Gratitude In Growing – California Golden Bears Athletics

As Cal beach volleyball enters its 10th year as a sport in 2023, a mentality that was developed early on still rings true for the program.
 
Grateful for everything, entitled to nothing.
 
The mentality was originally coined by Cal rugby head coach Jack Clark, who has shared this philosophy with several other Cal sports programs over the years. It quickly became an instrumental part of the beach volleyball program.  

In 2014, Cal played 11 games on the sand almost exclusively with players from the previous season’s indoor team. The following year, Meagan Owusu took charge of the program and went about starting the program from scratch, finding players from all over who would exclusively play beach. She brought in people who had played growing up; others had limited experience or just wanted to try it out. That group included a class of six freshmen – the first official recruiting class in program history.

 

“We were kind of a rag-tag bunch,” one of the six freshmen, Teya Neff, said. “We came from different places. Some had had more of a beach background. For others, including myself, it was kind of a new thing. I had played indoor, and had an opportunity to come join the team. That first year, we didn’t have much experience. It was mostly just us freshmen and a few people from the club team and the indoor team.”

The team had varying levels of experience on the sand, but many were just learning the game. One of the things that was important from the beginning was to establish a culture of teamwork and gratitude.

“I think one thing that made the program really special in the early days – we really had no ego,” Neff said. “We really didn’t know what to expect. We were all so excited and honored to be there. We were ultimately very grateful for the chance to be a part of Cal Athletics and get to build a program from the ground up.”

It wasn’t easy at the beginning. The first year, players had to wear track jerseys and the team was figuring out what it needed to operate as a program. The resources were limited, but Owusu saw it as an opportunity to look at what they did have rather than what they didn’t. Owusu was 25, and her only previous experience was as a volunteer coach.

 

“Thinking back to that first year, more than anything I am just grateful for those student-athletes,” Owusu said. “We were literally building something out of nothing. There was a lot of growth from our athletes as well as me as…