The school announced Tuesday the sport will be added for spring 2014, making sand volleyball the 22nd intercollegiate team at UNM. It is the first new sports program since women’s soccer was added in 1993.
“We’ve chosen to take a lead on it in the conference and in our part of the country,” head coach Jeff Nelson said. “Two years ago there were 12 teams, this year we expect 60 teams.”
Nelson, who currently coaches the current indoor team, will be the director of volleyball and will coach the sand volleyball team in the spring. Sand volleyball games will be held at Stone Face Courts in northeast Albuquerque.
“That was my agreement with Paul (Krebs). As part of the proposal, I would be coaching it for the next few years at least,” he said.
Nelson said he will not receive a pay increase and will bring in hard court assistant, Lisa Beauchene to help get the program running without hiring any new staff members. No additional scholarships will be awarded to the program in the opening year.
A statement from the Athletics Department said UNM will be adding $4,000 to the sports budget this year to get the program up and running. Adding sand volleyball could potentially cost the school an additional $120,000 when fully funded.
A schedule is being worked out, Nelson said, but the spring sport already has a tournament lined up in Arizona.
Although a major concern involving the quantity of available competition for the season, Nelson said starting the program will push other teams to add the sport.
“If we can develop our part of the country, then we can have a lot of teams to play against,” he said. “We’re looking at getting the conference up to six teams so we can have a conference championship.”
The sport entices a new variety of players to come to UNM who want the opportunity to play volleyball both on the hardwood and in the sand, Nelson said.
The desire to appeal to more recruits was just one of the reasons he wanted to jumpstart the new program, he said. The head coach said the amount of recognition that the sport receives in the state alone will pose for a lot of support.
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“I think that Albuquerque has a great base for sand volleyball,” he said. “I think that there is a great potential for it to go really well here.”
Nelson said he does not expect everyone who plays in the fall to be able to transfer over in the spring, but he added that there will be a handful of players who will have the opportunity to compete in both sports.
“There will probably be five kids that cross over and play both, six at the most,” Nelson said. “We have six kids right now that we have brought in to help start our sand program that are sand only players.”
While some think the sand and indoor volleyball are intertwined and similar in a lot of ways, the rules are very much different, which is why a lot of players will not have the ability to play interchangeably.
For example, the length of the game is much longer. On the hardwood, teams play to a best of five set. In order to win a sand volleyball game, the team must win two of three sets to receive a point. The team must then win three of five points for the victory.
Of the 22 intercollegiate sports, New Mexico now has 12 pertaining to women and 10 male sports, not including sports clubs.
Liam Cary-Eaves is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Liam_CE.
