Grant Lamoureux will have a pretty good excuse for missing a few weeks of school at West Forsyth next month.
Lamoureux, a junior, was one of 20 participants selected for the USA Volleyball Boys U19 team that will compete in Ponce, Puerto Rico, as part of the NORCECA Continental Championship on May 12-20.
First, Lamoureux will head to Anaheim, California, from May 3-11 for practice and training.
Lamoureux is a 6-foot-10 outside hitter who plays indoor and sand volleyball for the Titans.
He’ll also miss the state tournaments for both of those sports, and his AP Environmental Science exam that he already has a game plan for making up.
“I’ve talked with all my teachers already and they will work with me so I can do some of the work online while I’m gone,” Lamoureux said. “I’ll make up the AP exam when I get back. I’ll miss playing the rest of the season, too. I won the state championship last year for beach with my partner, Hayden Lichty, who graduated, and this year I’m playing with Jack Thompson, so missing that will be different. But I still plan to play until I have to leave so I’m not rusty when I get there for training.”
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Lamoureux was part of the 20 players selected to attend training last year as well in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but was not selected as one of the final 12 players to compete in the U19 World Championships in Argentina.
“Last year when I got there, it was a lot different from what I’m used to,” Lamoureux said. “I was one of the younger players there and I hadn’t played for about two weeks before I went in late July. Everyone was on such a high level. It was the 20 best players in the country and it took me a few days to get used to that level of competition. It was a great experience because I learned a lot and got to play against some of the best players in the country. And since the teams are coached by college coaches, you get a lot of great information and make some great connections.”
Lamoureux has already committed to play at Pepperdine, which is located in Malibu, California, after a whirlwind recruiting process.
“The first school that contacted me was Hawaii,” he said. “I was really interested in Hawaii, Pepperdine, UCLA and Penn State. My recruiting really took off after my freshman year and I couldn’t start talking to coaches until last June. We started taking visits last August and I went to all four. All of them have great programs, top 10 (programs) in the country. I really made a great connection with the Pepperdine coaching staff and the campus is just incredible. I also liked that it was a smaller school.”
Playing volleyball wasn’t really on Lamoureux’s radar until middle school. He didn’t start playing until sixth grade when he saw his older brother, Zach, start playing at their neighborhood sand court at the Clemmons West pool.
Lamoureux’s mother, Michelle, played at Virginia Tech, and his father, Dave, became interested in getting involved with the sport after blowing out the same knee three different times playing basketball.
“Watching Zach play looked pretty cool and that’s really the only reason I started doing it,” Lamoureux said. “We always had a few volleyballs around the house when I was younger but it wasn’t something I was actively doing.”
Like his growth spurt since his freshman year – Grant has grown four inches since ninth grade – his rise on the volleyball court has been relatively fast, especially considering the limited opportunities to play the sport in the area.
The North Carolina High School Athletic Association doesn’t sanction boys volleyball as an official sport. This is just the second season for boys’ indoor volleyball, which is considered a club sport. Sand volleyball, or “beach” has been around since 2013 and has state tournaments organized by the North Carolina High School Sand Volleyball Association.
Once Grant got the bug in middle school, he found a club team, the Twin City Volleyball Academy at RISE Indoor Sports in Advance.
“I was playing basketball in middle school and then in seventh grade, COVID hit and we never got to finish the season,” Lamoureux said. “We didn’t have one in eighth grade and I just never went back to playing basketball.”
Not for lack of trying by Marlon Brim, the Titans’ basketball coach.
“Oh yeah, he reached out a lot when he got the job when he found out about me,” Lamoureux said with a laugh. “He eventually realized that it wasn’t going to happen. We talk all the time now when we see each other. He understands. Besides, I think sticking with volleyball has worked out pretty well for me.”
Lamoureux hopes his dedication to volleyball will continue past his career at Pepperdine.
“Hopefully one day I’ll play in the Olympics,” he said. “That’s been the dream for me. And also professionally, there’s a big league in Europe that a lot of the players on the national team now play in. I think they will be training in Anaheim when we will be there as well, so I hope I get to watch some of that. And the men’s (volleyball) Final Four will be going on in Long Beach when we are there, so I’m sure we’ll get to go check some of that out, too. I’m going to go and soak up as much as I can.”