Carly Skjodt led Carmel to its first state volleyball title. Now, she's a pro beach player

Carly Skjodt is sitting inside her Playa Del Rey apartment in California, five miles from Manhattan Beach, talking about this crazy, fabulous, unlikely, insane, gritty journey she is on.

It is 9 a.m. and Skjodt has already finished an intense, two-hour volleyball training in the sand — hitting, serving, setting and blocking as the Pacific Ocean roars just yards away.

Skjodt is back at her apartment, working remotely at one of her three part-time jobs that make sense, and fit into the schedule of a woman on the AVP pro beach volleyball tour.

But does any of this really make sense? Skjodt, 26, laughs as she talks to IndyStar about this unlikely, insane ride she is on.

Skjodt grew up in Carmel, in landlocked Indiana, where she started playing indoor volleyball at 11. As a player at Carmel High, she was an unstoppable force as an outside hitter. Her senior season, she led the team to its first IHSAA state volleyball title.

As Skjodt went on to play four years at Michigan, she had no idea she would soon become one of the premier players in a sport that thrives on beaches, sun and sand.

But after graduating from Michigan with a degree in sports management, Skjodt decided she wanted to try her hand at beach volleyball. Yes, it was a crazy idea. No, she had never played competitive beach in her life.

Actually, she really hadn't played beach at any level, minus one time in eighth grade with a friend and on a few family vacations to the ocean where she would play six on six.

But Skjodt took a chance and moved to California to play for Pepperdine. It was there, Skjodt fell in love again with volleyball, but this time the version of the sport that is played in sand, with just two people on a team.

"The process of learning beach was genuinely so fun for me. I felt like I was learning something so new that I've never done before, but still had a basis of not being terrible," Skjodt said. "It was a whole new level of the game. It's the same and it's different. I absolutely loved it."

After Pepperdine, Skjodt played a short stint in Portugal as an indoor pro, but she felt the sand calling her back. In 2022, she decided it was now or never. She quit her full-time job and went all in on beach.

In her 2022 rookie season on the AVP (the Association of Volleyball Professionals, the elite U.S. pro beach league), Skjodt showed she wasn't some indoor has-been. She finished third at the AVP Central Florida Pro Series, her best pro finish. This season, she has qualified for all the pro tournaments and is set to play at Hermosa Beach July 7-9.

It's been quite a transition for Skjodt, taking her game from the hard courts to the sand. But those who know her best say she has done it flawlessly.

"Carly's beach game is one that blends the control of beach with the power of indoor," said Kevin Owens, who coached Skjodt as a teen club player and is now director of boys volleyball at Munciana Volleyball Club. "Bringing the heavy arm that she had from the indoor game, she can dominate at the net while being skilled enough to keep herself and her partner in good positions throughout points."

Beach is an exhilarating version of the sport, Skjodt said, and she is devoted to taking her newfound game as far as she can. Maybe the Olympics? Skjodt downplays that.

"I'm pretty realistic. I know where I stand," she said. "There's one U.S. team that goes to the Olympics every year."

But Skjodt is only 26 and the sand is easy on the joints, allowing elite players to compete into their 40s. There is plenty of time for a girl who grew up in landlocked Indiana to make some massive waves in beach.

'I want to try it'

Skjodt is the youngest daughter of Charlie and Jennifer Skjodt. Charlie was a professional hockey player and Jennifer was a standout high school athlete at several sports.

When Skjodt was 11, mostly playing soccer, her parents put her and older sister, Ellie, on a volleyball team. Skjodt loved it and she was really good at it. As she entered high school and the time came to focus on one sport, Skjodt didn't waver. It was volleyball all the way.

As an outside hitter, she helped Carmel win its first state championship in volleyball in 2014 against rival Cathedral, a school that, at the time, had won the third-most volleyball titles in state history.

"It's an awesome feeling," Skjodt, a senior, told IndyStar after the win. She finished the title game with a match-high 22 kills.

While at Carmel, Skjodt was named PrepVolleyball National Senior Player of the Year and was the Gatorade Indiana Player of the Year in 2014. She recorded 584 kills, 465 digs, 93 blocks and 33 service aces in her senior season and was named the No. 26 top senior player in the nation by PrepVolleyball.

But long before her senior season that brought all the accolades and a state title, schools had been recruiting Skjodt, small colleges and Division I schools. The scouts had been watching her as she played club on the Munciana Samurai team. As a club player, she was named an AAU Nationals All-American.

"Carly was one of our best attackers," said Owens, "and (she) led us to a national runner up finish that season."

As the colleges came calling Skjodt's sophomore season, her mom told her to whittle the list down to fewer than 10 schools to visit. Most of those schools Skjodt picked were within driving distance of Carmel and, on her final college visit to Michigan, Skjodt knew she was where she needed to be.

Michigan had made it to the Final Four the year before and, as she visited the campus and athletic facilities, she felt a real connection. She felt like this was her volleyball home. Skjodt committed to Michigan as a sophomore.

In her next four years, she was a two-time team captain, All-American and All-Big Ten. She led her team to the NCAA Sweet 16 in her senior season, while earning AVCA All-American second team honors and AVCA All-North Region honors.

But as she played indoor for Michigan, Skjodt already had her eye on beach. At the time, it was kind of a fad for good indoor players to turn to beach for their fifth season of eligibility.

"I went to my Michigan coach, and I was just like, 'I want to try to do it,'" Skjodt said. Her coach Mark Rosen gave her contacts and helped her email beach coaches and he reached out on her behalf, praising her skills. Those connections soon turned into Skjodt committing to Pepperdine her junior year at Michigan.

When she got to Pepperdine, she quickly transformed her indoor game to outdoor and impressed her teammates.

“She’s getting it so fast,” teammate Gigi Hernandez told VolleyballMag.com in 2019. “She’s not a stubborn person at all. If you tell her to do something she’s like ‘OK.’ If you tell her something and she doesn’t get it, she’s not just going to say ‘Yeah, yeah I get it.’ She’s going to ask you to explain it in a different way. Her first instinct is always to do it right. If she doesn’t get it, she wants to do it right.”

After Pepperdine, Skjodt followed through on her dreams to play overseas, but after two months in Portugal, she came home early. "It wasn't my thing," she said. Skjodt took a job in California in 2021 at a wellness club called Remedy Place, and decided it was time to move on. It was time to retire from volleyball. And she hated that.

Almost didn't do it

Of course, Skjodt couldn't retire. She was in California and so she continued to play beach on the side, working out, training, playing tournaments in between her work schedule.

"And I would go to tournaments and I'm competing against women that are full-time volleyball and then it's just making me mad," Skjodt said.

It wasn't that she thought she was better than her competitors, but it was frustrating comparing herself to players that were practicing full-time. That didn't seem fair.

"So I was like, 'I'm going to give it one last chance,'" Skjodt said. She gave up her full-time job in 2022 for a part-time gig with the company working remotely. She focused on beach full-time, trading in one job for three part-time jobs. Pro beach volleyball doesn't sustain a living.

"I work just as much as a normal person," Skjodt said, "but just different hours."

In between her daily, early morning trainings, lifting three times a week and playing on the AVP tour, Skjodt is an administrative assistant, works for a doctor at the wellness club and works for her family's startup, BellyBrain Foods, a living probiotic smoothie company.

It's a crazy, insane journey she is on. But for some reason, it just seems right.

Skjodt was always an indoor power hitter and while beach often calls for touch shots, Skjodt is creating her own game.

"I still prefer to be more aggressive in beach. I think it pays off," she said. "I've learned to hit the shots as well, but I enjoy just ripping the ball."

Whatever she is doing is working. A rookie who never played beach doesn't just end up on the AVP tour, qualifying for tournaments and challenging the veterans. "In beach volleyball, there is nowhere to hide," said Owens. "If your game is deficient in any area, your opponents can easily see your weakness and exploit it."

Skjodt doesn't have to hide. The beach came calling and she is conquering it.

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Carmel HS volleyball star Carly Skjodt is now pro beach player on AVP