Regardless of where he’s living or playing, the sand will always feel like home to Miles Partain.
He made a name for himself as the youngest player ever to qualify for an AVP Tour main draw at age 15, further turned heads in beach volleyball circles when he became the second-youngest to ever win an AVP event at age 20, and solidified himself as one of the best up-and-coming players in the world last summer when he became the youngest to ever compete for the U.S. men’s Olympic beach volleyball team at 22.
Then he turned 23 in December and life suddenly became more complicated and unpredictable.
His family home, neighborhood and most of his community burned down in the Palisades Fire in January. Partain then failed to regain his eligibility with the UCLA men’s indoor volleyball team this spring, partly because of the money he had earned as a pro beach player.
Now living in Hermosa Beach with his family, Partain has returned to the beach full time, where he and Olympic partner Andy Benesh are the top-seeded men’s team at the Huntington Beach Open this weekend.
Getting back on the sand has been therapeutic, he said.
“Indoor was less like that,” he said. “It was more of a grind, but I still enjoyed the challenge.”
Getting back home to Pacific Palisades will take much longer, but the Partains plan to rebuild.
As he evacuated on Jan. 7, Partain never expected to return to a neighborhood of smoldering ash.
After all, the fire was still 2 miles away.
“We were so far from the front lines,” Partain said. “All around us landlocked by homes, just streets, easy street access for fire fighters, so we really didn’t expect it. … So, it was really surprising the next morning when we came in and saw everything.”
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Most of his longtime neighborhood friends lost their homes too, and row after row of businesses he regularly patronized were burned to the ground.
“Just everything around us,” he said of the devastation.
Partain lost every medal he won as a young gun in the California Beach Volleyball Association, every trophy he took home as a member of the Palisades High indoor volleyball team, and all the jerseys he had worn at international competitions around the world.
His letterman’s jacket from Pali High, hard drives with videos of past volleyball matches, and family photo albums that had yet to be digitized, all destroyed with the rest of his family’s possessions.
Partain managed to save some memorabilia from his experience at the Olympics, randomly tossing a few items into an empty fireproof safe just before evacuating.
“It’s interesting, I think a little bit, but far, far less important than, I’m sure, what’s in a ton of other homes,” he said of his personal losses.
During that time, Partain was also maneuvering to reclaim his spot on the UCLA indoor team.
He was the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Year as a sophomore setter for the Bruins in 2022, but quit 10 matches into his junior season to focus on an Olympic qualifying berth in beach volleyball.
After accomplishing that goal and then losing in the quarterfinals in Paris, Partain wasn’t ready to give up the indoor game.
With a year of college eligibility still remaining, he was motivated by the opportunity to be part of the first NCAA team to win three straight national titles since the early 1980s, even if it meant moving from setter to libero.
Partain had already secured an undergraduate degree in Applied Math in three years at UCLA when he rejoined the Bruins last winter, taking masters courses, practicing with the team and watching a handful of early-season matches from the bench.
The roadblocks for a return to play proved too high and wide, however.
Partain ultimately decided to leave the team, move in with his family and begin five-day-a-week training for the upcoming AVP season.
Instead of playing for the Bruins this week at the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio, Partain is preparing to compete in Huntington Beach, where he expects stiff competition.
Partain and Benesh, as well as two other top men’s and women’s teams, skipped the Huntington Beach Open last year so they could compete in an Olympic qualifying match in Portugal.
“Single elimination, it will be interesting,” Partain said of this weekend’s smaller-field tournament. “I’m sure there will be upsets somewhere for the girls and guys, and there’s no redemption after that.”
AVP HUNTINGTON BEACH OPEN
What: Men and women, 16-team main draws, single-elimination tournament
When: Friday (qualifying), 8 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday (main draw), 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday (semifinals and finals), 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Where: Huntington Beach Pier
