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Beach volleyball stars Kyle Friend and Tim Brewster have been playing together on the AVP Tour for two years, though it took a lot of coaxing. Friend, who came out in 2013, admired Brewster’s game. The UCLA alum was an up-and-comer on the tour, much like Friend, who was a volleyball standout at Long Beach State.
Friend kept asking Brewster to team up, until he finally agreed. Their first tournament together was the 2022 Denver Tour Series, where they finished a respectable seventh.
From there, they kept qualifying for tourneys, steadily improving their ranking. After multiple top-10 finishes, they closed out the summer with four straight top-five finishes, and made the finals in Waupaca, a picturesque lake town in upper Wisconsin.
“It was so rad. It just seemed that first year, we had no expectations” Friend said in an interview, transcribed by Volleyball Mag. “We were young guns — he was young, I was, uh, something — we were a new team, nobody had expectations for us, we didn’t have any expectations either, we went out there, we competed, and if we won, awesome, but we ended up getting some wins. It was a wild roller-coaster ride.”
Their journey together only became more intense as the season progressed. Brewster knew he was gay for years, but unlike Friend, struggled to fully process his feelings. That changed as they spent more time together.
The pivotal moment in their relationship came while they were eating dinner at the 2022 Torquay Challenge in Australia. That night, Brewster opened up about his affection for Friend, who shared his feelings for his new teammate.
Following that conversation, their partnership expanded beyond the beach, and into every facet of their lives.
“It’s funny because early on we were like ‘Let’s protect the volleyball. We’re playing such good volleyball, we need to protect that. We need to be OK stepping away from our off the court.’ So naïve,” said Brewster.
“Looking back on it a year and a half ago, crazy that we were saying that, and now we need to make sure we’re taking care of the off the court first because that’s what’s most important.”
Like many LGBTQ+ athletes, Brewster says coming out improved his game. No longer carrying a secret, he was able to fully immerse himself into the sport he loves.
He owes Friend for the confidence boost.
“Seeing an example of someone who is out and confident and able to do volleyball, I’d never been around that,” he said. “To see somebody like that helped me through a lot of these internal struggles I was having. Obviously I worked really hard and there was a lot of stuff I did to make my volleyball really good but there’s also a mental component, whether it was confidence or being comfortable, it helped my volleyball click.”
Friend, for his part, says he was just staying true to himself.
“All I did was just be myself,” he said. “I just sparked interesting conversations and shared stories about myself and was vulnerable.”
The couple’s success continued after their first season together. They finished fifth at the 2023 Miami Pro Series, and third the following month in New Orleans. But then they hit a slump.
They eked out a few ninth-place finishes the rest of the summer, and saw their ranking fall. Their on-court malaise could’ve jeopardized their romance.
Instead, their volleyball struggles made them stronger.
“It’s an incentive to solve problems quicker so you don’t bring them home,” said Brewster. “Now there’s an incentive to figure it out on the court because it has to stay on the court.”
As one may imagine, there aren’t many high-profile examples of teammates dating each other. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. At least three LGBTQ+ couples competed together at the 2021 Tokyo Games, and several other partners competed in different sports, including Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird.
College baseball players Aiden Phipps and Cole Philpott started dating each other after a game last season.
Now ranked just outside of the top 100, Friend and Brewster are aiming for a successful season ahead. But they’re not freaking out over their standing.
Dating your volleyball partner puts the game into perspective.
“A lot of mindset changes have happened,” said Brewster. “I had this very big revelation that volleyball is super small. It’s super important and a huge part of my life but there’s so much that matters more.”
That’s very true. Volleyball may be important, but it doesn’t outrank true love.
