It seems that Brook Bauer was destined to be an EcoAthlete. The athlete part - becoming a professional beach volleyball player after achieving All-American status at not one but two universities - seems logical and straightforward, born of the classic mix of physical gifts, love of sport, and unrelenting hard work. But the combination of what she does and where she does it, created a path that seems designed to lead her to care just as much about the environment and climate change as her next victory. Bauer recently walked EcoAthletes through that path to explain how she came to be an EcoAthletes Champion.

Born and raised in South Florida, Bauer’s parents encouraged her to try everything. Her mother played basketball at University of Miami, so hoops was naturally one of her early sports. But just one; she also dove into ballet, softball, volleyball, and soccer. “We were just talking the other day about my soccer games when I was 3 years old, and it would just be all the kids falling over and not being able to focus for very long.” Fast forward to high school at St. Thomas Aquinas where sports are taken very seriously and look nothing like the free-for-all scrambles of preschoolers. 

Bauer was happy to have made varsity soccer training and was working out with the team when the coach confronted her, “Are you about to try out for indoor volleyball? What are you doing?” She thought she could play both but quickly learned that she would have to choose one over the other. This may be one of destiny’s more heavy-handed nudges because Bauer’s parents met playing beach volleyball. The decision was hard because of the relationships she had with her travel soccer teammates, but indoor volleyball was the segue to where she wanted to be - the beach.

“It was sort of ingrained in me,” Bauer shared. “My parents met playing beach volleyball, I love the beach, and it kind of fit who I was. The beach is where I’d want to spend my time and being there fired me up the most…that’s why I chose beach volleyball. I just felt like it was a part of me. The other sports were fun, but beach made the most sense.”

Spending her whole childhood in South Florida was another formative factor for Bauer’s worldview.

“My childhood home is on the end of an intercoastal waterway in South Florida; over the course of each week, trash backs up and piles and piles creating layers of garbage in the mud,” she lamented. ”We often find ourselves having to stop play during beach volleyball matches because there is trash on the court mixed in with the sand. This is scary not only for us as players, but in a broader perspective for the ecosystems that inhabit the beach and the nearby ocean.”

That hometown experience created an awareness of the environment that would be brutally honed at her next destination - Malibu.

Pepperdine University seemed to have it all when Bauer was choosing a college. The campus is surrounded by and submerged in nature, their beach volleyball team was a national powerhouse and their head coach at the time, Nina Matthies, was a legend in the sport. Bauer committed to the school that overlooks the Pacific where she would advance from conference Freshman of the Year to Defender of the Year to first team All American by senior year.

She would also experience a tragic side of nature during the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which burned almost 100,000 acres of land.

“We had to evacuate,” Bauer recalled. “I didn’t understand the cycle of nature, how things worked out west prior to moving there. No one said, ‘Sometimes we have wildfires.’ That was a large-scale traumatic thing that everyone went through. It had lasting effects on the beach. After the fires, there was permanent tarnish in the sand. You’d practice and leave coated [with tarnish] …It made me ask myself ‘how are we going to move forward so this doesn’t keep happening?’”

COVID-19 moved Bauer back to Florida to pursue a master’s degree in business analytics with an extra year of athletic eligibility. Florida State University’s coach Brooke Niles and Bauer knew of each other through beach volleyball channels in the Sunshine State and they both agreed that Bauer should spend her last year as a Seminole. She made the most of her time there, earning recognition as an All-American again and playing in the national championship game.

Now as a professional playing on the AVP and FIVB tours, she can look back on all of it and see how she got to a place where she is passionate about fighting for both championships and a #ClimateComeback.

Playing a sport on the beach in locations that clearly show the undeniable effects from human-caused climate change made Bauer’s new role as an EcoAthletes Champion practically inevitable.

A proponent of life-long learning, she is excited about discovering how her climate activism will develop as a Champion.

“The sport that I play and also just the lifestyle and things I care about, drew me into a passion for our natural environment and protecting that space,” Bauer declared. “My passion sparked a need to give back to this planet – a planet that gives us so much. I am excited about becoming an EcoAthletes Champion because I feel that using my platform as a professional beach volleyball player to bring awareness to oceanic and environmental conservation is a great opportunity to inspire change.”

EcoAthletes CEO and founder Lew Blaustein believes Bauer is going to use her platform to spike climate apathy.

“From the first time I spoke to Brook, I sensed that she is a woman in a hurry to make a difference on the environment,” Blaustein related. “Her drive to learn, combined with her desire to make the beach and the ocean #ClimateComeback hubs, is going to make her an effective EcoAthletes Champion and a powerful advocate for climate action to her followers!”

For Bauer, being an EcoAthletes Champion means turning hopelessness into action.  

“EcoAthletes will help get me beyond feeling that there is little I can do about climate,” Bauer said.  “My playing field is the beach, and the ocean is a crucial aspect of our sport and all of our everyday lives. I look forward to learning how I can lead people to pick up trash and return the beach to its natural state. But that’s just the beginning. The ocean and the beach have to be key factors in the #ClimateComeback; I’m ready to be a part of it!”

Seems like it was written in the sand.

You can follow Brook on Instagram