Miles Partain is fanning his ‘spark from God’ into flame

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Just outside the kitchen of a beautiful home in a tony neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, behind the doors that remain open to allow a cool and lovely California breeze to drift through the house, there is a wiry 21-year-old young man with perhaps his two most prized possessions: A ball and a wall.

He passes against the wall to the right side of his body, then to the left. He hand-sets. Bump sets. Pokes with his right. Pokes with his left. Catches, tosses, hits a line roll shot with his left. Catches, tosses, hits a line roll shot with his right.

This is not the fidgety nature of a young twenty-something. Isn’t the squirminess of someone who just needs someone, or something, to play with. With that wall and a ball, and a mind that simply wants to work something out, Miles Partain has everything he needs. This ability to focus, to tinker for hours and hours and hours with nothing more than two inanimate objects, to attempt to satiate an insatiable curiosity, is something he considers more than a gift.

“The spark just comes from God,” he said. “You can’t really control it that much. Curiosity is a special gift and you can fan it into flame.”

If this were a literal flame, his home would have been subject to a raging inferno for the previous eight years or so. Probably more, but that’s the earliest his brother, Marcus, can recall Miles truly diving deep into any and all topics that piqued him, and specifically, volleyball. They began playing together when Marcus was 12 and Miles 11, close enough in age where Miles’ development wasn’t too far behind to keep up with big brother. But when Marcus turned 14, he would be jumping up to a standard men’s net, which is just a hair below 8 feet. If Miles were to practice with him, he’d have to play on the raised net as well.

For an hour every morning before high school, they’d head to the beach with Dylan Maarek, a professional player and their coach. Too small to hit sharp angles, Maarek emphasized the most efficient swing in the sport, telling them to attack into the deep middle. Miles had yet to blossom into the long and rangy 6-foot-4 build that would help him to become the 2022 AVP Offensive Player of the Year. He swings routinely hit the tape or, when he did clear it, sailed long.

“Miles would get so frustrated, and I would just say ‘Keep working on that high snap, that high contact, you’re still just 13. Once you get a little…