One year of SANDCAST with Tri Bourne, one year of gratitude

November 14, 2018March 30, 2020 Travis Mewhirter

People would thank me.

They thanked me in Austin. To the great amusement and bafflement of my parents, they thanked me in New York. They thanked me in San Francisco. One person went as far as to ask for my autograph in Seattle. Mark Schuermann gave me a shout out for it during my introduction on what would become a dreadful stadium court match in Hermosa. A few lovely Georgians expressed their gratitude in Chicago.

Not for playing, mind you. No, for speaking. No, that’s not quite right, either. For asking questions, and then taking the audio answers of those questions from very accomplished individuals and putting them on iTunes, where people can then listen to them in podcast form.

They thanked me for SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, which as of a few weeks ago hit its one-year anniversary.

These thanks have always been curious to me.

Thank me?

No, no. Thank Tri Bourne.

The podcast was his idea, anyway. We initially met over the phone, the first interview I conducted for a book I’ve been working on that’s set to release this December. Then we met in person at the Manhattan Beach Open, where we did the livestream together. He loved it. I loved it, mostly because I got to talk to Tri Bourne – Tri Bourne! THE Tri Bourne! Ranked top-10 in the world Tri Bourne!

He liked the give and take we had, with his deep knowledge of how to play the game and its various nuances and my geeky knowledge of the characters and history of the game and an abnormal capacity for random and mostly useless numbers on BVBinfo. So we met at the Ocean Diner a month later and hashed out some ideas. He needed something to do while he was recovering from an autoimmune disease. I was the only beach volleyball writer or media member or whatever it is you’d like to call me that he knew.

He thought we’d make a good team.

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