SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Malley Beach Volleyball Courts where Jeff Alzina coaches and trains the Santa Clara University beach volleyball program each day are only 203 steps from his office.
 
But 5,571 miles away, the Broncos head coach's background and expertise can be felt in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, where the 2024 Paris Olympics beach volleyball competitions are taking place.
 
Two of the United States' eight beach volleyball athletes for the 2024 Paris Olympics – 25% of the U.S.' entire beach volleyball contingent – were coached by Alzina. Miles Evans and Miles Partain, both competing for the U.S. on the men's side, have worked with Alzina.
 
SUSTAINED SUCCESS
 
Evans and Partain have already, at these Olympics, reaped the benefits of being coached by Alzina early in their careers. Both made it through the Paris Olympics group play with their respective partners, and this week, both won their first matches in the round of 16 on the path towards winning Olympic medals. Evans is partnering with Chase Budinger, and Partain is playing alongside Andrew Benesh.

 
Alzina has worked with nearly 50 Olympians in his career from a multitude of countries, not only the U.S. This year's Paris Olympics mark the 20-year anniversary of the first Olympics he worked in 2004 at Athens. And he's worked with even more countless professional beach volleyball players on the Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour.
 
Alzina also worked with another volleyball Olympian at this year's Olympics – Kathryn Plummer, who's playing with USA Volleyball's indoor team. She won three NCAA titles with Stanford's indoor team from 2016-19 and is the only player in history to win FIVB World Championship medals in both indoor and beach volleyball.
 
The veteran international and professional beach volleyball coach has continued his success at the collegiate level with Santa Clara.
 
THERE FROM THE BEGINNING
 
Alzina arrived on campus in 2019 and was named the full-time head coach of the program in 2022. The Broncos have posted three consecutive double-digit-wins seasons since 2022, including a program-record 18 wins in 2023. The program had one such campaign in the previous eight years.
 
"As we continue to raise the level and grow this program, the goal is to be running a program where my student-athletes are not just graduating to play on tour, but are playing on tour in their summers between the Santa Clara years."
 
Alzina was the coach who took Partain to his first international competition back in 2017, and now he's in his first Olympics this year in Paris. Partain was a 15-year-old prodigy at the time, and after working with Alzina, earned his way to a spot at the 2017 FIVB Beach World Championships in Nanjing, China. Not only that, he was competing against players five years older than him that year in the U21 category. Partain would go on to play indoor volleyball at UCLA, another path crossing with Alzina, who won an NCAA beach volleyball national championship with the Bruins in 2018.

 
Partain and his brother, Marcus, would later become the youngest pair ever to advance out of an AVP qualifier to the main draw as his beach volleyball career continued to blossom.
 
It's a similar story with Evans, who began working with Alzina in 2014 and '15. Alzina was running USA Volleyball's Elite Development Program and selected Evans to participate. USAVB's EDP is designed to fast-track top players out of college and into international careers.
 
Alzina clearly hit the target with Evans, who is competing in his first Olympics this year. Evans made his international debut with Alzina at the 2015 Pan-American Games in Toronto, and has since won eight international medals, including an FIVB gold in 2021.
 
A NEW BEGINNING
Alzina has been the ground-floor architect of not only these (and many others) Olympians' international careers, but also the birth of a new era in Santa Clara beach volleyball.
 
The aforementioned victories have already started to come in at a higher rate since he joined the program. The Broncos have earned twice as many first team all-West Coast Conference awards (four) in the past three years (2022-24) than they did in the previous six seasons (two, 2016-21). The team has also finished among the top-four at the annual WCC Championship Tournament in each of the past three springs after only making it to the second day once in the previous six years.
 
"We've gone from a team outside the top-50 to inside the top-35, and now the goal is to get inside the top-25 competing for a spot in the NCAA Tournament."

 
Alzina is almost "rebuilding his own rebuild," if you will, with the Broncos. The program will have 10 newcomers in 2024-25. That's after landing three freshmen on the WCC all-freshmen team last spring.
 
Alzina was 2024 USA Olympians Evans' and Partain's coach for their first international experiences, wearing "USA" on their backs for the first time with him courtside. Now he hopes to foster new "firsts" for the Santa Clara beach volleyball program.
 
"When I left the AVP, there were a handful of NCAA players on the AVP Tour who were breaking in. Now, the majority who are winning on tour and internationally have all played NCAA beach.
 
"There's no reason that Santa Clara can't play a part in that. Our newcomers, the growth of the program… we're just going to keep getting better and force people to recognize who we are."