Tyler Brossard is young, but he’s already kind of a pioneer in his own way. At just 18, he is one of the few Canadians to have obtained a full university scholarship to practice his sport south of the border. His sport being beach volleyball, this feat of arms is all the more rare.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
It was shortly after the most recent holiday season that the athlete from Saint-Basile-le-Grand finally received the response he was hoping for from Westcliff University, located in southern California.
Eighteen months earlier, he had come into contact for the first time with those in charge of the program. Brossard did not want to miss his chance. Beach volleyball not having an overwhelming popularity, there are very few elected officials for the number of draftees among young students who dream of breaking into this field. The discipline is more developed on the women’s side, in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), in particular.
On the men’s side, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), which is a league similar to the NCAA, started offering men’s beach volleyball programs very recently. Six universities are part of the circuit so far.
Thus, at the start of the selection process, the Quebecer wrote to each of the schools to try to understand their vision and their philosophy, but above all to get noticed by the coaches. Among them, a university in Florida, one in Virginia and three in California really interested him. In the end, he decided to focus on the coach he was most interested in. So he bet everything on Westcliff.
Initially, the university was prepared to offer him a scholarship that would cover 70% of his costs as a student-athlete. Eventually, he managed to get a full scholarship. “I really ate it for a year and a half and I think I succeeded, since I’m a guy who really wants,” says Brossard.
He will take his first steps on campus as a new student in January 2023.
The Floridian exile
Tyler Brossard arrived in the world of sport by the door borrowed by many kids, that of hockey. However, when he felt it was getting too serious and his main motivation, fun, was impaired, he turned to volleyball.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY OLIVIER BROSSARD
Tyler Brossard
This interest in this discipline emanated from childhood, when he saw his father playing with friends in the backyard. It was in elementary school that he was introduced to mini volleyball, because access to beach volleyball is restricted in Quebec. He continued his journey in high school, integrating a sport-study indoor volleyball program from first to third high school. It was later that, encouraged by his family, he moved alone to Florida, in the region of Port Sainte-Lucie, where he is still today. He went there to enter a beach volleyball academy with the aim of improving his skills. He speaks of a “true dream”. This marked the start of his career on the sand.
The following summer, his parents and sister went to join him in the Sunshine State.
Since that time, Brossard has been one of the best prospects in the country. He is part of Team Quebec and has won various major competitions, including the U17 Espoir Championship with his teammate and friend Noah Rochefort.
To change the mentalities
Despite his undeniable talent, Tyler Brossard was somehow pushed to the United States. In the volleyball world, Brossard is considered a small player, at 5’11”.
According to him, coaches and leaders in Quebec and Canada attach far too much importance to size. In reality, it is to the advantage of one of the two players to be as tall as possible. Whoever deals with defending in the back of the field can be smaller, as long as he is agile and explosive enough to protect his territory well.
The best and most glaring example is probably the duo of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes, the most prolific Canadian pair in recent years. At net, Pavan is 6’5″. At the back, Humana-Paredes is 5’9″. That didn’t stop the duo from winning gold at the 2019 World Championships.
In Canada, we attach great importance to size, it is almost a third of the criteria for evaluating elite teams. To me, it didn’t make sense.
Tyler Brossard
To illustrate how different the mentality is in the United States, he added that when he first contacted his future coach at Westcliff, he never asked him how tall he was.
“I’m not the most talented, I’m not the biggest or the strongest, but I really want to get to the top and I want to prove to the coaches who told me I was too small that it was possible. I work hard to achieve this. »
Tyler Brossard dreams of the Olympic Games and he firmly believes in it. The 18-year-old wants to write a different story than the one predicted for him. In his own way, he hopes he can inspire other young boys to break into beach volleyball.