Volleyball Camp

Today I had a volleyball camp for my student-athletes that are going to play volleyball next year. We met for three hours this morning from 9 AM to noon. I am really excited about next years volleyball season after today. I have several players who show some real promise. My current players from this year have mostly all improved. Several of them have grown seveal inches. Several of this year's 5th graders who will be 6th graders next season are really catching on quickly. Even more impressive is the couple who are not so athletically inclined and who aren't catching on as quickly show no signs of giving up. I had two girls of the younger girls that I thought we going to throw up at one point. They looked completely blown, and yet they just kept going. I'm going to like working with those girls.

In the even better news was that I met our new coach. The school has hired a new language arts teacher for next year. She also wants to help with the volleyball team. She is going to be a great addition to our program. The girls all took to her immediately. She just jumped right in and went to work. I just hope that no one figures out that she probably knows more about volleyball than I do. She has been coaching about twice as long as I have so I'm hoping that I can learn more about coaching from her.

The camp went really well and ended on a personal high note for my daughter. I end every camp and practice with the girls running a line sprint relay. All the kids in the school all know who the fastest runner in the school is. It's one of my setters from last year's championship 7th grade team. In a purely random fashion my daugher ended up racing her leg of the race against the class speed demon. My daughter started out her leg of the relay about 2 steps behind her competitor. She ended her leg of the relay about 2 steps ahead of her. The difference being the turns. The other girl kept slipping on the turns while my daughter was keeping her balance better. My daughter went home very tired, but very happy.

I just went home excited to keep going but bummed that I have to wait until June 17th for the next camp.

There was one really funny happening during the camp. About half way through the camp I was watching some of my players set and trying to figure out what was so different about this camp from all the other practices that I have run. Something was different and while I liked the difference I just couldn't put my finger on what it was. Suddenly my assistant coach walked up and said, "Wow, it is so quiet."

That's when it hit me. Not once had I needed to talk over the top of, out shout, or interrupt a player who's mouth hadn't stopped running since she walked into the gym. I liked the quiet. Sure there was a lot of volleyball noise going on, but no talking. Everyone was just concentrating on their volleyball. I loved it.