Addressing 50 young Way of the Athlete attendees at East Hampton High School Monday morning, Kerri Walsh Jennings, a five-time beach volleyball Olympian (three golds and one bronze) from California’s Bay Area, said they all had magic and greatness in them, and that by concentrating their minds — by asking themselves, for instance, what their goals were for the day and what energy they wanted to bring — they would be in the moment, and would be on their way to becoming what they wanted to be.
“You decide who you are,” she told them. “You are in control of the voice in your head — you choose what to focus on.”
On that day, presumably, for those 40 girls and 10 boys, it was volleyball, the best sport in the world in the view of Walsh Jennings and of Josh Brussell, the high school boys volleyball coach, who has described the beach volleyball legend’s visit here as “a dream come true.”
It was the second day in a row that Walsh Jennings had spoken with young East Hampton athletes. On Sunday, she paid a surprise visit to the East Hampton Town junior lifeguard program at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, recalling her own junior lifeguarding days in California from ages 10 to 13.
“It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, but I also hated it with all my heart,” she said. The reason: “I was so afraid of the water. On the sand, I was like a cheetah; I would win all the races, I would try my hardest.” Not so in the water, but despite that fear, “I kept showing up,” she said, and “the more I just said, ‘Kerri, do it,’ I got braver.” She learned that “it’s not about being fearless . . . it’s about when you’re scared just trying . . . and then the next day it’s easier to try again.”
“Junior lifeguards taught me to be brave, and that the more I say yes to hard things, the easier it is to do hard things. Just trust yourself, because you are stronger than you know.”
She encouraged the young people to be their own biggest cheerleaders “because the way you talk to yourself shows in your confidence and shows in your posture.” After five Olympics, she learned that what was most important is to “keep trying every day. . . . It’s a journey to greatness and you have to love yourself and not hate yourself into excellence because it’s a process.”
The three-hour clinic on Monday and a 4-on-4 tournament at Montauk’s Kirk Park Beach that Walsh Jennings was to play on Tuesday with other beach volleyball professionals were fund-raisers for the Hampton Lifeguard Association, which supports lifeguard training here, and her own nonprofit p1440 Foundation.
On Monday, before beginning with basic passing, setting, hitting, and serving drills, she had everyone get into the right frame of mind by sitting cross-legged with eyes closed and right hands over their hearts before inhaling for four counts, holding for seven, and exhaling for eight. So that they’d be calm and in the moment.
When imagining herself at her best, she was smiling, she told them, “but I’m a killer when I smile.”
Other Sports Action
In other sports action here this past week, the East End Ospreys, the Hamptons Adult Hardball League’s defending champion, defeated the Public House Brewers 4-2 Saturday in the first game of a best-of-three final.
Max Kra was the winning pitcher, Peter Barylski the losing one. Brian Raynor, Brendan Hackett, and Alex Schuchard drove in runs for the Ospreys. Zach Timm and Joe Moretti drove in the Brewers’ runs. The Brewers stole four bases during the course of the game, but, ultimately, to no avail. Game two is to be played at 5:45 p.m. today at the Bridgehampton High School field.
In 7-on-7 men’s soccer league play, Liga de Gulag, a team that includes Eric and Jonathan Armijos, recent East Hampton High stars, and Jorge Naula, also an East Hampton grad, remained undefeated, at 3-0, by virtue of a 6-1 rout of F.C. Tuxpan at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on July 15.
In other games that night, Sag Harbor United edged the East Hampton Soccer Club 3-2, and last season’s finalists, the Maidstone Market and Tortorella Pools, played to a 1-1 tie. John Romero Jr. scored Maidstone’s goal; Oscar Cedillo scored Tortorella’s. In Alex Mesa’s absence, Mario Olaya, another former East Hampton High scoring leader, ably tended the Market’s goal.
The Montauk Lighthouse Sprint Triathlon, in which a field of about 500 competed Sunday, was won by Austin Quinn, in 1 hour, 5 minutes, and 1.41 seconds. Matthew Raske was the runner-up, in 1:07:13.45. The women’s winner was Betsy Eickelberg, who finished 33rd over all.
Neil Falkenhan, 42, was East Hampton’s top finisher, in eighth place. Erik Engstrom was 13th, and Esteban Quintero, a 14-year-old from Port Jefferson Station, who had won I-Tri’s youth triathlon at Noyac’s Long Beach the week before, was ninth.
Finally, Friday evening’s Hamptons Lifeguard Association’s Run-Swim-Run was won — for the second year in a row — by Vanessa Rizzo, a rising sophomore at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor.
With Reporting by Carissa Katz
