(Seguin) — A former para-Olympian recently brought his talents and a message of hope and success to Seguin — leaving an indelible imprint on the sands at the Texas Tigers Beach Volleyball Complex.
Left to Right: Dave Newkirk, Jon Aharoni, Linda Martens
The mission to help all individuals get active and excel in the sport has come full circle for the complex with a recent visit by Dave Newkirk, a paralympic volleyball Olympian.
Tagging along for the rare and unique visit was his Olympic Coach Jon Aharoni.
Through seeds of strong connections made along the way, Newkirk was invited to stop by in Seguin to relay a few lessons.
At the same time, the pair was also able to meet up with Berklee Andrews, a 2022 Navarro High School graduate, who is also looking to venture out into this world as a para-volleyball athlete.
Along with providing a few tips and even challenging some of the coaches to a quick game, Aharoni and Newkirk spoke about their recently launched I-C-N Athletics in San Diego, which “provides training opportunities, creates educational programs, and offers equipment support to make it normal for adaptive athletes to step onto any beach volleyball court, and to excel in life.”
Missing his left arm below the elbow since birth, Newkirk shares how it was important for him to ensure that his own experiences as a teenager did not resurface for any other player.
“ICN Athletics has been developed not just as a USA Beach Volleyball specific organization. We see a need where there are a lot of people who can benefit not only from the game itself but the rehabilitative state of integrating adaptive athletes, wounded veterans etc. etc. into the game – giving them something that they can use to integrate back into society, and I think it’s extremely important that they are not put off into a corner somewhere to go do this on their own. ICN Athletics started with one adaptive athlete and one person who is what we consider an able-bodied athlete and a coach and so we work together to bring both sets in to create a healthy relationship and also a community that beach volleyball brings together,” said Newkirk.
According to ICN, “in the United States alone, more than 74 million people have a physical disability, including over two million people living with limb loss. These individuals often face tremendous barriers to physical activity, including a lack of knowledge of how to exercise, inability to obtain adaptive equipment or prosthetic devices, social exclusion from sports, and more. In fact, about 25 percent of individuals with any disability report being inactive during the week.”
In addition to hosting clinics around the country and weekly clinics in San Diego, Newkirk say the group’s other goal is to find adaptive athletes who want to play beach volleyball, or who love the sport.
He says its connections like the one that they made with local player Andrews that will continue to fuel this part of the group’s vision.
“Berklee came through USA Volleyball, and I met her at two camps, one last year and one this year. Her parents went to the same college that I did ironically. My wife is from New Braunfels ironically and so it’s one of those things where we ended up just jellying together and meeting her and she’s just an incredible athlete. If I was half as good of an athlete that she is when I was her age, unknown what I could have done but she’s got the world ahead of her and she is just an amazing person and an amazing athlete,” said Newkirk.
Facilities to support beach volleyball are rare especially here in this area.
Unique with its covered courts, Tiger Beach on Cordova Road continues to grow — bringing folks in from all over to take part in prestigious statewide and national competitions.
Complex co-owner Kelle Sullivan says growing its own pool of competitive athletes has always been an objective for the complex but instilling the passion for the game of beach volleyball is what it is all about.
“It’s extremely important because we built this complex initially indoor and then of course the sand we added just a couple of years ago. (It) was to grow the sport, increase the passion of the sport itself, to reach out into the community to get some of these girls involved in things that they may have never been exposed to before. Before the sand complex here, most of them had never even thought about playing volleyball in the sand and then to bring somebody of the caliber as Dave and Jon here and have them give their story and then have Jon the Olympic Coach talk to them about just do the work, just figure it out, get out there and practice and make it happen – that can inspire any of these children out here to let them know that that they are just as capable as the next person if that’s what they really want to do – that dreams are there for them and dreams can come true if you put in the hard work,” said Sullivan.
Sullivan says with beach volleyball growing as a sport especially here in the heart of Central Texas, she is grateful to have a facility to be able sustain that interest an interest that will help to grow the dreams of all athletes and continue to make Seguin a beach volleyball destination.
“Indoor we have between 12 to 15 teams which is about 150-165 athletes. Outdoor this year, we had 83 athletes who are out here training in the sand. We have seven coaches. Our director is amazing, Linda Martens. She’s played in Italy. She’s been in the Panama games. She was a collegiate indoor coach. She just has a wealth of knowledge. As we go along, it becomes more intriguing I think to people and then we are able to do the networking. We have more people coming from other cities. We have the Beach National Qualifier at the end of this month. WE have people from out of state that are coming to participate in that, and I’ll give you a snippet –a real cool thing that is going to happen in October that is probably going to put Seguin on the map,” said Sullivan.
Tiger Sports Complex which includes Tiger Beach Volleyball facility is located at 2818 Cordova Road.
The complex comes complete with four indoor courts and eight sand courts. It also hosts a community of adult leagues and tournaments.