They say to quit while you’re ahead, but I wonder if I’d even be able to stop playing volleyball just because I’m doing good. Not likely at all. But I will say that I’m so proud of my volleyball teams! Before moving here, I’d played a lot of volleyball and naturally thought this small town wouldn’t have much volleyball. I couldn’t have been more wrong! I think it’s the number one sport for adults in this town-although I don’t know if they consider hunting to be a sport.
Well anyway, since moving here, I’ve played on many different teams. I didn’t know anyone when we moved here so I didn’t play for months. then my husband heard of someone who played and when I played with her it was embarrassing. She’d played in college and is a bit younger than I. I was encouraged that if she played that well then surely there would be some good competition in the leagues. I started looking for a team and managed to pull together an eclectic group of women-some of whom hadn’t played before. We signed up for the lower level division at the local community center. Frustrated doesn’t come close to what I felt being in that group at first, but we had a cool name. We were “Spiked Punch” because some of the women did resort to punching the ball. We started with 9 players rotating through. After only a couple of weeks we were down to four who came regularly. Yes, that was my core group-then one moved away. I still miss you my friend!
With us three and three new recruits , we moved up to the middle level. My new team, Steve’s Auto (we got sponsored!) was doing good. Our team got along extremely well. We acted as though we’d been playing together for years when in fact it’d been a couple months max. We did fairly well overall, not winning every week but not getting crushed either. Surprisingly, we went to the championship game of the tournament without a loss. We managed to lose 4 of the 6 games, losing to a team we’d beat before. We took runner-up, which we were still proud of.
For the summer, I played four-man, co-ed, sand volleyball at the local bowling alley. It was a blast...of wind in our eyes, playing in hail and thunderstorms. If I never do that again, it would be too soon! I had started working nights so it was often a rush to get the sand out of my toes and get to work on time. Sand volleyball took up two nights. Teams that played Wednesday and teams that played Thursday. Although we’d done well throughout the season, the tournament played the best half of Wednesday teams against the best half of Thursday’s. So going into the tournament we were ranked first for Thursday, but we’d have to play teams we’d not played before. We ended up in the championship where we handed the other team the first win. Double elimination meant we got another match to try and beat them. Which we did! My co-ed court team (of which I’m a trusty sub) pulled off a win as well! We’re having lunch tomorrow to celebrate this seasons co-ed court wins!
Fall comes around again, and another team in the upper level asked me to play for them. One team mate was working nights with me (although full time) so she couldn’t play. Another was expecting a baby so she couldn’t play. Our team kind of disbanded. It was sad! The team I joined was looking for more players and could take any of the women who wanted to move up with me. Only one didn’t (although she did later). So another new team. Great players! We hadn’t played together before our first game but we’re all very skilled players so it worked out well! Another session into it, my women’s team entered the tournament the league champions and we took the tournament by storm as well.
Wow, what a journey, but I know I’ve found the place for me. Winning-well, for me playing-can get addictive, so I won’t be retiring anytime soon!