Quarantine Q&A with Savvy Simo
May 20, 2020 | Beach Volleyball
In the third installment of Quarantine Q&A, catch up with beach volleyball senior Savvy Simo, whose team's NCAA title defense was cut short in March. Simo, who recently announced she is returning for a fifth and final year, is an All-American performer on the beach and was on pace in 2020 to garner another accolade playing on the Bruins' top court. She will graduate with a bachelor's degree in sociology in the fall and will be the only senior on the squad when it returns to the beach in the spring of 2021.
Q: When did you know you wanted to come to UCLA?
A: I always wanted to go to UCLA, it was a dream school of mine for so many years when I was younger. I'm a homebody, being from San Diego, and UCLA seemed like the perfect fit. In high school, I was stuck deciding if I wanted to play beach or indoor volleyball, and UCLA was one of the only schools that offered me the opportunity to play both and be a dual-sport athlete. At that point, it was sort of a no-brainer for me. After taking my visits and at first being uncertain, I just had a feeling about UCLA. Being at UCLA would also give me the opportunity to play in Pauley Pavilion and those beautiful beach courts up at Sunset Rec. I was just so excited to finally be able to commit and come to UCLA.
Q: Can you discuss what your thought process was like when you heard the news that your senior season for beach volleyball was being cut short due to COVID-19?
A: It's kind of funny thinking back on it, we actually had games going on that Wednesday at USC. When I got back later that day, I walked into my apartment, and my roommate asked if I had heard that basically everything is starting to shut down. She had told me that professional basketball had just been suspended. My thought process immediately turned to thinking if this is happening at the professional level, then what are we going to do about NCAA sports?
That next morning, I was doing a voluntary workout with two other girls for beach. I had just finished sending the whole team a message emphasizing the need to take advantage of the optional workouts if we want the chance to win another championship. Immediately after that I came upstairs, and I saw Stein, who gave me a look like, "it's not good." About 10 minutes later, we had a team meeting to announce that our season was being suspended by the Pac-12, and then an hour later the NCAA had canceled the rest of the sports in-season. Immediately it was weird because when the team was all sitting there, it felt like most people kind of looked at the seniors to see what their reactions were. To have our season cut short like that felt terrible. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, crying and not really knowing exactly how to feel. You never plan or expect anything like this to happen. You never plan on an injury or anything career ending in general to happen, so I felt blindsided. I was really angry and confused at first, not knowing what emotion to feel, so I felt them all.
At first reaction, I didn't really want to come back to UCLA with that taste in my mouth. I thought maybe it was a sign to play professionally and move on, but the more I thought about it, the idea of my volleyball career potentially ending like that with how many years I've been playing just became more and more ridiculous. I ended up talking with a bunch of people I hold close to try and make sense of it, and I had an old coach tell me, "You're going to be on your couch in May, watching the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship and regretting that you didn't go back." This idea was one of my driving factors on why I wanted to come back. After a lot of conversations with my parents and being so close to graduating now, I'm fortunate that I am able to pick up a lot of classes that are interesting for me, allowing me to come back for a fifth year. I'm super fired up about it! It's a dream come true to be able to return to beach for another year, especially being at UCLA.
Q: Do you want to pursue volleyball beyond your UCLA career?
A: Yes! I thought a little bit about playing overseas with an indoor team in Europe, possibly making some money over there and playing a year or two. Now, especially with going back for a fifth year of beach only, I would love to pursue professional beach volleyball. It's kind of a hard career to jump into because there are no contracts or anything like that. The money that you make is based on how you perform and sponsorship deals, so you basically have to go out there and crush it, especially transitioning from college. Not only do I want to go back to UCLA and win another national championship for the University and the team, but I want to go back and train the hardest I can to give myself the best opportunity to hopefully go play at the professional level. It's something that I've always wanted to do and is super scary to jump into, but I love beach volleyball with everything in me, and I couldn't imagine just giving it up; I still love to be competitive. As long as I'm still healthy and able to have my fifth year at UCLA, hopefully crushing it with the team in the process, I would without a doubt love to pursue beach volleyball professionally.
Q: Do you enjoy playing beach or indoor matches more?
A: I can't really say what I like more because they're actually so different. What I love about indoor matches is that it's in a gym and playing against teams that can draw a bunch of fans, like Hawai'i or Nebraska, can get the gym absolutely booming, and it's one of the coolest feelings in the world, especially having your whole team around you. I really love playing in indoor volleyball matches, and something that I'm going to miss the most is that atmosphere. You don't necessarily get the same atmosphere in beach unless you're playing at the professional and Olympic levels, where you tend to draw bigger crowds. Being inside an indoor gym with your team and scoring a point is absolutely electric with the crowd.
For beach, I feel that it's different because you have your partnership, and you have your own game going on, but at the same time you have other teammates competing for UCLA on another court. What I love about beach, especially at the collegiate level, is the split focus on playing for yourself and playing for something bigger in order to best help the team. At some venues we all kind of play at the same time, and others we stagger it. Even with having your teammates cheering you on when they can watch, you do feel so alone with just you and your partner, but at the same time very supported. Beach and indoor are two totally different environments that definitely have their perks. I love them both so much, and I'm definitely going to miss playing indoor at UCLA and everything that goes into it.
Q: What is your mindset like going into this next season as a single-sport athlete after receiving another year of eligibility for beach volleyball?
A: I'm really fired up! I've never really had the opportunity to be a single-sport athlete. With volleyball, most people always kind of see beach and indoor as one sport, but they're so different. The training, team, coaches and game are all totally different. I was never able to truly focus my attention on just one. For instance, the summer is when most people want to play beach volleyball, but I had to go lift and train for indoor, so all of my attention would be shifted there. Then the second that indoor is done, the mindset shifts to focus solely on beach volleyball and get your sand-legs and cardio back.
It's really exciting for me knowing that I can go into the beach season and be training for it in the fall, not having to play catch up in the winter. I can go full speed ahead for the physical aspect of it and then do a lot of the out-of-season activities with the team that I had never really been able to participate in. I think that the beach team makes a lot of memories together in the fall that I haven't really been a part of because of indoor being in-season. I'm really looking forward to spending that time with the team and being a part of the team bonding stuff, which can really benefit us down the road.
Q: Can you share how you have been coping with the adjustment in lifestyle due to the current events of COVID-19?
A: It's been really hard. I think that the first couple of weeks after coming home, I was super motivated, thinking that, "everything's going to go back to normal soon! I'm just going to grind and work out." Then things started to close down a little bit more; beaches started to shut down and I started to kind of go into denial about everything and becoming more and more bummed out. I actually didn't work out for about two weeks, which is unheard of in my life. I've never done that ever; even during winter break I'm always doing something physical. That was an interesting shift for me, and I began to notice that when I don't work out, not getting up and making it a staple in my day, then it hinders my overall performance in everyday tasks. I'm more tired when I don't work out, so I had to get back on a little routine of getting up around 7 or 8 a.m. for a morning workout and eating a healthy breakfast. Hopping back into the workouts and getting back in the routine became important to me and even just getting a sweat in for 30 minutes a day has had a huge positive impact on my day. I noticed on the days that I didn't work out, I struggled late in the afternoon and felt more tired and unmotivated. Everyone has their own little schedule, but definitely working out, getting some sleep, and having my awesome home-cooked meals with my parents has been absolutely amazing for me.
Q: What skill have you learned or remembered you had with having some time away from organized volleyball and campus?
A: I've been doing a lot of juggling, not with a soccer ball, but with a beach volleyball. My brother and I will go out and kick the ball around and just juggle. I used to play soccer for most of my childhood, and there was a time where I thought, "you know what would be so cool is if I could try out for the soccer team in the fall", which is so crazy to think of because of how good they are, but it's something fun to do that's active in a sport that I love and wanted to potentially play in the future, so that's been a major activity for me. I'm a lot better at juggling now than I was when I actually played soccer, so that's actually funny to me. I also have been doing other activities, like going on hikes or playing cards, just little things that are fun for the family to do.
Q: What is your best UCLA memory?
A: I have so many incredible memories at UCLA that it's hard to just pin it down to one memory. Obviously winning the national championship, both times being two of the best days of my life. Both were so different but incredibly powerful moments for me. The first one, we came from the contender's bracket and beat the team that knocked us out of the winner's bracket to win the title. That was truly one of the most special moments of my life; we wanted to win so badly, and to finally get it was incredible. Last year's national championship, we absolutely dominated the tournament and ended up sweeping USC in a fairytale ending to that season. Both felt so different, but were such incredible feelings in their own ways. Flying back and celebrating with the team from the tournaments are some of my best memories here.
I have some just incredible memories in general, and they are always all with my teammates, usually off the court when we are traveling, or in the hotel, or we're just sitting on the couch watching The Bachelorette, or whatever it is. My teammates are what have truly made my experience at UCLA so special. Even all of the other athletes at UCLA and being able to become close with them. Some of my best memories come from being able to go up to Sunset Rec on a Saturday in the spring and being able to run into literally every person you know while just laying out in the grass with the sun out and music playing. It's just a special place. Another general one is even just going to In-N-Out on a Saturday night and just seeing everyone there as well. Westwood is just a small little neighborhood that has everyone nearby, and that social element that has come with playing at UCLA has definitely boosted my experience here.
My best memory here is for sure winning the national championships. I've also had some incredible memories on the indoor side, like sweeping Stanford this past year. We also played in Hawaii this year, and playing in that gym is probably my favorite place to play. I think it's the most electric gym ever, and I absolutely love it.
Q: What do you look forward to the most once you return to campus?
A: I think what I'm looking forward to most is just going back to normalcy. In things being normal again, being able to see my friends again, give them a hug, and being able to sit on each other's couches and just catch up on all the time we lost. I'm really excited to get back in the weight room and start lifting again, start working out as a team. Even just being able to see everyone's faces. I think we take for granted walking to class and running into people on Bruin Walk. There are times where I could be walking back from class and end up getting caught in a 45-mintue conversation. I think we really take those moments for granted and miss the positive moments that come from being able to be on-campus and be with everyone. That being said, I can't wait to just be back and slowly return to everything being normal.
Q: Can you discuss your interest in mental health and how being a student-athlete at UCLA has tied into that?
A: I am super interested in mental health because it is something that I have dealt with for years. I'm a super anxious person, some of it being health anxiety, some of it being the fear of the uncontrollable elements and the unknown. I've always been a thinker and overthink to the worst case scenario, even when I was little. When I was little, I was always stressing about stuff, and it really hindered me for several years of my life. My junior year of high school was so tough, where I was anxious for no reason and found it difficult to even leave my bed. I even experienced this my junior year of college. I think these feelings come in certain phases of my life and depend on what I'm doing at that time. There are times where you can get stuck in what you are doing and lose sight of your goals, feeling trapped in your feelings and your thoughts. Feeling trapped, it can be difficult to break out of it because you also feel alone. I think that the feeling of being alone is what really piqued my interests in mental health because the more I expressed my interests in it and becoming more content with myself and understanding myself over time, the more I found myself communicating about it. I'm always going to be anxious and have to deal with these feelings, but the more comfortable I felt in discussing it, the more I began to feel content and had a better understanding. What I found so fascinating was that the more I opened up, I found that people are often dealing with similar feelings of anxiety or even depression in some cases. It's something that I want to be more normalized because it is affecting us on a broader level than we would like to admit, and having these conversations can help ease that affect.
A big thing in female sports today is body-image issues. I never personally struggled with it, but I have had several teammates and friends in sports who have these issues. There are so many mental health issues that have a major impact on the athletes, and being a student-athlete is a gnarly grind of putting in hours towards school and traveling on top of it all. You're constantly losing sleep and fighting to stay caught up in class, so there are days where I feel that my head is literally spinning.
I love that I can talk about this and use my platform as a UCLA student-athlete as a means of promoting mental health, fighting the stigma of having to face it alone, and being a safe haven for those who want to talk about their feelings when facing their hardships. I've grown more comfortable talking about it and the anxiety that I face, along with other feelings that go into it, and have become better at discussing my experiences in being anxious or stressed and how it has impacted myself, my surroundings, and how I've learned to cope. Personally I journal a lot, read often, and color as a few outlets. What I started to notice was that when I eat healthy, get good sleep, workout when I can, and really try my best in taking care of myself, that's when I feel at my best. There are so many more things to break down in regards to mental health, and it's incredibly important to me and several other people, but I'm just glad that it's on a path of becoming more normalized in conversation and taken into account with daily life, especially in college athletics.
Q: What is your take on the recent events with student-athletes now having the opportunity to earn compensation from their own Name, Image, and Likeness?
A: Very controversial question, and I'm not a very controversial person (haha). When it comes to this topic, I've spent a lot of time researching it, even having the opportunity to have an independent study at UCLA. UCLA political science professor Michael Lofchie, has organized this study with me where we meet once a week to just chat on some of the research on the topic. This was a question that he had posed, and when I first think about student-athletes getting paid, my immediate reaction is absolutely. Student-athletes should get paid for the amount of work that we do to help generate the income seen at the NCAA level. There are people like Katelyn Ohashi, Kyla Ross, and these famous gymnasts who are just killing it and could be profiting off of their Name, Image, or Likeness. As a volleyball player, I could probably still make some money being a sport that garners a little less attention than most. Overall, I'm just glad that it is being discussed and it is out on the table for us to analyze the best solution that satisfies all involved.
On the contrary, I think the greatness of college sports comes from an amateur team aspect and the fact that we aren't professionals. College athletics is so special because it's so different than professional sports. Professional athletes are paid, and it becomes more of a business, which shares some aspects with the college model, but in college you play because you're passionate about your sport, and you're playing for your community and teammates. I have a feeling that if student-athletes are to be paid that it might undermine the team camaraderie element and make sports more individualized. I can be totally wrong, and that's why I feel very neutral to the topic.
There are pros and cons to both sides, but it would be nice to find a solution that helps the student-athletes financially based upon the time and the fact that the income is directly tied to the games we partake in. College athletics is so much fun to watch because of their motivation to play being more innocent in nature and focused around the winning for their community. It's not about winning to get paid or playing well to get paid, it's for the sake of what we believe in and the community that supports us. I'm absolutely blessed to have a scholarship and be able to get my education for free. I'm neutral in general, but I have opinions on both sides, and both sides have strong arguments. It's something that needs to be discussed due to the ever-volatile and growing nature of college athletics in regards to the business side of things. Being able to be paid in some element can be a crucial factor in a lot of student-athlete's lives, especially for those who are coming from a family with less income to help support their loved ones.
Q: In your hometown, the beaches have begun to open back up. How has that affected you in preparation for the next season of beach volleyball?
A: I'm super fired up about the beaches beginning to open back up. I think for them to close was the best thing to do for our communities and the sake of everyone's health in stopping the spread of COVID-19. The weather has been amazing down in San Diego, and everyone wants to be out, but the closing of the beaches was smart in regards to trying to help flatten the curve. I also think that their limited opening of the beaches is smart as well in keeping it available for the exercise aspects. Swimming, surfing, running, walking, whatever it is, I'm almost at the beach every day running and doing sand sprints. Unfortunately, the courts aren't back up yet, and I think there are ways that we can continue to practice social distancing while being able to utilize the courts, with family in particular. For me, I can go out there with my mom and have her toss me balls to hit. I understand the difficulty in regulating social distancing and why the courts have yet to return.
It's still been a blessing to have the beaches open, and let me emphasize that the beach is literally my happy place. I love beach volleyball and I love being by the ocean; it's an incredible place and is partly the reason why I chose to go to UCLA. The beaches opening back up has also helped my whole mental side in being able to go to a place that makes me happy and use it as a resource in order to stay in shape. As a beach volleyball player, the best way to get into shape is to run on the beach sand because that is where we are playing every day. Being able to utilize the beaches for my workouts has been really good for me physically and mentally. From what I've been seeing so far, people have been respecting the social distancing protocol and working to keep public areas open while we deal with the whole COVID-19 situation. I've been using a bandana when working out to make sure that I'm doing my part to keep social distancing so we can keep our opportunity to keep moving in the sand.
Q: Can you discuss what it has been like to have the opportunity to train and play at the newly renovated Mapes Beach?
A: Mapes Beach has been the biggest blessing that our program has ever had in my opinion. We are so lucky to have that facility. We were lucky enough to have courts on campus in the two at Sunset Rec. We were fortunate that we didn't have to travel and sit in traffic every day to go to Will Rogers, Ocean Park, or wherever it would have been. It's a blessing to either walk up the hill or take my moped and be able to practice on campus. To have that place renovated and made into such a beautiful facility, I believe that we have worked so hard for it, and it wouldn't be possible without our donors, especially the Mapes family. They are absolutely incredible and what they have done for our program, traveling with us, and being a constant line of support just emphasizes the fact that they are such a special group of people who care for the UCLA community.
Personally, I am good friends with Mike (Mapes) so I've spent extended time with them, and being able to surround myself by such good people who genuinely care about my well-being has been an absolute blessing for me. They are always so welcoming and kind, and to see what they have contributed towards my development as a person and as player has been a special thing for me. I know I can always rely on them as a resource and have their support in whatever I chose to do next in life. It's like having a family away from home. They're incredible, and we're so lucky and appreciative toward what they contribute to the betterment of UCLA. We wouldn't be where we are today without their help and the help of the other donors. I hope that we can utilize these resources to benefit us, win more national championships, and gain more support to help grow the sport of beach volleyball.
Q: Which of your coaches do you think could best compete in your sport today and why?
A: I think that for beach, Stein Metzger is an absolute legend; he's so smart and knows the game so well. He played the game professionally, as did Jenny Johnson Jordan. They are both incredible athletes, but Stein will kind of randomly hop in at practice and play drills against us, often putting the ball away or dig a ball without warming up because he's just so talented and intelligent, allowing him to read the game so well. For someone at his age, he can come in and absolutely crush it. It's hilarious when we play with him at practice and see him perform so well. I definitely think he would do pretty well, even today.
Q: If you could pick any other UCLA athlete to try out for beach or indoor volleyball, who would it be and why?
A: I would probably pick Nicolas Saveljic from men's water polo. He's tall, and that's why I would choose him to play. He's super athletic, and I would choose him partly for the comedy aspect of it because I have seen him play, and it's so funny. It's hard moving from a sport in the water versus the sand, it's almost like different worlds. On the other hand, he's so tall and you can teach skills, but you can't teach height. He's long, he's tall, plus he's got big hands, so I believe he could do well with some training.
Previous Quarantine Q&As
Alex Olesinksi - Men's Basketball
Abi Altick - Women's Tennis
