Sophie Bukovec - A World Class Volleyball Player Crushing It On And Off The Beach

With us for this episode is a very special, talented and successful athlete who has been a standout on both the national and world stages. As a beach volleyball star, Sophie Bukovec is a two time All American, a three time NCAA Champion with the USC Trojans, a U21 World Champion, and has just recently returned from the World Championships in Rome with a hard earned  silver medal. To top it all off she is also a Team Mizuno ambassador and founder of the Northern Elite, an elite Beach Volleyball Training program. 

Interview Highlights:

• Working through adversity at the World Championships
• Believing in the "Process"
• Falling in love with training
• Being comfortable in your own skin as an elite athlete
• Saying no to modeling to be true to herself and her love of sports
• Thriving in a competitive environment
• The chess game of volleyball
• Dealing with momentum shifts
• Learning about recruiting as a young athlete

Connect with Sophie:
Sophie on Instagram
The Northern Elite

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KEEP CRUSHING IT!

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Transcript

Speaker 2
Hey team. Welcome to benchmarked the Leadership Coaching and Mental Performance podcast with Coach Mess and Coach Larocque. I am fired up for this one. Coach. Although this one, I have to admit, may be a little bit out of my wheelhouse is I was never much of a volleyball player. I was always the last pick for high school volleyball, intramural stuff.

00:00:35:14 - 00:01:00:04
Speaker 2
I'm too short and I have absolutely zero vertical. And I remember my baseball coach said, mess when you jump. I could maybe slip a piece of paper under your feet. So this this I'm going to have to rely on the volleyball experts for this one. So with us for this episode is a very special, talented and successful athlete who has been a standout on both the national and world stages as a beach volleyball star.

00:01:00:05 - 00:01:26:18
Speaker 2
She is a two time All-America and a three time NCAA champion with the USC Trojans, a U-21 world champion, and has just recently returned from the world championships in Rome with a very hard earned silver medal. To top it all off, she's also a Team Mizuno ambassador and founder of an elite beach volleyball training program. Sophie Bukovec welcome to the show.

00:01:26:18 - 00:01:29:09
Speaker 2
Man What a resume, my man.

00:01:30:06 - 00:01:34:08
Speaker 3
Thanks so much for having me on the show and I'm so excited to get the opportunity to chat with you guys.

00:01:34:17 - 00:01:39:07
Speaker 2
Oh, like a guy. I was like, I might need to take a break after this. This is like.

00:01:39:13 - 00:01:43:01
Speaker 1
A still some CPR going on.

00:01:43:01 - 00:02:13:09
Speaker 2
But like I was saying, like, there's so much to cover here because you're doing so much your coach, you know, you're playing. But let's start with the world championships because this just happened. Yeah. Silver medal in Rome. It's just it's unreal. And that was an intense tournament. And we were following along, kind of seeing from the beginning, you guys were you were crushing it and just the intensity as it got closer down to quarterfinals and semifinals and then finals.

00:02:13:20 - 00:02:15:18
Speaker 2
Walk us through that tournament, please.

00:02:16:15 - 00:02:37:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, so that was my first senior world championships. I was familiar with the youth worlds growing up, but I've been off the scene for a little bit, and to be honest, Brandy and I weren't even sure we were going to qualify. You qualify the top 23 teams naturally, and a couple of through the continent. And we were team 22 to qualify.

00:02:38:12 - 00:02:59:16
Speaker 3
So it was very the the bottom wire. And we were there. We had a couple of things that kind of happened throughout our season that prevented us from getting ranked higher. There was a tournament in Doha that we weren't able to attend, so that affected our rankings and there's a lot of missed opportunities that kind of happened that made us unsure that we were even going to qualify for the World Championships.

00:03:00:02 - 00:03:25:16
Speaker 3
So making it in itself was a win for us. We were just happy to qualify. And then when we got to the event, our gameplan was just to play good quality volleyball consistently and make that the focus. And as the tournament kind of progressed, the level that we got to never felt like overwhelming or monumental. Even when we reached the quarters in the semis and then the finals, we just kept going back to just playing good quality volleyball and then we ended up on the podium.

00:03:25:19 - 00:03:33:07
Speaker 3
So it was just it, it didn't feel massive, but it was such an amazing accomplishment for us and for our team.

00:03:34:13 - 00:03:53:10
Speaker 1
So how did making it sound like it was nothing? Oh, we just split down there and then we figure it out anyway. How did you how do you stay mentally engaged, like what you described? I would describe as you guys stay with the process over. And it sounded that's exactly what it sounded like. Guys, you went like, hey, we're going to trust our process.

00:03:53:10 - 00:04:10:16
Speaker 1
We enjoy this, you know, this process and we're going to see what happens. Yeah, which is probably cool at the beginning. And then you start winning and then start creeping in like expectations and seedings. And does that start creeping in? How do you how do you keep those demons at bay or how do you embrace them? How did you guys do that?

00:04:11:24 - 00:04:32:21
Speaker 3
So Brandi and I are a new team, so this is our first year playing together. We'd only played together for about four months leading up to the World Championships. I'm playing a whole new position. This is my first year as a defender playing on the right side. So we just were focusing on getting comfortable in our team and in our positions, and we never really thought about the expectations in terms of results.

00:04:34:11 - 00:04:54:06
Speaker 3
So that kind of helped us stay grounded throughout the tournament where it was genuinely just focusing on, do you feel a little bit better today playing defense on the right side? Do you feel a little bit better as a team? How was your serving like all of the little details that then turn into wins that genuinely was the focus and then each of those just became wins in themselves.

00:04:54:06 - 00:04:58:11
Speaker 3
So the process was definitely our main focus.

00:04:58:11 - 00:05:19:05
Speaker 1
And now so we're going to piggyback on that and how you guys muster it. We adversity is what creates a better team and better friendships and ready relationships. So I'm sure not necessary adversity in the sense of like you guys were successful but the wins and I'm sure this adversity throughout. How did that affect that? You guys must've got closer.

00:05:19:06 - 00:05:23:24
Speaker 1
Closer after every point. I'm assuming like different position, new team.

00:05:24:24 - 00:05:37:02
Speaker 3
Yeah. So there's a lot of adversity that happened kind of leading up to the world championships. So, oh, okay.


00:05:46:04 - 00:06:07:18
Speaker 3
We're okay. So in terms of adversity as not to play in that tournament in Qatar that affected our overall world ranking, there was a concussion that I had endured at the beginning of the season at our very first. All of the goals that we kind of set throughout the season, there was a hiccup that kind of kept following us.

00:06:08:00 - 00:06:27:23
Speaker 3
So we just learned to kind of come together as a team and battle through all these difficult moments as a partnership. And then with our coach, RICO. And then when we were able to find success at the World Championships, it felt that much sweeter because we had gone through so much as a team, made really tough decisions and still found a way to qualify and then be successful at the world championships.

00:06:28:08 - 00:06:54:19
Speaker 2
So and to follow up with what JJ is saying, like it seems like your focus was right. Like control, the controllable is something we always talk about. So the idea of you going into a new position and let's just focus on that. You're not talking about we have to beat the opponent that's across the net from us. You're talking about beating the opponent that's inside of us, within our own team, that adversity, that challenge, that obstacle.

00:06:55:02 - 00:07:01:20
Speaker 2
And you attacked that which allowed you guys to be successful versus the opponents across the net and. Right.

00:07:02:11 - 00:07:20:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think for me especially, it's it's finding the why of why you play and I know that people talk about that all the time, but for me, I love the moments when you surprise yourself. And if I go back and I focus on that, then the women's losses actually don't matter right. I know. And again, a lot of people also say that, too.

00:07:20:16 - 00:07:37:04
Speaker 3
Right. But it really does come down to did I do something today that I didn't do yesterday? And then that becomes my new benchmark. How do I supersede that tomorrow? So in each of the matches that we were playing, there was a moment where I was like, Okay, I did that. Great. Now how do I beat that tomorrow?

00:07:37:14 - 00:07:40:03
Speaker 3
Wow. So that was just kind of what the baseline focus was.

00:07:40:16 - 00:08:02:07
Speaker 2
Did you doesn't that sound like something else? We say all the time better, better tomorrow than I was today, and that I was just better and better the next day. Like, that's all it is better today. Yesterday, right. So it's just a love it like it's just so and to do that at that stage. So here's the as you're talking about, this is like you're right, these are all the things that lead to success.

00:08:02:07 - 00:08:30:19
Speaker 2
And we've had a lot of successful people on the show. They talk about that in careers. You're talking about it in the most demanding moments of your career in tournaments, world stage against world class athletes, sticking to how hard is it to stick to that plan when you're looking across the net from you and you have outstanding opponents from across the globe, how do you avoid that distraction?

00:08:32:09 - 00:08:41:24
Speaker 2
Like you said, they get starstruck. Like, you know, as an athlete. Do you get starstruck at all from facing other people? You're like, Oh my God, that I used to idolize that player as a as a collegiate athlete.

00:08:43:06 - 00:09:04:07
Speaker 3
I mean, I definitely respect like almost all of the athletes on the world tour. They're all phenomenal athletes. I know they're for a reason, but I wouldn't say that there's any moment where I've looked at someone and I've been like, that's like idealized them because it kind of puts them on a separate category and on that pedestal, unless it's something hard for you to also beat if you do that to yourself.

00:09:04:07 - 00:09:23:21
Speaker 3
So for me, it's just a level of respect and knowing that I'm also at that stage. So I'm also capable of doing the things that they're doing, which took me a long time to get comfortable with. There's this feeling of belonging when you start playing on tour because it's such a grueling kind of thing to go through the qualifiers and then make your mark on the main draws and the way that the system is.

00:09:23:21 - 00:09:44:07
Speaker 3
So finding that was definitely difficult. It takes years to do, but once you are able to reach that level, it's just being secure enough in what you bring to the game and what you bring to the table. And then it just becomes fun to be able to play somebody who's also competitive, who also does phenomenal things. Those rallies are the ones that are memorable also.

00:09:45:06 - 00:10:09:04
Speaker 1
So, so if it to get to that point, it's just me talking out loud to get to that point. What, you know, process over outcome and you're comfortable and you're a little more comfortable in your skin. I had to come with some success, would you say? Now if we rewind back to USC when of championships kind of builds your self-esteem, you know, I'm assuming you're a freshman, you're not you wouldn't have this mindset as a freshman.

00:10:09:09 - 00:10:21:13
Speaker 1
So that's something that kind of came with great success or success at least clues like, can we go back now a little bit and how you at your time at USC kind of maybe helped shape you today if it did or didn't? I don't know.

00:10:21:14 - 00:10:47:10
Speaker 3
You told me. Yeah. USC was an interesting experience because we were very successful with our team. Our team was incredible. We were very competitive. We had such a good group of girls. There was an end objective and we were all very much on board with what the end objective was. But within that, what a lot of people don't recognize is there's actually a lot of internal battle and internal competition that goes on because you are fighting for pair of spots.

00:10:47:21 - 00:11:09:19
Speaker 3
So you have five pairs that compete and you have to win three out of the five in order to win the full duel. But you're constantly battling your teammates to be in that position, right. To be seated as the one pair to be seated as the two pair. So I think that internal competition is what kind of prepared me for competing at a really high level on the world tour, because you were doing it every single day in practice.

00:11:09:19 - 00:11:20:13
Speaker 3
It wasn't like you were just doing that on weekends in game mode. It was every single day you were showing up and you were trying to beat your own teammates. So it's a really interesting dynamic, but it definitely helps.

00:11:20:22 - 00:11:41:22
Speaker 1
Some of the best teams to sit in the same boat with, some of the best teams I've played on and not fun and fun and share from a parent's perspective. If you're in youth sports, but having somebody behind you or pushing you or you're pushing somebody is how you develop and you become better as an athlete. I think an even as a person, basically, as having somebody kind of pushing you, not just, hey, I'm going to be the number one.

00:11:41:22 - 00:11:52:01
Speaker 1
And in the center every single time, even I can screw up, I could shake balls, I could miss my serve. I'm still to be that person. There's not much growth in that. Just my personal opinion, if you might jump in on that marker. So yeah.

00:11:52:13 - 00:12:06:15
Speaker 2
Like exactly. You say that I think that having that competition keeps you dialed in and focused to continuously trying to achieve a little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more, right? Like it's the only way you get better. Surround yourself with better people.

00:12:07:05 - 00:12:23:14
Speaker 3
Yeah. I come from a family of, like, three other athletes, so I have a family of four siblings and we're all very competitive. So it was everything was a competition and like running home to be the first one because, you know, everyone was running off to their sport. So you never know if you're going to even make it to dinner, right?

00:12:23:14 - 00:12:35:19
Speaker 3
Like there was competitions and everything. So my whole life was winning little competitions here and there. So when it comes to major events, they seem so insecure. And if we can't now, yeah. So that's just kind of the mindset there.

00:12:36:02 - 00:13:14:04
Speaker 2
So speaking of mindset, you've set this up nicely for me because there's something that we talk a lot about and and we talked about this around our dinner table about like momentum swings and stuff like that. And our argument in our family is that volleyball probably is the biggest momentum game of all sports. Jiji, you've coach, so would you agree and now I want to ask you is is in the world championships and how you handled this is like there is there is a lot of momentum shifts throughout the tournament different how as a team do you and Brandi handle that and your coach in and to me it's it's like baseball you get an

00:13:14:04 - 00:13:31:20
Speaker 2
inning to regroup in hockey you get a period the Zamboni goes out, cleans the ice. You get these breaks of beach volleyball like you got to deal with these momentum swings point to point. So on a mental performance standpoint, how do you mentally deal with that?

00:13:31:20 - 00:13:49:05
Speaker 3
I would say that Brandi and I have the perspective of the games never over like ever the way that beach volleyball and volleyball works. The momentum swings are so huge you can have a blowout in one set the next game, then blows out the other team and then it's a close third set. Like that's not unheard of in beach volleyball.

00:13:49:15 - 00:14:08:07
Speaker 3
So just understanding that the game is never over for either team. Even if you're up by five or you're down by five, you can't just kind of coast Brady and tell you each other. You can't sleep on anybody. That's kind of our thing. You know, if you claim to get an easy draw, you can't sleep on teams because they're all at this top level for a reason.

00:14:08:19 - 00:14:27:11
Speaker 3
So you have to come out like it's the top team every time you're playing somebody. Of course, we have our own individual strategies that work for us personally to combat like bad momentum, or if you're up to kind of settle yourself down. Each of us have our own little thing that we do, but as a team, that's kind of our team philosophy.

00:14:27:11 - 00:14:31:19
Speaker 1
It'll do tell. You can just say that what it is for me.

00:14:31:19 - 00:14:49:11
Speaker 3
So when things are not going my way or when I feel a little frustrated, or if I need a second to kind of just dial down, I actually clench sand in my hand really hard. My face expression is fine, and then I slowly release it because I'm a big tension in my hands person. And that's what I do.

00:14:51:03 - 00:14:58:21
Speaker 2
JJ likes that one. He uses the same one. He uses the same athlete. We teach our athletes the same way. Yeah. Gigi, explain your thought on it.

00:14:58:21 - 00:15:10:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's baseball when things get a bad call or something like that. So I'll handle a couple of things. So I have to pick up dirt and literally squishes. But what I tell them is when you let it go, you got to let go. What just happened?

00:15:11:14 - 00:15:13:08
Speaker 3
I've never seen anyone else doing this.

00:15:13:08 - 00:15:31:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. You physically let it go? Yeah. I'm video of Major League players doing it. That's how I kind of picked that up. So you physically, because it's a physical release when you physically let it go, you've let it go. And the other option for us are baseball. We have batting gloves. So when you take them off, you're letting it go and you lock them back in repetitively down yourself back and yeah.

00:15:31:14 - 00:15:32:16
Speaker 2
Just triggers, right?

00:15:33:06 - 00:15:42:24
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, especially because it's a physical thing like yeah, I hold a lot of tension in my hands and I feel very aggressive when I like make a fist so that anytime there's like that immediate release, I'm like, okay, you're fine.

00:15:43:08 - 00:15:52:02
Speaker 1
So yeah, I want to do an image, right? Like I'm driving. So we're Oh, so what are you doing right now?

00:15:52:02 - 00:16:00:09
Speaker 2
Who taught you that? How did you learn that? Because this is something that is shared through the mental performance kind of realm. And we talked to athletes about doing this who shared that with, you.

00:16:01:14 - 00:16:20:11
Speaker 3
Know, one that was just kind of something that I picked up on my own, because you do have that little bit of time in between points. You kind of find ways that work for you. If it's fixing a line, if it's cleaning your glasses, you have things that you can kind of stall the game a little bit. But for me, I was always like, I knew that my hands were a really big focus for me in a big trigger.

00:16:20:18 - 00:16:30:06
Speaker 3
So then I started to clench that I would throw it and then I was like, Yeah, that's a bit dramatic. Like people can see if I'm mad. So then now it's just like a slow release that you can't really tell that.

00:16:30:06 - 00:16:30:20
Speaker 1
I'm doing it.

00:16:31:11 - 00:16:33:00
Speaker 3
But anybody listening to this now, you know.

00:16:33:21 - 00:16:36:08
Speaker 1
What about on court? What were you doing in court or are you doing something.

00:16:37:19 - 00:16:39:15
Speaker 3
On the court? I was a big shoe wiper.

00:16:40:05 - 00:16:41:23
Speaker 2
Oh, okay.

00:16:41:23 - 00:16:54:20
Speaker 3
But I don't know. Now I can manage. Feels like ages ago, since I played indoor, I also had to wear a towel on the back of my shorts because I was so sweaty. So I feel like there was also moments that I would do that and like, clean my hands and like.

00:16:55:11 - 00:17:00:03
Speaker 2
So it seems like you've always been in tuned with your like your triggers.

00:17:00:14 - 00:17:01:23
Speaker 3
Which seem to be.

00:17:02:19 - 00:17:06:21
Speaker 2
Which makes a big difference at high performance athletes such as yourself.

00:17:06:21 - 00:17:27:14
Speaker 1
So force I'm with you so we work with them and performance coach is his name is that right? He just works with all kinds of athletes all over the planet, professional, whatever. So he worked with George St-Pierre in our 13 periods. Yeah. UFC guy. So because you're talking about sweating a lot. So he said he was working with GSP and he was like, What's your reset?

00:17:27:14 - 00:17:44:14
Speaker 1
Like you just talked about yours and Jorge like, I don't have rules that we talk about. You say we got to find something that's a reset. So what they figured out and if you watch them with matches after you've started work with Frankie, just like you, he loves it. And he would wipe them on his shorts. And that was he said to me, so he would just like sweating a lot.

00:17:44:21 - 00:18:04:23
Speaker 1
So two reasons that would be his reset. One, two, he said, when my gloves are dry, when they're wet, I'm hitting somebody. It just kind of skims. It was not one to dry my head. It actually makes contact when I'm promoting fighting here. But I'm just telling you, like the whole swearing in a towel is another physical release of something to take you to a different direction or level because you got you need those.

00:18:04:23 - 00:18:05:13
Speaker 1
You literally.

00:18:05:20 - 00:18:23:22
Speaker 3
For sure. I think it's really important to understand like where physiologically like does that build and then what's a good way for you to release it? Because it happens to everybody. It's almost like pretending it doesn't happen is just a detriment to a performance. So just acknowledge that like you don't feel good in whatever place in your body, okay?

00:18:23:22 - 00:18:25:07
Speaker 3
How do we fix it? How do we help it?

00:18:26:13 - 00:18:56:21
Speaker 2
Tools. That's what these are all tools, right? What are they? More tools? Yeah. I mean, like, it's just not showing up to play volleyball. It's all these other tools that have to happen and be part of the package to lead to successful playing, which is phenomenal. I love it now when you when you're training, let's talk about your training a little bit too, because your videos of yourself training on your social media and it's phenomenal and I love it because it what it's empowering and you're like, yeah, look at this.

00:18:57:00 - 00:19:17:24
Speaker 2
This is a strong woman who's crushing it in the weight room. And you know what? I see that the volleyball's a power sport. At the end of the day, you hit hard, you have to jump hard and you have to move laterally and vertically as fast and as hard as you can. Have you always been training at that level and that intensity.

00:19:20:03 - 00:19:40:19
Speaker 3
In the gym? I used to hate it. I used to hate the gym. I was a very small lima child when I was playing soccer. I was very skinny. I played like for Team Ontario. It was I was very high performance soccer, but I wasn't even allowed to build watermelon or cases of water bringing in trees with my mom.

00:19:40:19 - 00:19:58:08
Speaker 3
Like that's how skinny I was. It was terrible. So when I started playing volleyball, I looked like Bambi on ice. They were like, This kid has no idea what her legs are doing. And so when I first started working out with our national team and to Montreal on the beach volleyball side, it was myself and two guys who were a couple of years older than me at the time.

00:19:58:08 - 00:20:22:11
Speaker 3
They were probably 17, 18 years old, and they were gym rats. They loved the gym. They loved going. I very much didn't. And we would workout at the same time and it was very intimidating. It wasn't always the most healthy place either, so I just kind of found like a distaste for the gym. And then it wasn't finally until I went to USC where I had the most amazing strength and conditioning coach Kelly Gorman, who made everything a competition.

00:20:22:17 - 00:20:47:08
Speaker 3
She had this thing called the Weight Room Warrior of the Week, and she made tank tops with her face flexing on it. And it was like an army color. And she was just like, she's she's so awesome. She had her face printed on it. And it wasn't about who lifted the most. It was who added the 2.5, you know, who did an extra rep of this, who did the bare minimum or sorry, the littlest amount to make themselves better.

00:20:47:16 - 00:21:05:14
Speaker 3
They got to wear that conditioning the next day. So everything was a competition, but it was in the most loving and supportive environment. So she kind of made me fall in love with strength and conditioning. And then I found Reid Hall, who's now my trainer, at Reid's workouts, and he is just phenomenal. And I love going, it's like my happy place now.

00:21:06:05 - 00:21:14:20
Speaker 2
I'd love to dig into one year posts and I think it's a very important post if you're all mine and to kind of you talk about like when you were a size zero two and you could.

00:21:14:22 - 00:21:15:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, sure.

00:21:15:23 - 00:21:34:00
Speaker 2
And you were remodeling and they wanted you in like this, like jeans that you were like, I'm not going to fit in these. I don't want to fit in these jeans. I love how you stood up for the idea of being comfortable in your body and what you were doing to improve yourself. Can you talk to us a little bit about that post?

00:21:34:00 - 00:21:51:20
Speaker 2
Because to me, when I when I was kind of doing my my prep for for meeting you, that was one of the things that stood out to me that does Gigi and our big character people, because you could have went one way, you could have went one way. And so, yeah, you know what? I want to do this modeling gig and maybe your your life direction changes.

00:21:52:11 - 00:22:10:17
Speaker 2
But no, here you are. And I think there's probably a lot of Sophie's out there that were lean and and probably, like you said, I don't like using the term awkward but like you were as a teenager going through a difficult time you found the weight room, you've embraced it and you've gone back. Can you talk to me a little bit about that post and what it means?

00:22:11:17 - 00:22:24:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. So when I was younger at the time and I was playing High-Performance soccer, I was also scouted, funny enough, walking into a McDonald's at Queen and Spadina to model, which is so funny and so sorry.

00:22:24:21 - 00:22:27:06
Speaker 1
They're looking for models in McDonald's. Okay, you've got to be.

00:22:27:13 - 00:22:27:19
Speaker 3
G.

00:22:27:21 - 00:22:33:24
Speaker 2
G, g. If they were a Dairy Queen, you name. Right. Sorry, g, g. If they were a Dairy Queen, maybe it would have been you and I.

00:22:35:04 - 00:22:54:06
Speaker 3
There. Hilarious. They have. So the agency that I worked with, this is going to sound so creepy. But the agent had actually binoculars and they sit in their agency and they sit at Queen and Spadina, which is like a huge, busy intersection. And they look for potential models. And I happened to be walking in the intersection, but to a McDonald's.

00:22:54:16 - 00:23:15:11
Speaker 3
So I kind of got stopped as I was walking in to get a Big Mac. So long story short, I pursued modeling a little bit during that year when I was also high-performance soccer. Also playing volleyball. And like I said in that post, I was very small, like I was a0020. And then as I went through puberty, I was a size two, which is tiny.

00:23:15:11 - 00:23:32:17
Speaker 3
It's so, so small. And so I went into this casting and the woman was like, Oh, well, we only have size zero and double zero, so we can't shoot you. We can't cast you unless you're in a zero or double zero. And I was like, I'm a to a to a small enough. Like, if you don't have a two, then you're not shooting me.

00:23:33:08 - 00:23:48:09
Speaker 3
So then she finally goes, okay, we'll try the zero, go try on the jeans, see if they fit. And I was like, I'm going to break the button. She goes, Just go try them on. I go into the change room and I break the button. I can't fit these jeans on my body. I look at her and I'm like, Okay, look, if you don't have a size two, then you can't shoot me.

00:23:48:15 - 00:24:06:17
Speaker 3
So I didn't get casted for that. That gig pretty much stopped modeling after that and just over the years now that I have such a better relationship with the gym, I just, you know, want to let other people know, and especially young women, that your body does a lot for you. You know, it wakes you up in the morning, it takes you to school.

00:24:06:17 - 00:24:22:20
Speaker 3
It does all the extracurriculars that you're doing that go into the gym is just like a thank you for it, for doing all those little daily tasks. It's a way of just like giving back to your body and going to the gym doesn't mean you're going to get super bulky. If that's your goal, great. If it's not your goal, it's still not going to do that.

00:24:23:10 - 00:24:26:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. And you just get strong and fast, right?

00:24:26:13 - 00:24:28:08
Speaker 3
That's it. And just be healthy.

00:24:28:15 - 00:24:43:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I was in high school, I was high school teachers and some of the girls, we do fitness classes and they think they're going to grow beards and deep voice is going to hit the weight room like, whoa, whoa. I don't know what show you've been watching, but like, yeah, that's the last thing that's.

00:24:43:11 - 00:24:50:12
Speaker 3
That's, that's honestly what a lot of, like, young females perceive is what's going to happen if they go to the gym. And I just want to be like, that's not the case.

00:24:50:24 - 00:25:06:09
Speaker 2
Well, good for you for posting it and and promoting that concept, though, because a lot of people don't do it. And I think that's super important. Deviates a little bit what we were talking about but it is important to talk about your does not attract people. What we're doing is trying to.

00:25:06:09 - 00:25:07:09
Speaker 1
Say it's funny you talk about.

00:25:07:09 - 00:25:21:20
Speaker 2
I'm just sorry I just had an image Gigi about you and I had getting scouted for modeling tool balls. Guys, hold it. What did you call them that? Did you like blizzard royalty or whatever? Well, I got into a fight with the guys of Blizzard.

00:25:21:20 - 00:25:28:15
Speaker 1
This thing, real blizzard, Oreo. We get peanut butter put inside. Everybody go and do it. Do it.

00:25:28:20 - 00:25:30:09
Speaker 3
This podcast is sponsored by dairy.

00:25:30:21 - 00:25:32:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:32:20 - 00:25:52:11
Speaker 2
I mean, Gigi and I are both catchers. We're baseball catchers. I have a large backside and it's just and I remember going into a store to buy jeans and this guy was trying to fit me in skinny jeans. And he was one of these guys that is like a skinny jeans guy is like, man, like, I can't fit you.

00:25:52:12 - 00:26:04:22
Speaker 2
Have you looked at me? I can't fit in jeans. They just don't understand it, I guess. Anyway, so. So sorry. JJ, totally distract you. You're coming up with something. Actually, this gentleman.

00:26:05:05 - 00:26:21:01
Speaker 1
When you're talking about Lauren. So Mark's daughter Lauren plays hockey at Dartmouth? Yeah, they're in the weight room. Sisters over there in the weight room. I remember her talking just like she had to go buy more pants because, you know, they're going to adolescent squats and all this stuff and she has to go buy more pants. Her legs are getting jacked from.

00:26:21:01 - 00:26:30:00
Speaker 1
That was like good on her. Like some people just sometimes would shy away from that, like bring on the new pants. Like Mark's paying the bill anyway. So there's both but good for her.

00:26:30:11 - 00:26:34:15
Speaker 3
I really so excited with moments like that. I'm like, yes, this t shirt doesn't fit that.

00:26:34:23 - 00:26:36:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Now it's like.

00:26:36:01 - 00:26:38:16
Speaker 3
I actually get offended when people call me skinny. I'm like, No, don't do that.

00:26:38:23 - 00:26:40:23
Speaker 2
No strong. You're strong. You're strong.

00:26:40:23 - 00:26:41:09
Speaker 3
Exactly.

00:26:41:10 - 00:26:59:21
Speaker 1
Three of you. I want to I want to jump on this because you refer to high performance soccer. And then obviously down volleyball, maybe opened a can of worms. Let's see how this goes. What are your thoughts on kids specializing at a certain age? So where are you at with stuff like that?

00:27:01:07 - 00:27:21:15
Speaker 3
So I think that burnout is a real thing and I think that if you're playing one sport for your whole life, burnout will happen way too early. I think that it's important to be an overall athlete, so just train yourself to be a good athlete, play a lot of sports as much as you can, and then when you find one that you fall in love with, whatever age that is, then do it.

00:27:22:09 - 00:27:42:15
Speaker 3
So for me it was volleyball when I was 16, but before that I was a really big soccer player. I played basketball in high school. I played all of the sports that you can in high school. But I think that especially for volleyball, because it's so technical, that you actually don't appreciate how technical and the kind of the testing that comes along with volleyball until later in life.

00:27:42:23 - 00:27:52:20
Speaker 3
So people can actually get deterred from playing volleyball because it's not fun like basketball or soccer where it's like constantly stimulating and you're doing something all of the time. So that would kind of be my my thoughts with that.

00:27:54:18 - 00:28:12:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, that's awesome. Now here's what I want to go back to the team thing because although you have said that you haven't played indoors in a long time and you talk about your teammate Brandi and you are a coach, a lot of people just say, well, it's just two, two people playing volleyball, but it's more than it is a team.

00:28:13:09 - 00:28:35:22
Speaker 2
How is it harder? Like if you played soccer and you got 11 people on there, you got eight people on a soccer team versus the two of you plus a coach. How is that dynamic different and how is it better? Challenging in some ways? Like you understand why I'm saying like how does that equate? Like you have to have a specific skill set of people set to be able to do that.

00:28:36:15 - 00:28:55:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. I've had a lot of partnerships in my career and there are some where personality wise we did not get along, which was a challenge. Of course, you want to like the person that you're playing with if you're both under the understanding of this is business and there's an end objective and that goal is to win and you can perform and do that, that's great for Brandi and I.

00:28:57:01 - 00:29:13:09
Speaker 3
There's more than that. It's a friendship. It's a you're a person first and then you also just happen to be a phenomenal volleyball player. So that's incredible. What I do like telling people, especially with beach volleyball, because it is just two people, is it's kind of like a marriage. But you're there's a goal at the end of it.

00:29:13:14 - 00:29:31:19
Speaker 3
So you're not just like coexisting and trying to be happy. You're like trying to get a gold medal at the Olympics. So it does come with its challenges, especially as a beach volleyball player. You're traveling with this person constantly. So Brandi and I travel everywhere. So does our coach, Rico, and we share a hotel room everywhere we travel, we have to play together.

00:29:31:19 - 00:29:49:12
Speaker 3
So you're seeing a lot of the same person. So being as direct and open and honest as you can be with that person is very helpful understanding that you do need your own personal space. But with Brandi now, we've just been very direct with our communication off the bat, and that's just how our relationship has been successful thus far.

00:29:49:12 - 00:30:19:05
Speaker 2
So good relationships build successful teams, right? And whether it's too or whether it's toe, it's the same principles apply. So yeah, I love it. I love it now you are also coaching. So which is what you're coaching at the university level, which is really cool. So as a coach yourself, like do you apply some of the techniques that are in your from your game to your coaching and from your coaching to your own game?

00:30:19:05 - 00:30:26:19
Speaker 2
Like, like, is it hard to shut it off and turn off coaching and becoming the player or shut off the player and become the coach?

00:30:28:13 - 00:30:47:04
Speaker 3
I think that they go hand-in-hand and that they help each other. So I teach all of my athletes, regardless of age, the exact same things that I'm being taught are the exact same things that I do. The wording may be different, the progressions may be different, but I want to teach the 12 year olds the same things that I'm doing now so that they don't have to relearn anything kind of going on forward.

00:30:48:03 - 00:31:04:08
Speaker 3
But I have found that my own game has gotten better because I can see things that other athletes are doing that I'm coaching and I'm like, Oh, wait, I do that and I'm such a visual learner that that for me is really helpful. So coaching has actually made me a better player and I'm hoping that my coaching has made athletes better players.

00:31:04:16 - 00:31:10:12
Speaker 3
So I think they kind of go hand in hand. But no, I love coaching. It's, it's one of my favorite things to do.

00:31:11:08 - 00:31:22:15
Speaker 2
And JJ and I had a hard time. We've admitted to this in numerous shows. When we transitioned from being collegiate athletes to becoming average Joes, it was really and being.

00:31:22:15 - 00:31:24:02
Speaker 1
Coaches speak for yourself.

00:31:25:16 - 00:31:46:00
Speaker 2
It's like you're sorry, but we're cousins, so we'd like to banter a little bit like this. But it's tough. And to me, you're doing both at a high level right now, which is very unique, which is it's really unique and it's impressive. Like tell tell us a little bit more about the northern elite because I think it's kind of a cool situation for you.

00:31:46:22 - 00:32:05:08
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I found that there was a need as a collegiate volleyball player when I was playing to have a place to train at a high performance level and keep that same NCAA STEM standard. When I came home in the summer, so there wasn't really any place for us to get that good quality training. So because I saw that there was a need, I decided to fill it.

00:32:05:24 - 00:32:30:13
Speaker 3
So I started the program called The Northern Elite to kind of bridge the gap between what our youth volleyball programs are doing now and what the NCAA truly does. And because I played a indoor NCAA, indoor NCAA beach, I've done all that you can for female volleyball in North America. So if you want to have an understanding of what one level looks like, I have a very good idea of what it looks like because I did it.

00:32:31:03 - 00:32:58:13
Speaker 3
So I had a lot of parents asking me questions before the northern elite actually started about what it looks like, what the process was like, how intense training was. So to kind of answer the rest of the questions, I just created a program to fill that and to kind of prep athletes so that they're not starstruck or shunned or or shocked when they go to the NCAA, if that is where they go from.

00:32:58:13 - 00:33:00:04
Speaker 1
And I think.

00:33:01:09 - 00:33:19:23
Speaker 2
I have a question teed up here for you based on that, and it's a follow up and it's basically like, okay, so you're a 14 year old Sophie that signs up for the northern elite. What kind of advice do you give yourself if you travel back now a decade and you talk to your younger self? What is it?

00:33:19:23 - 00:33:20:13
Speaker 2
What do you say?

00:33:21:13 - 00:33:40:08
Speaker 3
Oh, my biggest thing, especially when you're 14, 15 years old, there's a lot of people pulling you in a lot of different directions, especially if you're a good high-performance athlete, especially in beach volleyball or in volleyball in general. Your push to be indoor push to be beach volleyball, maybe you're playing soccer, maybe you're playing basketball, maybe academics. There's a lot of places that you're being polled.

00:33:40:16 - 00:33:59:03
Speaker 3
For me, it was if you choose indoor volleyball, that's everything else is close to you. So for my my advice to younger athletes would be even though the door may be closing, it's not closed. Like, if you want to choose something because it feels right for you in the moment, choose it, try it. And if it doesn't work out, you can go somewhere else.

00:33:59:10 - 00:34:20:04
Speaker 3
Like I transferred to three schools because of that. When I was 16, I had a coach say, You have to choose between beach and indoor. So I chose Beach. Then I started to miss the team camaraderie of indoor. So then I went and played indoor my first year at McMaster. Then I missed kind of the more intense, high performance culture that comes with NCAA transfer to Long Beach State, where I was supposed to play Indoor and Beach.

00:34:20:15 - 00:34:38:01
Speaker 3
I didn't really love it at Long Beach State. Okay, now in full time beach, our USC, it's not that I'm being disloyal to any of the schools, it's just that none of them or the places that I work weren't helping me thrive. And I don't like the the door's completely closed for you because that stresses young females and young athletes out.

00:34:38:10 - 00:34:40:01
Speaker 3
So it may be closing, but it's not closed.

00:34:41:01 - 00:34:50:18
Speaker 1
I went to four schools in four years so I can see Cal State. JUCO is one of them that I went to. So we're a little more north and we're nice.

00:34:51:03 - 00:34:51:17
Speaker 3
Cal State.

00:34:52:04 - 00:35:11:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. But now what I, now that I'm in the coaching room, what I got to find out from those experiences because yeah it's like feel like you're taking tires and whatever, you just move because it's just not your fit. But at the same time, as an athlete, I'm sure you picked up something from all of those coaches at all levels.

00:35:11:18 - 00:35:30:19
Speaker 1
And the teammates you have, the kind of platform you do, who you are like this really works for me as a coach. You remember this, this coach that's not going to fly with me now, but you had to live with those. So I think it's kind of cool you went through those experiences because now since you've lived them and now people go to your facility or what you call it.

00:35:31:09 - 00:35:34:05
Speaker 3
I call it an academy. It's not quite a club, but I call it academy.

00:35:34:18 - 00:35:50:01
Speaker 1
Now because you have the life experience of what goes with that. Maybe saved some parents and some athletes some heartache, headaches and you know, from the goods and tell them, hey, this is how this is going to be and it works great because you've been there. It's not just somebody reading out of a book, you literally lived it.

00:35:50:01 - 00:35:50:11
Speaker 1
So that.

00:35:50:12 - 00:36:17:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, that's exactly kind of why I wanted to do it. And it's something different than just like having volleyball training, like you can have volleyball training and a lot of very qualified clubs in the city, but it's that experience piece that a lot of parents, more so than athletes, wanted information on because my mom, when I was choosing unsuitable schools, googled things and she had no idea what a good school was, what a bad school was.

00:36:17:16 - 00:36:34:23
Speaker 3
There's a lot of like little minute details you can pick up on when you go on your recruiting trips and all that information. I can give to these younger athletes. And for me, it's just a matter of that mentorship and that leadership and be accessible to these young athletes to answer the questions more so than it is for me to just be on the TV and be a good volleyball player.

00:36:35:09 - 00:36:37:14
Speaker 3
So that's kind of why I started in our family.

00:36:37:14 - 00:37:01:01
Speaker 1
So Sophia is there to share the story with you because you're in the business world, you're probably just start second guessing yourself and doubting and all this other stuff treatment. So this lady meets Picasso and she says, Player you Picasso's like, Yeah, I'm Picasso. She's can you, you know, paint something for me. It's cool. Sure the paint something and then just turquoise.

00:37:01:02 - 00:37:20:22
Speaker 1
That's $1,000,000. Suppose it took me 2 seconds to make that, she says. He said it took me a lifetime to make that 2 seconds. So what you've built over a lifetime, you know, you can you know, you probably go to this school. This school has this this experience that you had to live it where people are not getting the information for free necessarily.

00:37:20:22 - 00:37:26:09
Speaker 1
But I'd rather pay that now than pay that in my time and stress and all that stuff down the road.

00:37:26:21 - 00:37:32:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's I'll remember that because there are moments where yeah, that's great. Thank you for.

00:37:32:05 - 00:37:36:04
Speaker 1
Sharing. We understand each other without having to say they also.

00:37:36:17 - 00:38:01:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, love it. That's so good. So SophIE, one of the things that we always do for our listeners is, we try to leave them with a piece of advice to think about for the week. So I'm going to ask you this here before we wrap it up for you. Can you give them or what would you say is the best resource or the best piece of advice you've ever been given, both as an athlete or as a coach or as a leader or whatever?

00:38:01:11 - 00:38:07:09
Speaker 2
You may however you want to frame it, frame it up. What's the best? What do you want to leave us thinking about for this week?

00:38:09:05 - 00:38:30:18
Speaker 3
I would say know your why? So that doesn't just mean why you're playing, but I think to as a coach, a lot of athletes want to understand why and that's why they ask questions. I don't expect my athletes to listen to me just because I'm an authority figure and I'm a coach and I'm supposed to tell them what to do because in clutch moments and in crunch time, they have to understand why they're doing something.

00:38:30:18 - 00:38:32:19
Speaker 3
So I would say ask the questions and know your life.

00:38:34:22 - 00:38:47:22
Speaker 2
Creating this deep. So so what's next? What's next for Sophia and Brandy? I know you said preshow that you're heading out again. You're going out to Vancouver. You're like, what else? You know, it's a busy season for you.

00:38:48:09 - 00:39:09:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we're heading out to Vancouver this weekend to play in the Vancouver Open and then I'll follow Brandi. She plays on the American Volleyball Pro Tour, so the AVP all train there while she competes for a couple of weeks. And then our next event is until August where we'll be in Hamburg and then our last event is in Paris in September, and then we're in our off season so then we can sleep.

00:39:10:00 - 00:39:10:09
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:39:11:08 - 00:39:31:14
Speaker 2
And so traveling. Here's the other one too. I've talked to a lot of pro athletes and we had a friend on the show, Blake Sloan, and he talks about like being like he played in the NHL. He talks about like people undress to meet the effect of travel on athletic performance. Can you talk? I know I don't want to let this show stop, so I'm just looking for ways to keep it going.

00:39:32:01 - 00:39:46:11
Speaker 2
But like, as I'm looking at you're you're you're we're messaging back and forth. You're like, I'm going to be in Paris for this. I'm going to be in Rome for this. How do you one show up ready? And I know you. I think you lost your luggage once or twice in this, too.

00:39:46:24 - 00:40:11:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, we lose our luggage a lot. There's a lot of hiccups that happen. And I think the more you can expect the unexpected to happen, the better prepared you'll be. So we traveled to like ten places per summer, 10 to 12 countries for summer. This summer we were on the road for about ten weeks, I think. I flew from like Brazil to Mexico, back to Brazil to Qatar to Europe, back to Canada.

00:40:11:17 - 00:40:32:00
Speaker 3
It was just it's crazy. All of the travel was crazy. So yeah, you just kind of have to get used to it. You sleep as much as you can, you hydrate as well as you can. Your nutrition is really important and then it's just prioritizing and period icing well. So that you get there at an appropriate date so that you can climb the ties and get back to the time changes and then get ready to kick some butt.

00:40:33:11 - 00:40:51:00
Speaker 2
I hope we hope you keep kicking butt and it's awesome. And I know the Olympics, the next Olympics around the corner and and we look forward to seeing you in that. And I know as a Mizuno ambassador, I think it's a big deal, too, because you're doing all the right things. Like I think you're promoting the sport. You're, you're advocating for female athletes.

00:40:51:00 - 00:40:53:16
Speaker 2
Like it's the complete package, which is awesome.

00:40:54:06 - 00:40:55:08
Speaker 3
Thank you. I appreciate that.

00:40:56:04 - 00:40:57:21
Speaker 2
G Last thoughts, buddy.

00:40:59:00 - 00:41:03:00
Speaker 1
Too many thought. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole, man. I'm just I'm just going to leave it as is.

00:41:04:04 - 00:41:16:13
Speaker 2
Well, I think maybe as well. When we come back and the next Olympics come around, we're going to get Sophia on before they go to the Olympics maybe or after. We'll have some stuff afterwards so that a.

00:41:16:13 - 00:41:21:11
Speaker 3
Deal get myself one of those cool might deal a deal they said.

00:41:22:16 - 00:41:27:22
Speaker 2
Oh listen you might have to get one. This is this is the trend now, right? So this is cool.

00:41:28:06 - 00:41:29:14
Speaker 3
Mizuno get me a mike said.

00:41:31:01 - 00:41:40:14
Speaker 2
We'll talk to Adam. Yeah, yeah, yeah we'll talk to Adam. Well, that does it for this episode of Benchmarked. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

00:41:41:03 - 00:41:44:07
Speaker 3
Keep crashing it.

00:41:44:07 - 00:41:46:08
Speaker 1
Yes. For concussed athletes.

00:41:46:17 - 00:41:47:13
Speaker 3
Nice. I was.