As beach volleyball grows on OBX, First Flight High gets three new courts (2024)

By Maggie Miles | Outer Banks Voice on July 17, 2024

First Flght players practicing on the First Flight High School court. (Photo courtesy Ty Green)

Coach Green coaching at First Flight High School with team members Brooklyn Younts and Poe Thibodeau. (Photo credit: Amanda Dexter)

The girls at the Manteo High School Court.

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First Flght players at a First Flight home game. (Photo courtesy Ty Green)

By Maggie Miles | Outer Banks Voice

When he came to the Outer Banks in 2018. Ty Green couldn’t believe there wasn’t a beach volleyball team at any of the local schools in this beach community. Today, First Flight, Manteo and Currituck high schools all have club teams, with Green helping form the First Flight club in 2021.

“I just kind of hand-picked a couple players and was like, ‘Hey, you know, why don’t you try beach a little bit?’ And we got a couple of them interested,” recounts Green, now the First Flight High assistant beach volleyball coach.

And in a sign of the sport’s growth spurt in the area, First Flight High is getting three new beach volleyball courts on school property that will be ready for next season—thanks to the efforts of parents, coaches, team members, local businesses and community members who came together to raise the funds. The courts will allow the club to have more games at home at First Flight and hopefully, according to Green, provide a training ground for more young girls to take up the sport.

“It’s gonna be sweet, and it’s gonna be big. But beach volleyball in general, the past four or five years, has been blowing up in itself. I mean, it’s like the fastest growing sport for women right now in college,” says Green.

“So the volleyball community is pretty big when you get to coach so many kids,” says head First Flight High beach volleyball coach Anna Zappulla, who also coaches indoor volleyball at First Flight High School and OBX Wave. “And then when you introduce them to beach volleyball, they’re all hooked, so it’s pretty neat.”

There was no beach volleyball court when the First Flight club team was founded in 2021. But the next season, the team was awarded a grant from the NC High School Sand Volleyball Association to build their own small court. There were also donations from parents and local businesses like Island Septic, which donated the sand, and Holy Cow Creamery, which donated $1000. The first court was ready for their 2022 season.

In that same year, Manteo High built its own court and formed a club team, and then Currituck High did the same, and the coaches from the schools got together and formed a conference. But because there was only one small court at First Flight, the team would mostly travel to the other schools and coaches would have to hold multiple practices since only four players can play at a time on the one single court.

To build the three new courts at First Flight, the community pitched in to raise $10,000. Jennifer Steuart is a First Flight parent who received donations from neighbors happy to contribute to the new courts. Her daughter Finn, who is a freshman, raised $2000 herself.

“We are so happy that it’s actually going to happen. To have somebody greenlight it, as parents, and for the community, it’s a huge positive,” says Steuart.

Coach Zappulla says she’s also planning to add boys to the club next year. She’s also hoping that eventually they can become a fully sanctioned team.

“And I’m kind of hoping it reaches more than just the club, like to teach it to all the kids going through high school…I mean, we live on the beach. It’s kind of what we should know how to do,” says Zappulla. “It’s very exciting. And we kind of started from scratch.”

“It feels awesome,” says Greene, recalling that when he moved here, there weren’t really any options for the girls to play the sport. “So it allows me to take a big breath, because I feel pretty comfortable that these girls are gonna have a sweet venue for the next four years…there’s definitely nowhere for the youth to play…Now they’re going to have it right in their backyard of their high school and it’s just going to be cool to see it grow and to see them grow.”