Four-time Olympic gold medalist Phil Dalhausser teams up with U.S. Olympian Taylor Crabb for the three-day Christchurch leg of the New Zealand Beach Tour, which takes place from Friday to Sunday Held on the outdoor sand courts at the Pioneer Sports and Recreation Center.
The pair will also compete in next weekend’s tour finals.
New Zealand Volleyball High Performance Beach Coach Jason Lochhead has a close friendship with Dahlhauser, whom he coached for five years from 2017 to 2021.
Lochhead knew Dahlhauser was keen to move to New Zealand at some stage and raised the idea with him last year.
Lochhead said it was a huge success to be able to bring such a talented international team to New Zealand.
“I’m probably a little biased since I coached him, but he’s going to go down as one of the greatest players in the history of beach volleyball. I think he’s probably the greatest player of all time, so it’s a bit like Michael Jordan came along and was in New Zealand Play a little basketball,” Lochhead said.
Dalhausser, who is 2 million meters tall and is known as the “Skinny Beast”, has won the USA Volleyball Men’s Beach Player of the Year seven times and was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame last year.
“It’s great for our top players to get a chance to play against him. He’s no longer on the World Tour, he’s only on the U.S. Tour, so they’ll never get a chance to play against him.”
It’s also a coup for Volleyball New Zealand to include Lochhead on their list after he’s reinvented himself as one of the most sought-after coaches in the world.
Lochhead competed on the World Tour from 2004 to 2012 and competed in 116 international matches, a record for a New Zealander.
He and longtime partner Kirk Pittman brutally missed out on qualifying for the Olympics twice.
During his playing career, he never really thought he would become a coach.
“My mum always said I was going to be a great coach, but I was still playing football at the time, so in my mind, ‘Don’t be silly, I’m a player, I’m not a coach’, but it was a bit Like it just happened.
“When I finished playing I wasn’t actually thinking about coaching, I was just doing some private lessons while I was thinking about what to do next.”
He was then invited to coach the Vanuatu women’s team consisting of Miller Pata and Linline Matauatu.
They are ranked 65th in the world and hope to reach the top 16 and qualify for the Rio Olympics.
He helped them to eight top-10 finishes on the World Tour in two years, and the pair climbed to 17th in the rankings, just one spot behind Rio.
While working with them, he was approached by highly respected Canadians Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, he coached them to ninth place, finally realizing his Olympic dream.
“We came very close to making it in 2008 and 2012 and just missed it, so it’s very frustrating, but it’s great as a coach to be able to make it happen.”
While working with the Canadians, he got a call from one of the best men’s teams in the world, if not the best.
Dahlhauser and Nick Lucena wanted him to coach them, and it was an opportunity too good to turn down.
As Lochhead rose through the coaching ranks, he saw firsthand the contrast in resources available to the team.
“Looking at the steps, it’s a huge difference. In Vanuatu and Canada, I had to do everything from video analysis to all their planning and logistics.
“With Team USA, I can purely focus on coaching the players. We have the video guy doing all that work, we have people doing all the statistics for me.
“The difference is crazy and obviously it helps a lot, but at the end of the day no matter which team you are, you still have to go out and win points.”
Four-time Olympian Phil Dalhausser will team up with U.S. Olympian Taylor Crabb for the three-day event in Christchurch.Photo: Getty Images
He’s not the first New Zealander to have a successful volleyball coaching career.
New Zealander Hugh McCutcheon coached the U.S. men’s indoor volleyball team to a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics and coached the U.S. women’s indoor volleyball team to a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics.
So what makes Lochhead such a good coach?
Lochhead is only 1.77m tall and as a player he has to find a way to compete with most of the taller players.
Dahlhauser, who won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics, first met Lochhead around 2005 when they were both on the World Tour and remembers the tenacious defense as a good reader of the game.
When he and his partner were looking for a new coach, Lochhead checked all the boxes for them.
“I think he has a good mentality, he’s a very calm guy. And he’s not a tall guy, so a smaller player has to be a little bit smarter, so we recognize his talent as a player, so we think That translates to coaching as well,” Dahlhauser said.
“My previous partner and I got on really well with him, which is important because you travel the world with two other people and spend a whole five six months with them, so that’s important too .”
The 44-year-old will be sightseeing with his family while in New Zealand and hopes to hit some disc golf courses.
“My new hobby is disc golf and you have some incredible courses here, so I’m going to sneak away and play a little disc golf too.”
When Lochhead’s beach volleyball career ended, he actually considered becoming a professional golfer.
“I’ve always wanted to give it a try. In 2013 I took some beach volleyball private coaching lessons and then tried playing golf as much as I could and had a few good scores,” Lochhead said.
A few bad holes forced him to question his ability to keep going.
“I played in the Nevada Championship and I finished second or third after two rounds and then had a couple really bad holes and ended up finishing 30th. It’s just too expensive to pursue a golf career and who knows if I didn’t take the job in Vanuatu but I think everything went well.”
During his career, Lochhead would spend five to seven months traveling throughout Europe, America and Asia.
Starting in 2014, when he coached on the World Tour, he began living out of a suitcase most of the year again.
Knowing that Tokyo 2020 would be Dalhauser and Lucena’s last Olympics, the timing made sense when Volleyball New Zealand contacted him to return to work for them.
At the end of 2021, Lochhead moved back to New Zealand.
Lochhead coaches the high performance women’s team and three men’s teams. He also helps coach the NZA teams and a large part of his job is to help develop coaches in New Zealand.
New Zealand beach volleyball has only qualified for the Olympics once, when brothers Reid and Glenn Hamilton competed in the 1996 Games, the first time the sport was included in the Olympic program.
Lochhead hopes New Zealand can qualify for this year’s Paris Olympics.
To qualify, a team must break into the top 16 in the world or win the continental finals.
“We are part of Asia, which is a pretty big continent. Last year we won the first stage, so we went straight to the finals, which was in June, a month before the Olympics, and if we won, then we were “Rejoin the Olympics.
“We’re going to play China, Thailand, Australia, Japan, those are going to be our big rivals. I would say Alice Zeiman and Shawna Poli are probably the favorites, they’re probably the strongest team.
“On the men’s side we would probably be third favorites but it’s just a one-off game and you have to win it so anything can happen on the day.”
The New Zealand Beach Tour finals will be held in Mount Maunganui next weekend.
Bridget Tunnicliffe