“We were so far from the front lines,” Partain said. “All around us landlocked by homes, just streets, easy street access for fire fighters, so we really didn’t expect it. … So, it was really surprising the next morning when we came in and saw everything.”

Most of his longtime neighborhood friends lost their homes too, and row after row of businesses he regularly patronized were burned to the ground.

“Just everything around us,” he said of the devastation.

Partain lost every medal he won as a young gun in the California Beach Volleyball Association, every trophy he took home as a member of the Palisades High indoor volleyball team, and all the jerseys he had worn at international competitions around the world. His letterman’s jacket from Pali High, hard drives with videos of past volleyball matches, and family photo albums that had yet to be digitized, all destroyed with the rest of his family’s possessions.

Partain managed to save some memorabilia from his experience at the Olympics, randomly tossing a few items into an empty fireproof safe just before evacuating.

“It’s interesting, I think a little bit, but far, far less important than, I’m sure, what’s in a ton of other homes,” he said of his personal losses.

During that time, Partain was also maneuvering to reclaim his spot on the UCLA indoor team. He was the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Year as a sophomore setter for the Bruins in 2022, but quit 10 matches into his junior season to focus on an Olympic qualifying berth in beach volleyball.

After accomplishing that goal and then losing in the quarterfinals in Paris, Partain wasn’t ready to give up the indoor game. With a year of college eligibility still remaining, he was motivated by the opportunity to be part of the first NCAA team to win three straight national titles since the early 1980s, even if it meant moving from setter to libero.

Partain had already secured an undergraduate degree in Applied Math in three years at UCLA when he rejoined the Bruins last winter, taking masters courses, practicing with the team and watching a handful of early-season matches from the bench. The roadblocks for a return to play proved too high and wide, however.

Partain ultimately decided to leave the team, move in with his family and begin five-day-a-week training for the upcoming AVP season. Instead of playing for the Bruins this week at the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio, Partain is preparing to compete in Huntington Beach, where he expects stiff competition.

Partain and Benesh, as well as two other top men’s and women’s teams, skipped the Huntington Beach Open last year so they could compete in an Olympic qualifying match in Portugal.