Yesterday was a lesson in life, and actually a hard lesson to learn. Mandy’s volleyball team played in their first gold tournament, and it was a hard day. It was a real lesson for the girls. They played mostly Omaha
Before I go any farther, I should probably say that if you are one of those people to whom winning comes easy, if you are one of those people whose team defeated every opponent, who succeeded at every try out, who won every election they ever took part in during their teen years, then you should probably stop reading. This blog is not for you; you won’t understand.
This blog is for those people who have had to play on teams that struggled. For the people who were on teams that played in elite tournaments and didn’t win a game. For the people who found themselves finishing just short of coming out on top. It’s a hard place to be and it makes a person question themselves and if it is all worth the struggle. It’s probably what makes people what they are. It also shows people what you are made of.
Before I go any farther, I should mention that Mandy’s team is not crap. Last weekend they played in another tournament at the same location that didn’t include solely Omaha
But today the team just wasn’t playing at its best. Unfortunately the other teams were. Mandy’s team wasn’t completely spanked. They had some decent plays and they always got 15-20 points. But the other teams always reached 25 first.
It wasn’t a day that you could blame solely on one person, although sometimes it’s nice to try. Our back row just could not make decent passes to our setter. Mandy missed a couple of hits, but only missed one serve the whole day. We had some strong hits, but not enough to win. None of the teams we played were so good that we couldn’t have pulled ourselves together and won. In the middle of each set we would seem to lose concentration just long enough for the other team to go on a streak and gain momentum, enough that we couldn’t battle back and get a win.
During the first couple of matches, Mandy would get mad. She plays middle hitter, and so she plays mainly the front row. A libero comes in for her and the other middle after they serve and reach the back row. It was extremely frustrating to stand on the side when the back row was struggling and not do anything but yell encouragement from the side when all you want to do is get in there and help your friends. So when Mandy would get back in, she would scream for the ball and make some hard hits. That was about until almost the end of the round robin play.
By the time they played their last team in the round robin, they were starting to question if they would ever win. They were starting to question what they were doing there. They were starting to question if they should be playing volleyball at all. If you’ve ever been at this point, you know how they felt, and it’s a terrible place to be. If you’ve never been at this point, well you’ve been truly blessed and you should probably have stopped reading at the top of this blog.
It was a real lesson in character. There is one girl on Mandy’s team who I am just going to love forever. Mandy has played spirit volleyball with her before, but this is the first time they have been on a club team together. She has traditionally struggled. She has a killer serve and her hits can be incredibly hard. But those are on her good days. On her off days her serves miss the court and her hits go into the net. And in the past she has had a few more off days than good days. (Today, btw, was a good day.) But I will love this girl forever because she never gave up. I suppose this is what comes from playing through adversity. At the end of the day some of the girls were playing in tears, but this girl was still fighting and encouraging the rest of them. This is what strength of character is all about. We all could take a lesson in that.
There are a couple of girls on Mandy’s team that came over from the other Magic gold team last year. (Magic, Mandy’s volleyball club, has more than 50 14-year-old girls playing for them this year. So they have about five 14-year-old teams, two of them are gold teams. The head of Magic split last year’s gold team so that he could have two gold teams this year. I should also mention that the other gold team was at this same tournament and made it to the championship bracket after the round robin portion. But they lost in the first bracket there.) A couple of these girls gave up trying after the first two games. When they were in the last game of the round robin, these girls were just going through the motions. They didn’t serve their hardest, and they didn’t hit the ball hard. They just kind of lobbed it back over the net so they could get this thing over with and go home. Mandy tried to be the team leader and motivate everyone and get something going on, but these girls’ attitudes just crushed her. She wanted to win and she just could not get her head around how some girls couldn’t care about the rest of the team and couldn’t help fight for them. The real blow was when one of these couple girls was overheard laughing to a girl on the other Magic gold team about the team’s losses. How can you make fun of your own team? Fourteen-year-old girls are strange creatures.
They are also cruel creatures. We also got a lesson in how to be a poor winner. One of the moms was standing on the side of the court with her little kids, close to the bench of the other team we were playing at the time. The girls on the other bench were laughing at our team when we would make a mistake. Not quietly laughing. Very obviously laughing. I think I should point out that none of these girls played a perfect game. They also made mistakes. They really weren’t beating us by that many points so that anything was that funny. Also, I think these girls should remember that they were on the bench, not on the court playing the game.
The mother did what I don’t think I could have done. She spoke up. She told the girls on the other team, “Hey, not cool. What are you laughing about? They are trying just as hard as you are.” Clearly these girls haven’t lost enough games to know what good sportsmanship is. They either have never been taught how to be a good winner, or they have never known what it is like to end up the loser. It’s that tiny bit of spite in me that hopes that God has a sense of humor and that someday these girls will find themselves in the same situation, with someone laughing at them when they are down. Not cool.
But they day wasn’t a total loss. Oh, don’t misread that statement. We didn’t win the consolation round or anything like that. But after a dismal round robin, most of the team picked themselves back up, dusted themselves off, and played a competitive game in the consolation bracket. I don’t remember the score, but it wasn’t embarrassing, but we didn’t win either.
Before this game Mandy had had it. She said she was tired of always being on a team that loses. She didn’t think she could do this anymore. She had hit an all-time sports low. But out of the ashes, the phoenix rises. Of course, this wasn’t the movies so they didn’t win it all. After they ran some lines, they got together in a circle with their arms around each other and did some goofy cheers. They did some shuffle dances. They screamed and hollered and laughed and giggled. If only I had had my video camera. They decided not to beat themselves up and to make something out of the day. They had fun together off the court.
Then they went over and played one last game. After they lost, in true volleyball tournament fashion, they then had to ref the next game. There’s nothing like slapping you when you are down. At the volleyball tournaments the losing team always has to ref the next game for the team that just beat them. But nobody cried about it. They laughed and enjoyed being together.
Then we got in our cars and drove home. We hit Sam and Louie’s for some pizza when we got back to Lincoln
The girls have two weeks to practice until their next tournament. I hope their coach Taylor
This is her third year playing club volleyball, and the seasons generally start this way. At the beginning you lose more matches than you win, and you might only make it to the consolation round. But as the season goes on and you work on the things in which you struggle, and the girls have more practice playing together, and you get better. You start making it to the championship brackets, and maybe even the final championship game. Many of the teams we played Saturday have played together since they were little. This was only the second time Mandy’s team had ever played together. They will start to work together better and will work out the kinks.
And that’s what happens when you play hard competition. If you only wanted to win games, you could play at a lower level and wipe the floor with everyone. But would you get any better? Would you know what it takes to play with the elite teams? Would you know what it takes to try out for a Class A volleyball team? That’s why you pick yourself up and try again. To get better.
That’s what makes a person stronger. It’s easy to put yourself out there if all you ever do is win. But it takes a strong person to put yourself out there when it isn’t easy and when the chances are low. That’s when the wins are the sweetest and the accomplishments are the greatest.
So don’t feel sorry for our girls. True, they are starting out on the bottom. And I’m not going to pretend this is Hollywood
But they are only going to get better and they are going to be better people for it. They will appreciate the wins when they come – because there will be some wins. The girls have the skills; they just need some fine tuning.
And I can truly say that they will appreciate how it feels to have the losses. No girl on our team will laugh or demean someone on a losing team. Winners have to learn to be gracious too. And I think that is also something to be just as proud of.
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