This season, sophomore Payton Chang will write the first-ever "BeachBlog" to chronicle the team's activities throughout the season. Her first entry is below.
Hello Cardinal Fans!
My name is Payton Chang, otherwise known as "P-Chainz," and this season I will be writing the first ever BeachBlog.
Since you will be hearing a lot from me over the next two months, let me tell you a little about myself. I am a sophomore from Newport Beach, California, majoring in science, technology, and society. As the second shortest member of Stanford's indoor team, I am a setter and defensive specialist, but I have experience at every position, even middle blocker, during my nine years of club volleyball.
When I am not balling out with my teammates or studying, you will often find me tanning on Wilbur Field or at the mall, usually with either a drink from Starbucks, or a freeze from Pressed Juicery in hand. As the minority amongst all of the Warriors, Giants, and Sharks fans, I am a huge Los Angeles Kings, Dodgers, Rams, and Lakers fan.
I listen to a wide variety of music including country, EDM, and the classics (shout-out to Stanford sports performance for always playing "Summer Hits of the 2000s" just for our team). You may have heard that I am the social media queen of the team, so feel free to follow me on Instagram (@paytonchang).
Our team just completed its first weekend on The Farm with an undefeated 4-0 record. The Northern California weather was bipolar as usual -- we saw enough sun to burn Jenna's scalp, crazy winds that blew down the pop up tents, pouring rain, and even a couple of hail storms. Fortunately, Coach Andrew taught us throughout the last two months of practice to embrace the challenges that the varieties of weather will bring our way and to remember how lucky we are to be competing in the sport we love.
It felt great for the season to start. For the beach-only girls, it was their long-awaited chance to start competing after working so hard in the offseason. For the indoor girls, it was a fun way to return to competition for the first time since our National Championship match.
For Jenna and Morgan, it their first ever competitive beach volleyball action. In fact, neither of them had ever stepped foot on a beach court before our first practice, so for them to learn the game so quickly in two months and absolutely crush it in their first tournament was incredible.
Being born and raised in Southern California, I played indoor and beach volleyball my entire life, but I remember how difficult it was moving to the sand and adjusting to the different rules when I first started. These days, I love having the separate seasons and feel so fortunate to be one of the few athletes playing both disciplines at the collegiate level.
I look forward to keeping you updated on our team's shenanigans on and off the court all season long. Thank you to all of you who attended our tournament this weekend, especially considering the unpredictable weather. I was fortunate enough to have my family come up to watch me play since my younger sister, Devon, conveniently had a club volleyball tournament up here at the same time (quick congrats to her team for winning and qualifying for Junior Olympics!).
Another thank you goes out to those who could not make it out but followed along all weekend, whether by watching Merete's takeover of our Instagram story, or checking score updates on Twitter (If you haven't done it yet, please follow us on social media -- @stanfordbeachvb -- for regular updates about the team). There are many opportunities left this season to catch a game, hopefully filled with sunshine and more wins, so do not worry if you missed out on last week. This upcoming weekend, we play Utah, the newest Pac-12 school with beach volleyball, at 4 p.m. PT on Friday, followed by Saint Mary's and Cal on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
As Tami and I would say, it's "finna be lit, fam!" We hope to see you there!
Until next week,
Pay10 Chang