The Growler Chronicles

The story behind the results

For more details on each year, go to Past Results

• 2008 – Chris Bunting (LKP), Mark Williams (SARC) and their wives were out to dinner one night when the idea of a small sand volleyball tournament between swim clubs was born. Everyone would pitch in $5, and we would get a keg or two. Chris can be credited for the name “Growler,” and he also made the perpetual trophy, which is still coveted to this day. The first tournament was held at Lake Park and included 5 teams from 3 clubs: two each from Lake Park and Springdale, and one from Crabtree. The first tournament spanned over two Tuesday nights just after swim team season. We didn’t have team names that first year. The Springdale A team won.
• 2009 – Since Springdale won the first year, it was decided that Springdale would host the 2nd year. We grew to eight teams from the same three clubs. The Springdale B team (Renegades) got revenge and won the second year. The team name Renegades was used because of Lonerider Brewing, one of our first sponsors. At the time, they were just forming their brewery and not too many people had heard of them. Fortunately, one of their partners was a member of Springdale and sold us kegs for $50 each. Lots of Shotgun Betty was enjoyed by all.
• 2010 – The Growler really started to take off in year three. We brought in three more swim clubs who primarily contributed to late night Y- Princess “Fire Water” chats. Mark’s tribe included guys from Greystone and Seven Oaks. North Raleigh Swim Club rounded out the year with six clubs and 15 teams. We expanded the tournament to four weeks. This was the first year we printed t-shirts and had official sponsors. PF Chang’s became a long-standing food sponsor and set the bar for many other restaurants sponsors we’ve gained over the years. We actually made a little bit of profit, with which a kegerator was purchased. We could tell that Growler was something special and that we needed to find a purpose for our profits each year. We had a club member whose son was undergoing chemo treatments earlier that year, and the club had a St. Baldrick’s event to honor their son. Cancer research was dear to Mark’s heart, because he lost his brother to cancer a few years prior. After learning more about St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s mission and the way they were formed, it just seemed like a natural fit to merge a head shaving event into our already festive volleyball tournament.
• 2011 – Our first year with St. Baldrick’s gained modest donations of just over $4,000, however, we were ecstatic to think we’d done something good while playing volleyball. North Raleigh Swim Club broke the 3-year streak of Springdale wins and were the 2011 champs. We continued to grow with 18 teams and 20 sponsors. We capitalized with our network of six swim clubs to barter as many of our expenses as possible. We started to learn about the power of “It takes a village.” Much of our success can be attributed to the networking power of all the swim clubs involved.
• 2012 – We really started to get aggressive with gaining sponsors, and we were growing into North Raleigh’s Largest Sporting Social Event of the Summer. We formed a partnership with RA Jeffreys, the area Anheuser-Busch distributor. Good thing, since we went through 33 kegs of beer that year. At the time Brian Tobey was our RAJ rep, and he soon got the bug to form his own Team Kona the next year. We improved our St. Baldrick’s donations to $13,471 that year.
• 2013 – Continued growth with 28 teams and over $28,000 donations to St. Baldrick’s.
• 2014 – This was a milestone year. We added our 7th swim club, Harrington Grove, and we were now up to 32 teams. It provided a nice even number with four divisions of eight teams each. This was popular since it allowed teams to play other teams of equal skill level. It was also the first year that we added a band to our festive event and produced a drone YouTube video that we still use to help with new sponsorships. While we raised over $33K for St. Baldrick’s, we also started hosting a child with cancer and supporting their family through their treatments. We continue to support a different child each year.
• 2015 – It was decided that we needed to cap the number of teams at 32. However, we continued to grow with the number of sponsors reaching 45, and we increased our efforts to raise money for St. Baldrick’s. We exceeded $50K for SB that year.
• 2016 – Continued growth and improvement with the tournament. St. Baldrick’s donations continued to grow to $64K. Jeff Chaffin was our first shavee to raise more than $10K. Lake Park finally was able to lay claim to a Growler Championship.
• 2017 – Another record-breaking year with $83K in donations. We also held the First Annual Junior Growler, headed up by team Here for Beer.
• 2018 – This was the first year we exceeded $100K for St. Baldrick’s. In fact, we blew it away with $126,698 in donations. Brooke Bryand, Lindsay Rynearson and their mom highlighted the event with all three of them shaving their heads. They raised over $26K. This was also the first year we held the Senior Growler, which was hosted by the Crabtree Club. After 10 years of Growlers, we were seeing a new generation of volleyball players and needed to let the Old Timers have their own tournament.
• 2019 – This year we hit a milestone by totalling over a half million dollars for St. Baldrick’s. We raised over $121K with 75 sponsors. We started to nurture our relationships with local breweries by serving more local beers. Seven Oak’s Kiss My Ace became the first team to win back to back years of Growler and also tied Springdale’s Volleywood with three Growler Championships each.
• 2020 – COVID. Volleyball was cancelled, however, we held our First-Ever Virtual Head Shaving event and raised over $56K. John Kruse did an excellent job as master of ceremonies.
• 2021 – We rebounded from our COVID year to raise more than $130K. In 2021, Mark moved to the coast, which presented challenges to complete his local responsibilities. We expanded our GROWLeadERship team to take ownership of several areas. Bill Speri stepped up as our new Growler Director, Cristine Allison as Set up/Volunteer lead, Beth Rea as Treasurer, Brian Tobey as Beverage lead, Sue Schaefer as Growler Gear lead, Scot Carboni as St. Baldrick’s lead, and many others toiled behind the scenes to continue the well-oiled Growler machine. This expanded leadership has taken the Growler to the next level. It’s amazing the effort that goes behind our event. See the complete GROWLeadERship team: https://growlervolleyball.com/contact-us/
• 2022 – We expanded to eight clubs and 36 teams. North Hills Club is the eighth club to join the Growler Nation. Lake Park hosted the first Annual GrowlHer Tournament and raised over $1600 for St. Baldrick’s. We reached a new milestone by raising over $175,000 for St. Baldrick’s, making us the #1 SB fund-raising event in North Carolina.
• 2023 – We exceeded ONE MILLION dollars in total donations to St. Baldrick’s and have become the #1 event in NC and #10 event in the US. We ended the year with over $207K in donations. The final night’s highlights were Shannon Fuller and Dana Heil shaving the heads to bring in over $18,000 in donations. We had a special guest, Kathleen Ruddy, CEO of St. Baldrick’s Foundation, who traveled from California to attend our event. In 2023, we also filed to be incorporated with a 501c(3) status so we can manage our own finances. In prior years, we’ve relied on Springdale to manage our funds.
• 2024 – We’re still growing! We surpassed last year’s total to raise $212K. Our teams’ creativity continues to amaze as fundraising event continue to expand beyond the volleyball court. North Hills raised over $4K at their own fundraiser, team Overserved held an auction that raised over $5K, and Team Kona hosted a pickle ball tourney at Seven Oaks that netted just under $10K. Also, Bottle Rev 3 and the Wandering Moose both hosted events with proceeds going to St. Baldrick’s. For the year, we were again the #1 event in NC, and we moved up to the #2 event in the entire Southeast and the #8 event in the US.