years after starting as a scholarship sport at South Carolina, the beach volleyball program was coming off it's two most successful years yet with back-to-back trips to the NCAA Championship and entered 2019 with similar aspirations.

While they didn't hit those goals in year six, the Gamecocks did finish over .500 for the fifth straight year and had their fourth-straight 20-win season that included an upset over a top-five Southern California team.

Earlier this summer, head coach Moritz Moritz sat down with GamecockCentral to talk about this year, what it's like to build a program and how to sustain success over a long period of time.

GC: You guys finished the year a little earlier than you probably wanted to, but what was your overall impressions coming off last season?

MM: You feel like there was gray hanging over it but you go through it and realize we still had a really good year by most accounts. But I think the standard this team and a lot of these girls set for themselves going into the season having come off the last two years, it didn’t meet expectations. Which might have contributed to some of the pressure. Looking back at it and the full body of work when you couple things with community service, academics and the way we performed on the court, it was a really good season. We would have obviously liked to finish higher in the rankings and made Gulf Shores but it’s not as easy as it seems. I think it’s important even keeping those in perspective for the girls sometimes like yeah, we have made it and we’ve been really good and everybody’s just getting better. But it’s just not that easy. Getting to that mindset is where we needed to be and what we’ve wanted to do and that’s where we need to be to continue to do it. Going back, we lost to some teams we shouldn’t have lost to and teams we were better than, clearly but maybe it was a lack of mental focus at those particular times. But the teams we lost to, it’s not like they were bad teams. You kind of come around on the flip side and you beat LSU, number three in the country at the time, you beat number two Southern Cal. That just speaks to the capacity of the team we had, and I think the disappointing thing for the team was we were capable of doing those things but didn’t maintain that consistency throughout the year. But looking back at it, it was a good year.

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GC: What's that say about the program where the expectation is to be one of the eight teams to make the tournament?

MM: I think it’s a testament to the girls’ hard work more than anything. Particularly coming around full circle to what we have graduating next year, that’s the group that started this whole thing at least with their freshman contribution and what they’ve built over the last three years and what they’re trying to create is big for them. Granted, we had a lot of people in place when they arrive that helped facilitate that. But it’s a credit to them and credit to the girls that came slightly before them to build it to that level and continued to build it to that level.

I think that’s the hardest thing. It’s the hardest thing to sustain and continue to build. We lost a lot coming off this last year but we have a lot of experience, too. So we’re looking to find that balance so we can repeat the past. I think our journey now is trying to figure out what our identity is next year versus what it has been the last three years because it’s a different team.

GC: What's it like seeing more schools start beach volleyball programs and how do you try and continue to build your personal program as more competitors enter the field?

MM: We were them; we were that team when we came in a couple years into it. I think one of the biggest compliments we got was in year two or year three a couple of the coaches that had been doing it since day one said, ‘Hey, we were a program that was as successful as they were in year three or year four’ and we had done that in year two already. And in year three we just tried to build momentum. I think the crazy thing with the growth now is everyone’s just getting better. That, in and of itself, is a testament to the growth of beach volleyball at the junior level and how much better its getting with the distribution of wealth across all these programs. We can’t take anybody for granted. Maybe top to bottom we’re better than any handful of teams but the irony is you just have to have three pairs clicking at the exact same time and they’ll cause chaos for everybody, much the same way we did to Southern Cal and LSU, we had some teams do that to us.

MM: In certain circumstances we had different pairs stepping up at different times and it was kind of neat. Now it’s just a matter of who you look at to take over. There were definitely moments where we put pressure on different people to step up, and they did that. I think one of the neat ones was Katie Bates and Shannon, just because it was one of those where we were thinking we needed to keep them apart to be able to distribute our own talent and have more depth in that sense, but they clicked so well. Even though there were definitely moments where you could see the pressure on their face, they played with excitement and fun. For someone like Shannon, who has since day one played at the highest level.

GC: You mentioned mental focus, how hard is that to maintain throughout an entire season?

MM: It’s difficult. I think, again, going back to continuity with your entire staff. One of the neat things our program, we’ve changed some positions with GA or an athletic trainer, but having the coaching staff we do, having Keith on board with us the last year, Joe stepping up at different arenas, having lots of different voices saying the exact same thing and giving them different touch points and points of contact with what we’re trying to create, trying to build and how we are trying to move forward is a big thing for them. daily, it’s always coming back to however good of a day you’re having, have some perspective on it. However bad of a day you’re having, let’s have some perspective on it. Several years ago we had more of an influence of a performance psychologist on a weekly basis and maybe that’s something we missed over the last year and something we’ll bring back in on a full time basis. We bring in great beach volleyball players, tremendous students but the other aspect of that is while we have them in a practice setting, we know we’re going to get better at passing and setting and strategy but it’s having that other aspect of it where developing the strength of the mind, breathing techniques and other things for us is not always coming from RJ and myself is a big thing. In the same way we need to lift and condition with Keith and lift with our athletic trainer to stay healthy, we need to take care of the mind.

GC: Is that the hardest part of sustaining a winning program?

MM: You’re going to bring in kids that are physical and that are good volleyball players; they’re strong and they’re going to jump high and yes we have to keep them healthy and they’re coming in with a lot of swings on their should and jumps on their knees. So keeping them healthy is giant but so is developing that mental side and confidence on a daily basis.

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GC: What did you see from your team this year you feel like can carry over into next season?

MM: I think we’ve seen what the capacity is. Now we have to get back to the fact that we didn’t make it and there’s a stark reality that we’re going to be a capable team, we’re going to be a good team but there are a lot of teams out there that are good. Now it’s about what will set us apart. Ultimately it’s about that perspective and being able to focus on that and generate momentum off that. Then it’s about circling the wagons around each other and saying, ‘if this is what we genuinely want to do, we have to step our level of work up to be able to accomplish that.

GC: What's the next step for your program?

MM: I think every team in every sport is going in saying we want to win a national championship and win a conference championship and I think those bench marks will be at the top of the board, my expectation for this team is to be the best version of what it can be. We have the metrics of what it might take to qualify but what we learned this year is the expectations are what they are and we can’t give too much credence. It is what it is and now it’s a matter of how hard we work, how well we connect and the product we put out on the sand on a daily basis.