Sociology alumna and beach volleyball star primed for Olympics breakout
From an outside perspective, this year’s Olympic Games might not be ideal as an athlete’s first. Due to COVID-19, the games are happening a year later than scheduled, no spectators are allowed — including athletes’ families — and the Olympic Village is set up to reduce interaction among athletes.
But for U.S. beach volleyball player and former Trojan standout Kelly Claes, the unconventional setup might be an advantage.
“I love the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss,’” said Claes, who graduated from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 2017 with a degree in sociology. “It’s not like we’ve been to an Olympics before and have been able to experience that enormous, packed stadium with family being there. It feels just the same as what we’ve been doing.”
As the youngest duo to ever represent the U.S. in beach volleyball at the Olympics, Claes, 25, and her partner, Sarah Sponcil, 24, won gold at the FIVB Beach World Tour in Sochi, Russia, earlier this summer and earned a trip to Tokyo. The following week, the duo took gold at another event at Ostrava, Czech Republic.
USC beach volleyball star channeled skill and swagger to reach the Olympics
Claes’ competitive side has been with her for as long as she can remember. Growing up in Fullerton, Calif., Claes played basketball, softball and volleyball. Though she might not have known at the time which sport would get her there, she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a professional athlete and an Olympian.
Ultimately, she chose volleyball as her sport and verbally committed to play indoors at California State University, Long Beach. Midway through high school, she decided to give beach volleyball a try and “fell in love with that more,” eventually becoming the No. 1 beach volleyball recruit in the nation and decommiting from Cal State Long Beach to play volleyball at USC.
“It was just an unreal opportunity that was presented to me,” she said, “and after doing research it was the obvious choice.”
That choice seemed to pay off as Claes starred for the Trojans over her four years, being a part of four national championships and earning two Pac-12 Player of the Year awards. However, it was another, often overlooked, quality at USC that Claes said really prepared her for where she is today.
In professional beach volleyball, athletes enter tournaments themselves and earn points to enter higher-tier tournaments. Claes and her college partner entered these smaller tournaments over their summers to earn points; by the time they graduated, they already had earned enough to get into the larger tournaments.
“It takes a few years to collect points so you can start entering these bigger tournaments but because we had done the work during our summers, we were able to just kind of rock and roll when we graduated,” she said. “I’m super thankful for the staff at USC for guiding us in that direction.”