Today we’d like to introduce you to Rick Reeve
Hi Rick, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I saw an avid beach player at the pier when I lived in Huntington Beach in California and many friends new I played a lot there. A friend at church asked me to teach her niece how to play volleyball as she’d never played before and wanted to make her school team. I told her to come down to the beach and I’d do my best. She ended up making her high school volleyball team! My friend then instilled in my mind something that would change my life ” You should coach volleyball. You are so great at it!”
With that seed implanted in my mind I started assisting a friend that was a local high school coach. He eventually gave me a team. His Dad passed away a week before I was supposed to start coaching so training me was not on his radar. I remember the first day I coached my own team. He pulled back the curtain in the gym and there was my team of freshman girls, handed me a clipboard with their names, said “Good luck” and walked away.
I used online resources, went to friend’s houses many times that were past coaches and they spent time teaching me rotations, strategies, etc. I stumbled along that first year of coaching but fell in love with it.
I went to work for a local volleyball club coaching a boys team in Newport Beach, CA. All of the parents on my team loved my style and asked to coach their sons on the beach as well. I asked the indoor director if that was ok as I didn’t want to step on any toes if they had beach volleyball programs. He said it was ok. So I started teaching my boys at the beautiful beaches of Newport. The word got out and more and more kids starting showing up. What was one court turned into 4 courts. We were bursting at the seams with court space. The drive between my house in Huntington Beach and the courts in Newport were on Pacific Coast Hwy and I’d always pass by open beach space. I could hear something inside of me say “This is where you can teach thousands of kids and adults beach volleyball!” I prepared a business proposal and went to the Huntington State Beach offices and presented the plan. They quickly approved it and just like that, we had leased space to build a facility for more kids. We build 8 courts. That lasted only a year or two and we kept adding courts and eventually got up to 15 courts. During Covid we expanded to Southern Utah and Northern Utah.
Currently in Utah we have programs in St. George, Lehi and Bluffdale. Programs include youth indoor club volleyball for boys and girls, competitive beach and indoor tournaments, Summer Camps, Adult and youth beach volleyball leagues, clinics, private lessons and more!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Life is about learning how to successfully pivot! Life gives you plenty of curve balls and ruins your plans. The trick is to adapt,pivot, evolve or whatever you want to call it. The quicker you realize this reality and quicker you can be at peace.
During Covid unfortunately, California came down really hard on youth sports as well as many other businesses. To hear that youth sports was non-essential really hurt. Kids growth and development is always essential and I then pivoted to looking for areas that did want our services to be essential, and that’s where Utah came into play. I contacted friends in both Salt Lake City and St. George and they said my services were greatly needed in their cities. So I moved away from California to St. George. Amazing things happened when I lived there for a year. Utah Tech University called and hired me to be an assistant coach for the Women’s Volleyball Team (D1) and I was able to gather valuable collegiate coaching experience. I opened up Beach Elite in the community and we were an immediate success, so much that the next year a bunch of my coaches took the kids and made their own club. That hurt as well. Unfortunately, I’ve had this happen 3 other times since I started my club in 2014. But life is about adapting so we did just that for St George and started adding more beach volleyball in St. George and focus more on younger beginners. In California I had one of my own coaches secretely start his own club during our current season and when the season was over, I found out.
After a year in St. George I moved to Salt Lake City and added the club there. And it has been a big success as well.
These additions to the club would not have happened if Covid “aka a curve ball” hadn’t happened. It’s so important to take a curve ball, adjust to it, and hopefully hit it out of the park!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Club Indoor Volleyball for youth ages 10-18 in all 3 locations
Club Beach Volleyball for youth ages 10-18 in all 3 locations
Beach Tournaments in Huntington Beach California and Lehi Utah
Indoor tournaments in St. George Utah
Beach Leagues for youth and adults in Lehi UT and St. George UT
Summer Camps in Huntington Beach, St. George and Salt Lake City
Adult Beach Classes and leagues in Lehi and Huntington Beach
Our prices are lower than most clubs in cities that we operate. We put our money where our mouth is when we say “Kids are our top priority!”
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
I have two:
Trips with my Dad and my brothers! With he and my Mom raising 5 kids, they didn’t have a lot of extra money to spend on trips. But my Dad made sure to take us out as much as he could. Some of these trips were going to swamps in Florida and Georgia (I grew up in Georgia).
My Parents buying me a recording Studio: When I was 14 years old I was still taking piano as my Mom made sure all her kids took lessons. I grew tired of playing other people’s music and finally at one lesson I cried extra hard! It was time to pick a song for my recital and I didn’t like any of the music that my teacher gave me. She said “Why don’t you write your own song?” That single question pivoted me into something that would change my life. I because a composer and songwriter. My parents invested their hard earned money and bought me a recording studio. I still remember that block looking Windows desktop, the mixing board, the controller keyboard, the microphones and stands, the speakers, the headphones and more. Many things in my mind are cloudy from my childhood but those things and those moments in that basement room are not cloudy at all. So many wonderful memories of creating music, using that medium as my outlet to get my emotions out was one of the best childhood memories for me!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beach-elite.com
- Instagram: @beach_elite_vball_utah
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@beachelitevolleyballclub2559
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/beach-elite-volleyball-club-huntington-beach
