About Simon Bourne — Lanark County Beach Volleyball

On the resume

Beach

Canadian U18 National Champion. Multiple Ontario provincial gold medals. Team Ontario representative. Summer Games representative for the region.

Indoor

Captain and current MVP of the men's varsity team at Redeemer University. Four years through high school with one of the top indoor clubs in the country.

Coaching influences

Trained under high-level coaches across Team Ontario, the club indoor circuit, and the Redeemer varsity program. The standards from those rooms are what I'm bringing here.

Coaching experience

Coaching experience locally in Lanark County schools and clubs over the last several years. Studying Business Management at Redeemer.

Where I'm from

I grew up in Lanark County and went through the local school system. I'm 21, studying Business Management at Redeemer University in Hamilton. The volleyball career is in the resume strip above. The story under it is what I actually want to share here.

The story under the resume

Beach is a different sport than indoor. Indoor has six specialists on a court and the system carries you. Beach has two players who do everything, every point, with the wind and the sun and a deep sand surface conspiring against you. There is nowhere to hide. The pace of growth out here is faster than anywhere else in the sport, and that was the part that hooked me.

I have always been on the smaller side for a competitive volleyball player. The way I've gotten anywhere has been through three things: athleticism, fundamentals, and the mental game. Those are not slogans on a wall. They are how an undersized player wins against bigger opponents, and they are the only honest answer to "how did you do that." Everything I coach is shaped around those three.

Owen Pickering and Simon Bourne receiving the Ottawa Sports Award for Beach Volleyball. — Ottawa Sports Award for Beach Volleyball, with my doubles partner Owen Pickering.

How I coach

Two coaches on the court every session. Up to twenty players per group. Drills run in progressions, so a player on their first day and a player with a year of club indoor under their belt can run the same drill at different tempos and both get a real workout. Every session includes one-on-one pull-aside time. No one slips through the cracks at twenty players.

The standards I bring in are the standards I learned from the coaches I've had at the club, provincial, and university level. That's not something I can transfer in eight weeks, but it's the bar.

Simon Bourne holding the Redeemer Royals men's volleyball team MVP award. — Redeemer Royals men's volleyball team MVP, 2025–26 OCAA season.

What year one looks like

Two summer camps for youth. Junior for grades 4 to 8 and Senior for high school. Up to twenty players per camp, eight weeks of real training, four full-size sand courts on Highway 15 in Franktown. Open weekend tournaments through the season for everyone else who wants to come out and play.

2026 is the founding summer. Year one is small on purpose. The goal across the camps is the same: every player leaves the season noticeably better at the sport than they were in June, and has a good time doing it. The tournaments are about giving Lanark County a beach-volleyball weekend to look forward to.

Coaching philosophy

Athleticism. Fundamentals. The mental game.

Three priorities sit on top of every drill we run. Equal in weight, drilled together, never in isolation. Here is what each one means in practice and why this is the way I coach.

Athleticism

Sand is the best surface there is for building a young athlete. It demands real footwork and real explosiveness on every play, and it builds conditioning through how you play, not through a separate fitness block. A summer of training in the sand changes how a young player moves.

Beach also builds a complete player in a way indoor cannot. With two on a court, there are no specialists. Every player serves, passes, sets, hits, blocks, and defends every single point. That is more reps and more roles in one summer than a player gets in two seasons of indoor.

Fundamentals

Passing, setting, hitting, serving, defense, blocking. Every player drills every skill, every week. Drills are layered so a player who has never picked up a volleyball and a player with a year of club experience can do the same drill at different speeds and both get a real workout.

Up to twenty players per group, two coaches on the court, one-on-one pull-aside time built into every session. The point is that no one slips through the cracks.

Mental toughness

Volleyball is a thinking sport. Where is the setter going? What is the hitter about to do? What does the moment actually call for? Reading the game is what separates a player who can swing from a player who knows when, and it is the edge that lets a smaller player beat a bigger one.

I've been on the smaller side my whole career. The reason I've won against opposite hitters who are six inches taller is that I learned to outthink them. That part can be coached, and we coach it from day one.

I am not promising your child an athletic scholarship by August. I am promising that they will leave this summer noticeably better at the sport than they were in June, they will move like an athlete by the fall, they will see plays before they happen, and they will have had a great time with a bunch of other youth from across Lanark County while doing it.

Simon.

The eight-week plan

Want the full training plan, week by week?

Two PDFs, one per camp. Cover the philosophy, the session shape, and what we work on every week from June through August.

Junior plan Senior plan

Summer 2026

If your child plays, or wants to start, sign them up.

Twenty spots per camp. Registration takes about eight minutes. Card details go straight to Stripe. Tournament dates land on Instagram as they're set.

Hi, I'm Simon.