Volleyball -- and Parenting
Youngest daughter plays volleyball. She's following in her sister's footsteps. Admittedly, she's probably influenced by the fact that she had to go to her sister's tournaments on weekends and during school, but she learned to appreciate the game and maintained she wanted to play and not watch when she got old enough.
She's on a good team this year. Good being defined as a team with players who have a great attitude and aren't just there to mark time. They want to become better players. Because they've experienced some successes and want to continue doing something at which they're good. Because they want to be around others who have the same ideals and goals.
This weekend her team went all the way to Kalamazoo for a tournament. Pretty far for a one-day competition, but her coach (her older sister) wanted the girls to see some different teams after the winter league, which was held in Warren and featured many of the same teams for the four weeks they played. And Kalamazoo is known for tougher clubs, and her coach wanted the girls to (a) see what's possible for a 14U team and (b) face a challenge they might overcome.
Pool play featured some tough teams. The girls won both games in their first match, but the first set was close, 26-24. The team was ahead early, lost some ground, and eventually came back to take the game. The second game wasn't as close, and the team moved on from there to dominate the next match against the weakest team in our pool. The first set ended 25-11, and every one of those 11 points the other team scored came on errors made by our team. The second set was pretty similar, finishing 25-14.
The last match in pool play was against a team from Flint. Good middles, good defense, good servers. And youngest daughter's team held their own, making excellent runs with good serving and smart points along the lines and on quick tips. Barring some questionable calls in one set, they might have won both rather than splitting 1-1. The team took the advantage on point differential, finished with a 5-1 record in pool play against the Flint team's 4-2, and entered the Gold bracket the second overall seed behind a Kalamazoo regional level team from the other pool, which finished with a 6-0 record. Youngest daughter's team would have finished the overall first seed if they had taken both sets against Flint, because of point differential, due to the earlier match where they dominated the last place team in their pool.
That possibly meant her team and the Flint team were just that much stronger than the other teams in their pool. Or that the Kalamazoo regional team was just that much better than the rest of the competition in their pool or in the tournament. Which is where the playoffs come into the picture.
First match in the Gold semis featured a rematch between the Kalamazoo regional team and the second place team from its pool. A team it swept. This was the first chance I had to watch the Kazoo team, and I've got to admit they were good. Really good. Better than the Flint team the girls faced in pool play. Two strong middles, one of whom clearly possesses natural talent, both as an athlete and as a volleyball player. She dominated the middle against the fourth seed, blocking and killing and passing. Only the scrappy defense and a good run of serves by the fourth seed let them take one set and force a third decider, which ended up 17-15. Good thing about that match was my daughter's team had the refereeing assignment and got see this invincible, perfect-in-pool team could lose.
Her team's semi match was against the Flint team, and the volleyball gods were in our corner. Serves trickled over the net, balls came onto the court from the silver semis and stopped play just as her team had a serving error or a bad pass or a botched kill, so they could keep the ball and build momentum. And to her credit, the coach played the girls who hadn't seen as much action in pool play, because she believes in equal playing time, and the ones she tapped for played spectacularly well and smart. They recorded ace after ace, played smart tips and played for three touches to set up kills, and just wore down the Flint team to decisively win in two sets.
The finals saw the team winning the coin toss and the serve, and the girls kept playing the same way they had against the Flint middles and back row, acing serves so the Kalamazoo team couldn't run its offense, picking smart places to lay down kills, and digging out what kills the opposing team's middles attempted to make.
Now, how this leads to an examination of parenting seems pretty straightforward.
The girls were good sports in victory, expressing excitement and joy at winning against two really good teams. They allowed the parents to take a picture of them together outside the gym, and before the night was through several had posted camera phone shots on their Facebook pages. They'd had a good time, and it seems clear to me that they want more. Which is all you can hope for if you're a parent. Last week they played in a club tourney and finished second. They could have gotten down, because they expected to win, but they practiced hard throughout the week, working on developing trust and communication, two factors essential to volleyball. There were at least a half-dozen to a dozen times Sunday where one player would pop up a ball and another would chase it down. Behind them, their teammates waited for the next pass to come to them, believing it would come, trusting that they could work together. This kept everyone in position after the ball was sent back over the net, ready for the next play.
All you can do as a parent is provide your children with opportunities and show them how to succeed and how to deal with adversity. You hope they learn from both, hope they realize how it feels to work together with someone else toward a common goal. How to support others, even though it's with something as simple as a pass or a set, because while those are just different plays in a sport, they're analogous to how you would want someone to treat you outside a game. I'm reminded of those commercials where someone goes out of their way to help another person, which leads an observer to do the same for another person.
Now, I'm looking at this from the perspective of an adult and a writer. Someone used to the ups and downs life presents and the way events conspire in ways writers know as plot. So, I can't help but believe it's important for people to work in an environment where they receive positive reinforcement and see good effort reap rewards. Those ups can only soften the blows delivered by the downs.
I believe the girls are going to enjoy their "reward" at tonight's practice and in the coming weeks. They've asked and asked when they can start training positions, specializing as hitters or setters or back row defenders. They proved they were good enough Sunday, working together as a team. Which is essential when you start specializing, because trust is so important. The setter has to count on her teammates to make the pass, the hitters need to count on the setter to give them a good ball to kill and mix up their attacks to keep their opponent guessing.
It was a good lesson Sunday, for me as a parent and for my daughters as a player and a coach.
She's on a good team this year. Good being defined as a team with players who have a great attitude and aren't just there to mark time. They want to become better players. Because they've experienced some successes and want to continue doing something at which they're good. Because they want to be around others who have the same ideals and goals.
This weekend her team went all the way to Kalamazoo for a tournament. Pretty far for a one-day competition, but her coach (her older sister) wanted the girls to see some different teams after the winter league, which was held in Warren and featured many of the same teams for the four weeks they played. And Kalamazoo is known for tougher clubs, and her coach wanted the girls to (a) see what's possible for a 14U team and (b) face a challenge they might overcome.
Pool play featured some tough teams. The girls won both games in their first match, but the first set was close, 26-24. The team was ahead early, lost some ground, and eventually came back to take the game. The second game wasn't as close, and the team moved on from there to dominate the next match against the weakest team in our pool. The first set ended 25-11, and every one of those 11 points the other team scored came on errors made by our team. The second set was pretty similar, finishing 25-14.
The last match in pool play was against a team from Flint. Good middles, good defense, good servers. And youngest daughter's team held their own, making excellent runs with good serving and smart points along the lines and on quick tips. Barring some questionable calls in one set, they might have won both rather than splitting 1-1. The team took the advantage on point differential, finished with a 5-1 record in pool play against the Flint team's 4-2, and entered the Gold bracket the second overall seed behind a Kalamazoo regional level team from the other pool, which finished with a 6-0 record. Youngest daughter's team would have finished the overall first seed if they had taken both sets against Flint, because of point differential, due to the earlier match where they dominated the last place team in their pool.
That possibly meant her team and the Flint team were just that much stronger than the other teams in their pool. Or that the Kalamazoo regional team was just that much better than the rest of the competition in their pool or in the tournament. Which is where the playoffs come into the picture.
First match in the Gold semis featured a rematch between the Kalamazoo regional team and the second place team from its pool. A team it swept. This was the first chance I had to watch the Kazoo team, and I've got to admit they were good. Really good. Better than the Flint team the girls faced in pool play. Two strong middles, one of whom clearly possesses natural talent, both as an athlete and as a volleyball player. She dominated the middle against the fourth seed, blocking and killing and passing. Only the scrappy defense and a good run of serves by the fourth seed let them take one set and force a third decider, which ended up 17-15. Good thing about that match was my daughter's team had the refereeing assignment and got see this invincible, perfect-in-pool team could lose.
Her team's semi match was against the Flint team, and the volleyball gods were in our corner. Serves trickled over the net, balls came onto the court from the silver semis and stopped play just as her team had a serving error or a bad pass or a botched kill, so they could keep the ball and build momentum. And to her credit, the coach played the girls who hadn't seen as much action in pool play, because she believes in equal playing time, and the ones she tapped for played spectacularly well and smart. They recorded ace after ace, played smart tips and played for three touches to set up kills, and just wore down the Flint team to decisively win in two sets.
The finals saw the team winning the coin toss and the serve, and the girls kept playing the same way they had against the Flint middles and back row, acing serves so the Kalamazoo team couldn't run its offense, picking smart places to lay down kills, and digging out what kills the opposing team's middles attempted to make.
Now, how this leads to an examination of parenting seems pretty straightforward.
The girls were good sports in victory, expressing excitement and joy at winning against two really good teams. They allowed the parents to take a picture of them together outside the gym, and before the night was through several had posted camera phone shots on their Facebook pages. They'd had a good time, and it seems clear to me that they want more. Which is all you can hope for if you're a parent. Last week they played in a club tourney and finished second. They could have gotten down, because they expected to win, but they practiced hard throughout the week, working on developing trust and communication, two factors essential to volleyball. There were at least a half-dozen to a dozen times Sunday where one player would pop up a ball and another would chase it down. Behind them, their teammates waited for the next pass to come to them, believing it would come, trusting that they could work together. This kept everyone in position after the ball was sent back over the net, ready for the next play.
All you can do as a parent is provide your children with opportunities and show them how to succeed and how to deal with adversity. You hope they learn from both, hope they realize how it feels to work together with someone else toward a common goal. How to support others, even though it's with something as simple as a pass or a set, because while those are just different plays in a sport, they're analogous to how you would want someone to treat you outside a game. I'm reminded of those commercials where someone goes out of their way to help another person, which leads an observer to do the same for another person.
Now, I'm looking at this from the perspective of an adult and a writer. Someone used to the ups and downs life presents and the way events conspire in ways writers know as plot. So, I can't help but believe it's important for people to work in an environment where they receive positive reinforcement and see good effort reap rewards. Those ups can only soften the blows delivered by the downs.
I believe the girls are going to enjoy their "reward" at tonight's practice and in the coming weeks. They've asked and asked when they can start training positions, specializing as hitters or setters or back row defenders. They proved they were good enough Sunday, working together as a team. Which is essential when you start specializing, because trust is so important. The setter has to count on her teammates to make the pass, the hitters need to count on the setter to give them a good ball to kill and mix up their attacks to keep their opponent guessing.
It was a good lesson Sunday, for me as a parent and for my daughters as a player and a coach.