Huge step for It’s Called Normal: Bringing adaptive beach volleyball to Motherlode

By John Kriescher for VolleyballMag.com

John Kriescher is an adaptive athlete, fundraising professional, writer, and soon-to-be father based in Houston. Through work with It’s Called Normal Athletics (ICN), he is helping to create opportunities for people with disabilities to get active and excel in beach volleyball. Thanks to sponsorship from ICN, Kriescher was part of the first team of adaptive athletes to compete in a national volleyball tournament at the recent Motherlode Volleyball Classic in Aspen, Colorado.
Motherlode began as a barbecue event, but it turned 50 this year and is one of the oldest outdoor pro/am volleyball tournaments in the U.S.

I’ve always described my experience with volleyball as unusual. Born missing my left arm below the elbow, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago spending nearly every moment of my free time playing basketball. 

In fact, it wasn’t until around 2019, after a pretty girl invited me to play in a 4’s beach volleyball league in Houston, that I fell in love with the sport at the spry age of 30.

It was like an addiction. Every missed block and each shanked pass was an opportunity to learn and get better, and I was a sponge.

I quickly learned that the most extraordinary part of beach volleyball is the community. It didn’t matter that I was missing an arm and had less experience than kids half my age, there was always a group welcoming me to play.

At the time, I didn’t know the significance beach volleyball would have in my life, I just knew that I wanted to — needed to — get better. If you told me then that I would end up competing in Aspen at the 50^th annual Motherlode Volleyball Classic with a team of adaptive athletes with limb differences like mine, I would have laughed you off the court. But over this past Labor Day weekend, that’s exactly what happened.

Thanks to It’s Called Normal (ICN) Athletics, led by founder Jon Aharoni and three-time Paralympian Dave Newkirk, and Motherlode Volleyball Classic organizers spearheaded by Corey Bryndal, this year’s tournament not only celebrated a historic milestone of 50 years, it also welcomed the first-ever team of adaptive athletes.

Volleyball represents an incredible opportunity for people with disabilities to get active and excel, and ICN provides training opportunities, educational programs, and equipment support to make it…