Derek Bradford stood out like Godzilla the first time Ed Keller spotted him thumping volleyballs off the sand near 16th Street in Manhattan Beach three years ago.
“I see this 6-9 monster, jumping and smashing balls, looks like he’s really good,” said Keller, a Southern California beach volleyball maven. “I go to a buddy of mine who’s playing on the court with him and I go, ‘Hey, who’s that guy?’”
Keller soon learned the tall, powerful figure with an albatross-like wingspan wasn’t some visitor from far away, but rather a San Fernando Valley teenager home from college after red-shirting his first year with Hawaii’s indoor volleyball team.
Bradford was trying his best to break through the bubble and become a regular on the legendary Manhattan Beach courts, but was still a relative newcomer on the competitive circuit.
Keller saw Bradford’s potential and let him know he had the connections to put him on the fast track to stardom in a sport starved for top young talent in the U.S.
Bradford was also ready for a new challenge after sitting in the shadows his first season at Hawaii, so he made the unprecedented decision to surrender his final four years of college eligibility and focus on the beach game.
“I wanted to pick a path where I can get to the top,” Bradford said. “I figured out that beach volleyball is definitely the path for me.”
Keller said it’s rare for an American player with Bradford’s physical attributes to go all-in on beach volleyball at such a young age.
“Those guys all play indoors, I promise you. Like, they get contracts for six figures overseas, typically to play in Europe or Asia,” Keller said. “And so, for him to make that choice, ‘I am sticking to beach. I’m definitely playing beach,’ it really speaks to his love of the game and his desire to be one of the greatest players.”
Still just 22, Bradford is coming off his third year as a professional beach player, checking one box after another in his quest to rise to the top.
“It’s definitely great seeing the progress in only three years,” Bradford said.
Another first-time experience for Bradford will arrive this weekend, when he competes in the fourth annual Newport Beach 4-man Volleyball Invitational alongside the pier.
“The first three times I was really bummed not being able to play because I knew I had the physicality, and I knew I was going to get there eventually,” Bradford said. “It was just a matter of showing everybody what I’m capable of.”
Bradford will play on the same four-man team as former 2024 Olympians Miles Partain and Miles Evans. To fill the fourth spot, the trio recruited former Aliso Niguel High and Long Beach State blocker Nick Amato.
The men’s and women’s qualifying rounds begin Saturday at 9 a.m. Bradford’s squad, Team Chicago Title, begins the first of three rounds of pool play on Sunday morning with the championship match set for 4 p.m.
“It’s going to be such a good weekend,” Bradford said. “It’s going to be so competitive.”
Bradford welcomes a more relaxed stage this weekend as 2027 figures to be the most important year of his life with stiffer competition, increased visibility and much more on the line.
With qualifying for the 2028 Los Angeles Games on the horizon, Bradford has officially joined the conversation.
“He’s got an outside shot, for sure, because of his athleticism,” Keller said. “I love his partner, Evan (Cory), but I think the two of them will be better served getting more veteran partners.”
After cycling through a handful of partners in his first two years as a pro, Bradford has been paired with the 28-year-old Cory since the end of the 2025 season.
They made their first big splash when they qualified for the AVP League in mid-April, and followed that up two weeks later by advancing to the semifinals at the Huntington Beach Open after entering the tournament as a wild card.
They produced their best international result at an Elite 16 event in Brazil in late August, advancing through the qualifying and pool-play rounds before losing in the round of 16.
“That tournament was a really big stepping stone for us, mentally-wise,” Bradford said. “It just showed us what we’re really capable of on the world tour. Just much more difficult than domestic. It was definitely the highest level of volleyball we played, and it was the toughest teams we ever played as well.”
Bradford was a sophomore at Granada Hills High in 2020 when COVID-19 ended a promising indoor season and the school year.
With indoor facilities closed because of the pandemic, Bradford kept active and stayed “sane” by playing at nearby sand courts at Runkle Canyon Park in Simi Valley with his father, Lee, who played indoor volleyball at Pepperdine, and his three siblings.
“We would go out there and just rep it out every day during the week,” Bradford said. “That’s really how I developed how to jump, how to set, how to hit. All my technical abilities are just more adjusted for the sand. When I went back to indoor, I was still a good indoor player, but it was just nothing compared to how good I was in the sand, relative to other players.”
Bradford was home-schooled during his junior year of high school before returning to campus as a senior at Royal High in Simi Valley. He helped the Highlanders win a CIF-Division 2 title that spring and then headed off to Hawaii in the fall.
The two-time defending national champion Rainbows had a stacked team returning that season and there was no room for Bradford in the lineup, or even on the practice floor, making for an unfavorable experience his first season.
Luckily, he still had beach volleyball to fall back on.
“I’m so glad, every tournament, that I made the switch from indoor to beach because I truly believe this is my path,” Bradford said. “I was born for this. My physicality was developed on the sand. My IQ for volleyball was developed on the sand. I’m just built for it.”