April is when the full-time volleyball begins.
But the real battle annually begins in late January and early February, when Canadians Sam Schachter and Sam Pedlow stop by Hermosa Beach for a few weeks of high level training prior to FIVB Fort Lauderdale, the first major international event every year.
The real battles, of course, do not take place on the courts themselves. Nah, they’re on Instagram, where Pedlow has curated one of the best social media accounts across all of sports, right up there, it’s easy to argue, with Joel Embiid, the troll savant of the NBA.
He’ll post highlights and bloopers, funny sound bytes and inspirational quotes, a little bit of everything. What makes it fun is that for the few weeks the Canadians are in town, the U.S. players they practice with – namely Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb, Casey Patterson and Stafford Slick, Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena in Florida prior to Fort Lauderdale – fire it right back in a friendly, if not still competitive, manner.
“It’s a self-proclaimed rivalry by Casey and Slick,” Schachter said, laughing.
“In Canada, beach volleyball isn’t as publicized as it is in the States,” Pedlow, the more active of the two, added. “They do a great job of making everybody know who you are. If we want people to know who we are we need to do some work, do some ground work. Every time we come down to the United States and play with these guys and post some videos it’s good for us, because now we might get some Sam Times Two fans.”
Patterson did his part in making sure his followers knew the Sams plays were fake (they’re not), while his are real (they are).
“People think we’re kinda going at each other but it’s all in good fun,” Pedlow said. “Now, I don’t post a whole lot of rallies we don’t win.”
If you follow them closely enough, you’ll know that isn’t true. Pedlow and Schachter both enjoy a good blooper as much as the rest of us. But here’s the thing: The rallies they lose are becoming exceedingly harder to come by.
Last year, 2017, marked their first as a team, Schachter having needed a replacement for the since-retired Josh Binstock, and Pedlow in potential need of an upgrade from Grant O’Gorman (perfectly enough, the Sams are in the same pool as countrymen O’Gorman and Ben Saxton, former partner of transfer American Chaim Schalk).
Their first tournament together was at this very same event a year ago, where they took ninth, having beaten O’Gorman and Michael Plantinga and Austrian Olympian Robin Seidl and Tobias Winter to break pool.
Eventually, they were knocked out by Gibb and Crabb, though it was an auspicious start for what would become Pedlow’s best season, one in which the Sams – or SamX2 or Sam Squared, whichever you prefer – would improve upon their seed in every single FIVB tournament they played in. Those finishes are thanks to what the two call “one and done volleyball,” a nod to their height and physicality.
Pedlow, the 2017 Most Improved Player on the FIVB, stands 6-foot-5 and Schachter, the defender, 6-foot-6. They’re the first to admit they won’t dig as many balls as, say, a Crabb, who’s light and nimble and quicksilver fast, but when they do, they’re more likely to put it away, relying more on offensive and transition efficiency than long, dragged out rallies.
They’re ok with that. It works.
Most importantly, for the fans and those following on social media: It’s fun to watch.