Volleyball Blues
This would be me begging Olympic Gold Medalist, Kerri Walsh to sub in on our team. So she gave me her contact info and said when she's in town to give ger a call and we'd have another outside hitter!When I began my blog, I wrote about my first volleyball game of the season and how we lost two out of three games to a deaf team. Well, since that ONE win, there hasn't been another. That was four weeks ago, and I gotta tell ya' I'm startin' to get a little down.
I LOVE playing volleyball, and I love to play competitively, but our team is in way over our heads in this league.
And the sad thing is, it's really not that difficult of play, it's just very organized.
I don't know what we can do.
I'm a very vocal player, probably from playing organized ball in high school and a little in college. So if you're familiar with the sport of volleyball, you'll sympathize with me when I say I'm yelling, "TIP!!! DUMP!!!! ANGLE ANGLE!!!!!! LINE!!!! IT'S GOOD!!!!!!" and we just can't get anything done.
We have talented individuals on our team, with some height to boot, but we haven't mastered using what each of us are good at to better our team as a whole.
That thought process of, "she's a good setter and she's a good hitter, let's put them next to each other" does not exist on this team.
I've been trying to be more upbeat when were down by 11 points in a game, though I feel like screaming, I know it doesn't help team morale. I try to see that we're still pretty new at playing together, and one of our girls doesn't seem that she's EVER played at all. It's ok Kim, we'll forgive you for recruiting her.
It's just frustrating when you KNOW you're better than you're performing (like the Packers).
I'm hoping that by the end of this season, everyone will walk away with greater ability to utilize their skills. That would be the greatest accomplishment.
Winning ain't everything, but then why does it suck so much to lose?
cue the harmonica cause I got the volleyball blues.
posted by Addy @ 10:43 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Who's going to win first, you guys or the Packers?
Yeah, I'm bettin' on the Packers.
The question: Do you have fun teaching your team how to play the game? or Is your enjoyment of playing with friends lost because the team doesn't win?
I play at Kelly's Bleachers in Wynn Lake and there is a group that it's all about winning and if they are not winning, one of the guys start yelling at everyone, saying how they shouldn't even play if they can not hit the ball and he should quit. His attitude brings the team down and nobody's having fun playing volleyball. The evening turns from a night out with friends and drinks after work, to, do we have to go though another night of torture?
Hey there another bummed volleyball player,
I love playing with my team, and I guess sometime's I feel overwhelmed, because without sounding arrogant, I am one of the strongest players on the team but like the saying goes, "you're only as strong as your weakest link"
Some of me teammates say,
"Addy, tell me what to do" and when I gave small tips like, "hit the ball with an open hand", or "you need a higher toss on your overhand serve", I feel good when it works for them. But then sometimes I get negative feed back like "yeah - thanks COACH" so it's hard for me to guage how important it is to my team to IMPROVE thier game so the object of winning becomes important, because it's within our power to beat our compitition.
Now I don't get crazy like the guy you mentioned at Kelly's Bleachers (I used to play there too) and I've played with guys like him before too. Nobody needs that stress,but mind you, our captain signed us up for AA level. This is not just a rec league. You're expected to know the basics...and then some. Thats where we struggle.
I am lucky that our team is a group of incredible people that I can appreciate on and off the court, and I'm sure that we'll pull it together and surprise a few teams that think they've got an easy win comming.
They may still win, but not without a fight!
Thanks for visiting!
Maybe the team should have signed up as a Rec. league and not a AA. I'm sure it's hard to decide what level you belong, but having never played as a team and with fairly new players and only one, "AA level" to boot...
As an outside observer, Andrea used to play on a few other teams and always came home in a good mood.
Nothing worse that coming from a day of work where the boss and customers are telling you what your doing wrong, and then trying to relieve stress by losing and being told what else your doing wrong.
As I've told her, just laugh and have fun, or walk away from it.
Hey Danno!
Andrea is one of our strongest assets in the fact that she KNOWS when she makes a mistake and uses it to her advantge in the game later. It's always difficult being a new team coming into a league with seasoned players that have played together for years and know each others game inside and out.
The challenge is to identify what you can do to better youreselves as a whole, not just
"we lost cause we suck" -thats never been an option for me. And I never walk away from anything, even if it's not as fun as it should be. I want to win, no doubt about it, and though I never claimed to be a "AA" player myself, there is no reason that our team can't hang in this level of compitition. I think we should have fun, but also take it a little more seriously than rec, because NONE of those teams are going to do us any favors to help us, besides beat us and have us learn from our own mistakes.
As i said before, my only hope is that we all come out of this league with stronger skills than we had before, and maybe it will better prepare us for the league next season.
How often do you guys practice?
Thats the beauty of it...NEVER!
MAYBE the five minutes before the game, we'll get in a circle and "bump" the ball around.
I've suggested hitting lines, to no avail. But last week I must say, our team was warming up, hitting againstt the wall, and some serves.
We just need to sharpen our reaction time when we're playing defense,... and when we're playing offense too.
We have another game tonight at 7:15 so I'll have to let all of you interested parties know how it goes.
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