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Baton Rouge native Allie Griffin had just finished her career as a star volleyball player at the University of Colorado when she traveled to Reno, Nev., to compete for a spot on the professional beach volleyball tour. The tryouts were filmed and will soon be on CSTV as a four-part reality show. Griffin, who graduated from the Dunham School, didn’t win the tournament, but plans to play professionally after graduation.

What was more stressful, a high-pressure volleyball game being filmed or a high-pressure volleyball game where you are making the switch to sand courts?

Really the cameras followed us everywhere we went, so it made me pretty nervous. But the court to beach change, it’s a completely different game. I mean you have two people covering the whole court, and you are in sand where you are not nearly as mobile. It’s a whole different idea of being smart when you play.

Did you consider the show a reality show, or just a tournament that happened to be on camera?

They told us like four days before we left that it was going to be a reality show. It was obviously up to us if we still wanted to go or not. We didn’t know it was going to be a competition either, we thought it was going to be a cool opportunity to train and learn something. It was a little bit of a shocker.

So with the reality show, do you feel like a character on The Real World? How did it play out?

I think it’s a little different. It’s more of a documentary. I’d say there wasn’t very much drama or intensive fighting. It’s more about our experience coming and making this transition.

What are your career plans now? Are you going to keep playing or are you going to move on?

Well, I’m going to graduate in December and probably move out to California.

What is it about volleyball that makes you want to keep doing this? What keeps you going?

Once volleyball was over this season, I just kind of hit the bottom. It was just a hard experience for me to realize sports was over, and my career was over. I just couldn’t quite grasp being done, and I just wanted to see what else was out there. I mean I’ve played sports for so long. Like most athletes, I started in second grade. It’s just such a weird experience stopping, so I’m just pulling and stretching for anything else I can get out of this.