Winning Combination
Athletics and academics add up for professional beach volleyball player Emily Day.
Written by Nancy Sokoler Steiner | Photographed by Vincent Rios
At the Hermosa Beach Trader Joe’s, a scoreboard keeps track of how many times professional beach volleyball player Emily Day scores an ace (serves a ball that isn’t returned and thus results in a point). For each ace she makes, Trader Joe’s donates $100 to a food charity.
As of early July, she’d made 27 aces. But that number was sure to grow: Day was heading to Portugal the following week for the Beach Pro Tour Challenge and had numerous competitions remaining in the season. Last season, she scored an impressive 55 aces, resulting in a $5,500 donation to New Challenge Ministries’ Fresh Rescue Food Bank in Torrance.
Growing up in Torrance, Day played team volleyball at West High School as well as at Loyola Marymount University. After her team was asked by their LMU coach to play some beach volleyball tournaments, Day fell in love with the sport. She qualified for her first Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tournament—the largest professional volleyball tour in the U.S.—while still in college.
“You can’t beat the lifestyle,” says Day, age 32, while she takes a quick break two days before competing in the Hermosa Beach Open. “We’re playing outside at the beach, there’s the healthy, active lifestyle and our involvement with the community. The South Bay community really follows beach volleyball.”
Since graduating from LMU in 2009, Day has racked up a host of accomplishments. They include earning a gold medal in the FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) competition in Haiyang, China, and taking home nine AVP tournament titles, including twice for the Manhattan Beach Open and twice for the Hermosa Beach Open.
She’s played in competitions around the globe, traveling to countries including Australia, China, Germany, Rwanda and Switzerland. “When you’re touring, it’s the same group of people playing each other around the world,” she explains. “On the court, we’re competitors, but then we’ll all go out to dinner together. One of my best friends is a Brazilian player.”
As a student, Day never imagined beach volleyball could become a profession. Her parents stressed the importance of academics, and Day majored in math in college. To supplement her income, she began tutoring local high school students. She contacted her old high school teachers, who sent her more referrals. The business grew thanks to word of mouth, and Day opened Mathlete Tutoring, a professional tutoring company.
“We want to be more than tutors; we want to be mentors,” she says. “You can be a great athlete and a great student. You don’t have to be one or the other.”
Day embodies the sentiment as both an elite beach volleyball athlete and a student earning her master’s degree in applied math at Cal State Long Beach. “The habits that make you a good student are similar to those that make a good athlete: working hard, being prepared and being responsible,” she points out.
On occasion, her worlds of sports and tutoring overlap. One student called her asking for help with a math problem when Day was in China for a competition. “She responded promptly and did a FaceTime session with my daughter while she was on the bus!” reported the parent. “Amazing!”
“I want to break the stereotypes that a jock or a blond female doesn't belong in the STEM world," says Day. For that endeavor, she gets an A+.
