Taryn Kloth is one of the best volleyball players in South Dakota history. She played high school ball at O'Gorman, but then went on to have a collegiate career at Creighton, while finishing at LSU in beach volleyball. Today, she's playing professionally.
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Craig Mattick:
In Play with Craig Mattick, made possible by Horton in Britton, a worldwide supplier of engine cooling systems, and proud member of the community for more than four decades. hortonww.com.
Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. Today's guest has gone further than anyone else in South Dakota. She has played high school and college volleyball, and now it's at its highest level, playing professional volleyball. She was the Gatorade Player of the Year in South Dakota in 2014, won two high school volleyball championships. She was a Big East Champion MVP for Creighton in 2017. That was indoor volleyball. And then on to LSU for outdoor volleyball, where, during her final year in 2021, went undefeated with partner, Kristen Nuss, and now they are traveling the world and playing professional outdoor volleyball. It's the two-time high school champ from Sioux Falls, O'Gorman, welcome to Taryn Kloth.
Taryn Kloth:
Hello.
Craig Mattick:
Taryn, welcome to In Play. How was that?
Taryn Kloth:
Thank you so much. Wow, what an introduction and what a shocking turn of events, I guess, I've had in my life. I didn't expect to be on the beach volleyball court for this long or at all.
Craig Mattick:
You have been traveling. Recently you've been to Mexico and Paris, France. You're joining us today from Louisiana. Is that home for right now?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, Louisiana is home. It was originally just supposed to be for a year and a half while I was playing beach volleyball at LSU, but since I started playing beach volleyball, I can't really put it away, I can't really stop, so here I am in Louisiana a couple years later.
Craig Mattick:
Did you ever think while playing for Julie Kolbeck at O'Gorman that you'd be playing professional, that professional volleyball was even possible?
Taryn Kloth:
No. Well, professional indoor volleyball maybe. Professional beach volleyball was never even kind of on my radar. So yeah, just kind of got thrown into it. Well, I chose to jump into the deep end, and yeah, I've loved the challenge of playing a new sport and picking up all the little details and being so frustrated with the new challenges, but also excited when something starts to click.
Craig Mattick:
When did you start playing volleyball?
Taryn Kloth:
Does it count when you have... You know in the YWCA when it's like half-volleyball, half-basketball?
Craig Mattick:
Oh, yes, that counts.
Taryn Kloth:
So that would be elementary school, and I absolutely hated the volleyball portion of it. I was so angry whenever it was the end of basketball and only volleyball. So I would get so frustrated because I was the kid that couldn't even serve the ball over the net. And then I think it was my sixth grade year that my best friend tried out for a traveling volleyball team, and I made a deal with my mom that I would go to tryouts if I could have a sleepover. So here I am.
Craig Mattick:
So when did you get those serious about volleyball?
Taryn Kloth:
Probably in the junior high years of like seventh, eighth grade. I actually stopped playing basketball my freshman year because I was so intrigued by volleyball and I wanted to spend all my time, effort, energy, and everything into just volleyball.
Craig Mattick:
What about, I know you're six foot four inches. Did the height factor play a big part in what you wanted to do? Did you have a growing spur at one point? What was that like?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, I did actually have a growing. So I was usually the tallest when I was in elementary school, and then in my like early junior high years, everybody started catching up to me and I just wasn't growing. And so my dad is 6'9" and my mom is 5'6", so I was like, "Maybe I guess I am just going to be moderately tall, not very tall," not what I am now, but then I did, I hit a growth spurt and I grew a couple inches, skipped a couple shoe sizes. It was a lot of growing pretty fast, and that happened around my freshman, sophomore year.
Craig Mattick:
Because let's face it, no matter what size you are, it's learning how to control your body and control what you can do when it comes to athletics. When did you start feeling comfortable with what you could do on the volleyball court?
Taryn Kloth:
Oh my gosh, probably not until like my junior, senior year. I grew so fast and I was still trying to learn all aspects of the sport. So yeah, I would say it was probably my junior, senior year that I finally was starting to feel more and more comfortable, but still, I would not say I was the most coordinated person even then. I do remember going to Creighton University and it was my freshman year, and I think the terminology that was used was a baby giraffe on ice skates. It did, it took a little bit of time for me to grow into my body a little bit.
Craig Mattick:
Those varsity years at O'Gorman, oh my gosh. Sioux Falls was loaded with talent. I mean, Roosevelt, Washington, O'Gorman, you guys were all fighting not only just to get to the state tournament but to win the state championship. What was it like during the regular season playing all these... I mean, I couldn't believe how good these Sioux Falls schools were at that time.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, I mean, it was really fun. So I played for Kairos, and when I played at Kairos, I was playing with all these different people from all these different schools. And so when you're playing club, you're on their team and you are so pumped that they're on your side of the net, people like Erin Radke, Maggie DeJong, Ashley Wilson from Roosevelt. I mean, I played with all of them. So it was so much fun to play with them, and then when you had to play against them, you're like, "Ooh, can I have them back on my side?" But it was so much fun to compete with all of them and just to get to know them as people as well as competitors. It was a really special thing, and I'm really happy that Kairos brought us all together.
Craig Mattick:
O'Gorman qualified for state volleyball your freshman and sophomore years. How much time were you on the court during that time?
Taryn Kloth:
Oh my gosh, that feels like so long ago. My freshman year, I don't think I really played at all. I do remember my first point, I stepped on the court and I got hit in the face. That was just kind of like a wake-up call. And then my sophomore year, I started to play a little bit more. To be totally honest, it was so long ago that I don't really remember, and that is the best and the worst part about me playing, is even like this last weekend, somebody asked me how the tournament ended, how the bronze medal match ended, and I had no idea, and this was-
Craig Mattick:
You were playing in Mexico, yep.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah. And that was three minutes after the game ended, and I remembered absolutely nothing from the game, and it just, I think, emphasizes the fact that all of these volleyball things are going to come to an end, but it's all the memories that you make with these people along the way that those are the things that I actually remember.
Craig Mattick:
Your sophomore year at O'Gorman, it was Roosevelt and Washington. They were in the finals that year. But then in 2013, your junior year, you guys make it to the volleyball championship versus Roosevelt, and if I remember, the two times you faced each other during the season were pretty intense tough battles during that season.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, I would imagine that would be the case.
Craig Mattick:
I mean, Roosevelt had made it like four straight years to the championship game.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah.
Craig Mattick:
And then you beat Roosevelt in your junior year, and then you had to play them again your senior year in the championship set, and you went three-to-nothing in each one of those sets. You guys were dominant.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah. I mean, our team was so strong, I just remember. Well, even the people that were in my grade and then the grades above me and below me, there were so much depth. I just remember that every single year, it was a dog fight to see who was going to be able to play in high school, and it really was a very intense process of trying to be able to pick which player because there was so much depth, so yeah. Oh my gosh, Dalee Stene just married. Yeah, I remember the whole team. That was fun.
Craig Mattick:
You still have a record, by the way, when you go back. You have a AA state tourney record, and this was in your senior season, your senior year at the state tournament, 62 kills, and that was in nine sets. So that was almost seven kills per set. You still have that record.
Taryn Kloth:
Oh my gosh. I wish you could have seen my face right then. I had no idea.
Craig Mattick:
Remind us who were some of the other players. You talked about Dalee. Who else was on your team?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, I mean the players that come to mind immediately, I mean, I'm pretty sure I could name absolutely every single one of them, but Dalee was for sure our setter, and then we had Jess Mieras and Kate Cartwright, we had Katie Messler, we had Emily Kolbeck, we had Lauren Witte, we had... Man, my freshman year, we had my cousin Haley Jones. It was just... When I tell you I'm just like thinking back to all these high school years of volleyball, and I had so much fun with the people, and I think that also helped our success on the court because we did get along, and it was so much fun, and we did team bonding, we did team dinner nights, and yeah, that was a good time.
Craig Mattick:
You were the Gatorade Player of the Year your senior year. Did you expect that? I mean, you talked about some of the other players that were on Kairo. I mean, they could have easily won it.
Taryn Kloth:
Oh my gosh, yeah, absolutely. Everybody could have won that award. To be totally honest, when you introduce me, I think I get surprised when I hear these things again because awards, although I'm extremely grateful for them, like I said before, that is not what I play for. I don't play to go receive an award. I play for our team to win, and I play for a challenge for myself, and playing for all those people that can't play or the people that have supported you along the way. So no, to be totally honest, I didn't really know that I was going to get any of these awards. I, again, am very grateful for them, but I don't think I think about them at all.
Craig Mattick:
One more note on your high school career, was it year-round volleyball?
Taryn Kloth:
Oh, yeah.
Craig Mattick:
Was there any time that you took off? Were you afraid of maybe playing too much volleyball in high school?
Taryn Kloth:
With me, no. I was to the level of I was so obsessed with wanting to get better all the time, and whenever there was something small that I had to change, I wanted to be in the gym and I wanted to fix that and I wanted to make that better. I knew my weaknesses and I was very aware of those, and even the things that I would say were my strengths, I wanted to make those even stronger. But I mean, you can ask my parents, they absolutely never forced me or pushed me to do anything in athletics at all. It was always me. It was always me, just like I was so driven and I really was super passionate about getting better that no, I was not actually worried about burnout in the slightest. And even when I went to Creighton, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait to play professionally after." And even after LSU, playing beach volleyball for another two years, I was like, "Wow, I can't wait to play professional volleyball," after that.
So with me, no. Do I think that that is a big risk in how much I did probably play? Yes. Yes, it is. It was a lot. It was a lot of volleyball.
Craig Mattick:
What intrigued you to go play at Creighton for college?
Taryn Kloth:
I cannot explain it any other way other than I stepped on Creighton's campus and I got this gut feeling, a sign from God, I don't know what it was, that I had to be there. And it was me and both of my parents. And to begin with, I didn't even want to go visit there. I was so consumed by the fact that I could go visit these Big Ten schools and these big-name schools that everybody knows that I showed up to Creighton, I was just kind of like, "Okay, I'm here because my parents are making me be here." And as soon as I stepped on campus, I fell in love with the place, and I am so happy with my decision. And Creighton was the best move for me, the best place I could have ever gone, and I have great friends, great contacts, and my best friends honestly for probably the rest of my life because of Creighton.
Craig Mattick:
You were outside hitter, you were able to kill from any position on the front row. Did your position on the court change at Creighton at all compared to when you were at O'Gorman?
Taryn Kloth:
Yes. At O'Gorman. I was only on the left side. At Creighton, I did play on the left and on the right side. So I mean, technically they call them pin hitters, so you can hit on either one. But yeah, other than that, it didn't really change very much.
Craig Mattick:
When did you start feeling comfortable playing on a college court?
Taryn Kloth:
Oh my gosh, this is such a fantastic question. I mean, I feel like you can ask my coaches, even when I was in high school or in college, and I did always have a confidence issue with I always believed that I could be so much better, that it wasn't that I didn't necessarily believe in myself, but it was kind of like a speck of doubt that I always had in myself because of the confidence. So I would say probably the end of my sophomore year, beginning of my junior year that I really started to realize that, "Hey, I can do this. Just because I'm from South Dakota, or started late, or I don't have the training that everybody else has, still, I can compete out."
Craig Mattick:
2016, you lead Creighton to the NCAA Elite Eight, you're named an All-American. What was that team like at Creighton?
Taryn Kloth:
That was my second year. Oh my gosh, that was a fun year. Well, the Elite Eight, it was just the nerves. I just remember going to San Diego and we were playing against USC, and obviously, when you're younger or you just don't have as much experience, you see USC on their shirts or you see that they're the number one seed in the tournament, and by that, you just get so freaked out. I just remember having so many nerves. But it was absolutely fantastic, I mean the memories, the competition, the new experiences with just moving on in the tournament. I didn't even know how it all worked. I was just playing game by game.
But yeah, that was a fun team. We had, again, a ton of depth. It was a dog fight every single time you would go into practice, and sometimes you'd get switched out, and I do think that that was the year that I was playing, then I wasn't playing, and then I played again. But yeah, that just happened periodically and you have to figure out a way mentally and physically to be able to handle that and then keep working hard when you do get taken out or... I mean, your spot is never your spot. It's the school spot. They can fill it with whoever they want.
Craig Mattick:
Had you sustained any injuries at all prior to this time, all the way through O'Gorman and through Creighton? Were you pretty healthy the whole time?
Taryn Kloth:
No, I had a back injury in high school that I just remember. I was so lucky because both my mom and my stepdad are chiropractors, so I got a ton of treatment and I was always very well taken care of. But I did have a back injury that kept me out for, I don't know what year it was, but it was for a long time, and I just remember being so frustrated because it's like somebody taking your toys away, like your favorite thing in the world, and then you just can't even move, and I don't think I realized how much I used my back until I literally couldn't walk sometimes or I was in so much pain just trying to stand up from a chair.
I mean, my back issues, they kind of lingered for sure just because I am not one that is good at taking breaks. So I went straight from high school into playing at Creighton, and then while I was there, I broke my foot, I sprained my wrist, I strained my knee, I rolled my ankles a couple of times. Injuries, I mean, it's not to say that they are going to happen, but it's kind of inevitable, and as soon as I walked in and my doctor saw, they were like, "Oh, and she did this twice and hurt her foot here." And she was like, "What sport do you play?" I was like, "Yeah. I mean, it just happens." But that was very, very mentally challenging for me, especially when I was a freshman and I got hurt. I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't know how to handle that with the change of being in college and just trying to have to balance everything on your own. So that was a very, very challenging year for me. I almost quit volleyball. It was so challenging.
Craig Mattick:
Well, you had success at Creighton. In fact, in 2017, you're the Big East Champion MVP, you're playing a lot of indoor volleyball at Creighton, but did you start thinking about playing outdoor volleyball at that time?
Taryn Kloth:
Nope, I did not. I did not start thinking about that until my senior year, actually, that I was even kind of giving it an option to go play beach volleyball.
Craig Mattick:
That's kind of strange because in college, here you get four years at Creighton and what, another two at LSU? And why did you choose LSU?
Taryn Kloth:
I chose LSU because I got the same exact... You know when I said I walked onto Creighton's campus and I knew how I had to be here, it was a sign? The same exact thing happened at LSU. And for good measure, I did go on another visit or two, and I finished those visits and I called my parents. I said, "I don't care what happens. I don't belong at any other school other than LSU."
But LSU only happened because Lydia Dimke, who was our setter at Creighton, she actually went and played beach volleyball at South Carolina and she got her master's finished while she was playing beach volleyball there. And so that kind of gave me the idea. So I went into my academic advisor and I was trying to see if I could finish my degree faster so I could finish in three and a half years and play all four seasons, but I could also get an additional semester at LSU and then a whole nother year, so I would get a total of six NCAA seasons in two different sports. And I finished my finance degree at Creighton, graduated early in December, I got to LSU in January of 2019, and the rest is history. I am still here.
Craig Mattick:
Well, who had determined your partners at LSU? I mean, when you're playing sand volleyball, I would assume your coach is trying to determine who's going to be partners on the team. How'd that work out?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, it is. It is all the coaches. So we had three coaching staff members and we had, I think, I want to say it was about 28 players. And so they had to go through and match people with different people, then you would play, and it would be like a scrimmage day, and then you would play with another person. It was just kind of like a round-robin switch a partner, switch partner every 10 points, or every 20 points, or every game, and you played with so many different people. And I couldn't even walk on the sand and chew gum at the same time. I was so uncoordinated. It was so frustrating. But yeah, ultimately-
Craig Mattick:
That had to be a huge difference, a huge change playing volleyball on the wood court, on the wood floor, then all of a sudden you're in the sand.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah.
Craig Mattick:
How much did you have to get used to that?
Taryn Kloth:
It took so long. I was actually just talking to another indoor player that is trying to switch over to the beach, and she was like, "How long does it take you until you feel comfortable?" And I was like, "Do you really want to know the answer?" She was like, "Give it to me." She thought it was going to be a couple months, and I said, "Two to three years until I was actually comfortable like I was on the court or starting to feel more comfortable on the sand."
Craig Mattick:
I got to think the muscles that you use are totally different for beach volleyball than it is with indoor volleyball.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah. It feels like a total body transformation as well. You want to be very strong and powerful on the indoor court, and then when you are out on the beach, you want to be as light as possible and you want to be super agile so you can last in the heat and be in the sand, and every extra pound, I guess, is going to be another thing that you have to move for that much longer in the heat, in the sand, and it makes the game that much harder. So yeah, it is, it's a completely different skillset. It's a different body shape or style of how you're lifting and training. So that was all different. So basically, everything is different.
Craig Mattick:
And you get sand all over you.
Taryn Kloth:
You do. There is sand everywhere. My poor car has to get a nice detail every year just because there's so much sand and there's nothing I can do about it. There's just sand everywhere all the time. I do remember going straight from volleyball practice to my MBA class, and I had to dress up for those, so I had to shower in the locker room and I only got like 20, 25 minutes to get to my class and get dinner. And I remember one time, I showed up and I put my head down on my hand and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so tired," and sand fell out on my paper, and I was like, "Oh my goodness, this is so embarrassing."
Craig Mattick:
Your last year at the LSU, you go undefeated with, you partnered with Kristen Nuss, and you guys have not looked back since. You had a huge year, All-American honors. So how did you and Kristen get together and to become so dominant right now?
Taryn Kloth:
Well, one, Kristen Nuss is probably the best beach volleyball player, the best teammate, and the best defender that I could have ever imagined and that anybody could ever imagine. She's quite literally the best of the best.
So it was actually during COVID. I was at home in South Dakota, and she was down here in Louisiana, and we had been on the same team, and we were just kind of sending workouts back and forth and just trying to stay active because neither one of us can sit still to save our lives. And I asked her, I don't know how I had the guts to even ask her, but I said, "Hey, if I come down to Louisiana, do you think we could train together and lift together?" And she said, "Yes, I'm so bored. I would love to have somebody to do that with," and I was like, "Great. Me, too."
Craig Mattick:
And this was at a time you were thinking of turning pro?
Taryn Kloth:
So this was when I was questioning if I... Because LSU gave us another year of eligibility after COVID.
Craig Mattick:
Okay. Your super senior year.
Taryn Kloth:
My super senior year. So yeah, it was right before that. And we had trained together all summer, we started going to local tournaments, and then as the world started opening up a little bit more, we started traveling, flying to various tournaments. I think we went to Tennessee, and we went to New Jersey, and we went to California, and it was just a bunch of random places. And then from then on, we have not played with anybody else. Again, it was our coach's decision to put us together for the LSU season, but as we were working our way through the LSU season, I think it was in November, December that I was like, "Oh my gosh, I think I love beach volleyball," and that's kind of when I decided to go all in and wanted to play and pursue professional beach volleyball.
Craig Mattick:
So what's it take to play on the professional beach volleyball circuit? I think it's called the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, right?
Taryn Kloth:
Yep. So there's actually two different tours. The domestic one just within the United States is called the AVP Tour, and then the one around the world and how you qualify for the Olympics, that's the FIVB Tour. So initially we just started on the AVP Tour and we went out to our first big AVP and we started in the qualifier. So that's a tournament to get into the tournament. And we started in the qualifier and we actually ended up winning one of the biggest tournaments of the year in Atlanta, and that was in 2021. From there, everything just kind of exploded. And it was our first tournament. I had no idea what to expect. I had never even stepped foot at a AVP event before that was that big.
After that, we just kind of started working our way into more and more tournaments, and the only way you can get into tournaments is by having points, and you win points by playing in tournaments, but that was our downfall for international volleyball, so the FIVB, like you were talking about. We were unable to get into any tournaments because neither one of us had points. So everybody was really dead set that we had to split up, which we did not want to do, play with other people to use their points to get into other tournaments to win points with them so that we could split up and then Kristen and I could go back together and play like we wanted to originally. So it is a lot of moving pieces and parts, and different countries, and lots of traveling, and lots of planning, but yeah, somehow it all worked out, and here we are.
Craig Mattick:
With all that travel, you got travel, food, the hotel, all that kind of stuff, it costs money. So do you have sponsors? Do you have sponsors that helps you on the volleyball tour?
Taryn Kloth:
We have a few. We are always looking for more. It is, as everybody can imagine, if you travel at all, you know that it's very expensive, and that is the only way. So our ultimate goal, when Kristen and I started playing, our goal was to win a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and so in order to get there, you have to play in all of these international events, and so each one of those events is extremely expensive to get to, and so yeah. I mean, we have some sponsors and we are always looking for more, like I said, and just more and more support, and it's really cool that Louisiana is really backing us. I mean, we have New Orleans on our hat. We had the Louisiana's Office of Tourism. That was our first sponsor. So just having all of those people get behind us from the beginning was huge for us.
Craig Mattick:
Well, what's helping, too, is you're getting into some prize money, right? So that is helping a lot.
Taryn Kloth:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
Craig Mattick:
So how long is the season? We think of the volleyball season is in the fall and by November it's done. What about your seasons? What is the length?
Taryn Kloth:
We started in January. We were in Doha, Qatar for the World Tour Finals, so it was the top 10 teams in the world. And then we have been playing since January all the way up until our last tournament is going to be December 10th. So we have had zero time off. So when I say that I am pretty exhausted and just like we need some time after all this entire year of traveling and a lot of tournaments, we have played a lot and we really haven't had much of an off-season.
Craig Mattick:
I know recently you were in France. It was the Paris Elite16 and the reigning world champs, the duo of Patricia and Duda. I think that's how it's pronounced. And you guys have been ranked top five and you were in the championship. What happened? They got the gold, you got the silver.
Taryn Kloth:
What happened in Paris?
Craig Mattick:
Yeah.
Taryn Kloth:
They played better than us. It is a measure of, well, the margin of winning and losing is literally centimeters. It's literally inches of you hitting a ball in or out. And yeah, we pushed it to three sets, which is the max that you can go to, and they ended up beating us 15-13 in the third set, and there's nothing you can do about it, and it was so hard to you just lose the match and you have to regroup, stand on the podium, and smile with the silver medal even though you want the gold medal. But you still have to realize that you did put everything out there and you weren't the better team that day.
Craig Mattick:
How many times have you played Patricia and Duda? I think they're what, ranked the number one team in the world? A bunch?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, I think we've played them about seven times.
Craig Mattick:
Wow.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, we play them quite a bit.
Craig Mattick:
You just got back from Mexico also recently. The Worlds were down there. You got the bronze.
Taryn Kloth:
We did.
Craig Mattick:
Boy, that was right after you're in France. I mean, these tournaments are so close together.
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, we were on the road for three and a half weeks. It was a lot. It was a lot mentally and just physically, and then having the time change and then being able to travel, I think it was a 13-hour flight straight, and then the next day, we had a practice, and you have to go to the gym and you have to lift and you're exhausted and you want to fall asleep, but that's all part of it.
Craig Mattick:
Who's your coach? Who's the one is training you?
Taryn Kloth:
Drew Hamilton. So he was with us at LSU. He was actually the volunteer coach while we were at LSU, and then when we decided to play professionally, one of his dreams was to coach a professional beach volleyball team. So it kind of worked out perfectly that we were graduating and he kind of accepted us as a challenge of, "Hey, I want to do this as well. Let's go on this journey together."
Craig Mattick:
What is the training like right now to stay healthy? You're playing a lot of matches, you're traveling. What's the training like to stay healthy playing sand volleyball right now professionally?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah. Well, the best part is that there's only two people. So usually with a bigger team, like some people are ready to go, some people need more of a break. With having just me and Kristen and then getting to talk to our coach on our training, we are all very open and honest about what our bodies can physically handle right now, so we have actually taken, I don't know the last time I've taken two days off in a row, but we have taken two days off. This is our second day off, and everybody is like, "Where are you? Why are you not out there training? What is going on?"
And in the kindest way possible. I mean, people, they just care and they know that that is how hard we work and how much time we spend on the sand, but I think, like you mentioned, it was a lot of travel, stress, and mental and physical fatigue that we decided, that we were like, "We need two days." And our coach said, "Good. I wasn't going to let you come back any earlier." So yeah, it's just a lot of open communication. We are usually training four to five times a week and lifting four times a week, so yeah.
Craig Mattick:
Is there a website that we can follow you, follow what's going on between you and Kristen Nuss and your success on the pro sand volleyball tour?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, absolutely. Our website is tknvball.com. The TKN comes from Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss. We share a letter, so that's kind of where the TKN came from. So it's actually hilarious, nobody actually knows who Taryn is and who Kristen is. We're just known as Taryn and Kristen, and if they see one of us, they're like, "Hey, TKN."
Craig Mattick:
Got two more for you. You've got seven siblings.
Taryn Kloth:
I do.
Craig Mattick:
Is your family able... I know they're supportive. Are they able to come and watch you play once in a while?
Taryn Kloth:
Yeah, they are. It's a lot easier when it's a domestic tournament. So I think every single one of my siblings has been able to come watch me now. Obviously, it's hard when they're in high school, because six of them are younger than me. One's in college, the rest of them are in high school, and then I have one older sister who is a nurse. But yeah, actually, now that I think about it, every single person has now been able to come and watch me play beach volleyball at least once, which is nice because we usually go to fun places and then they can just turn into a vacation for my family or friends, whoever is coming to watch.
Craig Mattick:
Last one for you, the Olympics are coming up. They're going to be in Paris. Are we going to see the Kloth/Nuss dynamite pair get to the Olympics?
Taryn Kloth:
That is the goal. So the Olympic qualification process is 18 months long. It started January of 2023 and it ends June 9th of 2024, and that is when the list of who makes it to the Olympics comes out. There's only two teams from each country that can go. So right now, I think in the United States, I mean, at the beginning, I think there were like eight teams in the running, and now I think it's down to four teams that are still running for the Olympics. So we are still in competition. The date that we will know if we made it or not is June 9th, like I said, of next year, so we still have a lot of time and a lot of tournaments to still go before we know if we're going to be in or not. But we are currently the number one American team, yes.
Craig Mattick:
And you're having a lot of fun.
Taryn Kloth:
We are. We are having a blast.
Craig Mattick:
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