Typical outfit (414)

There are different outfits and things to wear for different days, but mostly they all look pretty similar. The most strict is a match or tournament. For a tournament, a typical outfit would be a jersey, spandex, kneepads, socks, volleyball shoes, and of course your hair up. There is a rule that everyone needs to match, so everyone needs to be wearing the same jersey and spandex. Usually you will bring 2 or 3 jerseys to a tournament and a couple paris of spandex since most of them are multiple days. In those tournaments,  we will switch which jersey we wear every day. In a school game, it is mostly the same, but just a few things are different. We still wear a jersey, spandex, socks, kneepads, and volleyball shoes. There is a rule with the spandex that says you can only have one logo on them, so the Nike Pro spandex with the band on them would be illegal.

In practice what you wear often depends on the coach or club. In some clubs and schools you can wear whatever shirts you want, but in others there are certain colors or practice shirts that they want you wearing to practices. For Kennedy High School, we get gray practice shirts that we have to wear every practice and we have to wear them with black shorts unless they say otherwise. At our club, we have practice shirts that we wear with black or navy blue spandex. There are two different colors of practice shirts and each one is designated to one practice night, so the black one is for Tuesday night and the gray one is for Wednesday. Some coaches are really strict with the uniform rule, like our club director who makes you run for wearing the wrong thing, or they can be more relaxed about it and not really mind when you wear the wrong thing as long as it only happens once in a while. 

There are also some optional things that some people wear, like bows. Some teams will get matching bows to put in their hair for tournaments, which I personally don't use. Teams can also decide to match things, like kneepads and socks, by all wearing the same color. 

There are also some things that you are not allowed to wear when you play a match. You can not wear jewelry, bobby pins, and any other accessories that might cause a problem or fall of when you play. 

Teamwork (433)

In volleyball, teamwork is a HUGE part. This sport requires everyone on the court to play a role, and if just one person isn't doing their job it affects the whole team. Unlike basketball or soccer where one or two people could make a play by themselves, volleyball requires the teamwork of everyone on the court and not just one or two people. Because the other team controls who gets the first contact, everyone has to be ready. Also, the play that you run depends on the first contact.

You also have to use teamwork in a different way. Not only does everyone on the court have to be ready at all times, but every contact depends on the previous one. For example, the hitter can't hit well if they do not get a good set, the setter can't give them a good set of they do not get a good pass, and the passer's pass depends on how the other team hits the ball over. So, again, it all stems back to the pass. It is almost like a chain reaction or a domino effect. If the very first thing goes wrong, it affects the rest of it, but if the very first thing is good, that will also affect it in a positive way.
Everyone needs to be ready and able to adjust to things at all times, and one way to work as a team doing this is to communicate. The more you talk to your teammates, the more everyone knows about what is happening on the court. Also, part of working together is knowing who's going to take a ball. Sometimes it is obvious, like how the setter takes the second ball on a decent pass. However, other times it is not so obvious. These balls would include serves or hits that go in between two players, a bad pass that the setter can not get to, and a bad set or out of system ball that didn't go to anyone in particular. On these balls, players need to talk to one another to figure out who is going to take the ball. This isn't something they can take their time with either; for most of these balls they only have about a second to decide who's going to take the ball, and with hits and serves even less time.
Since communicating and teamwork are such a huge part of the game, it is important to have a team that gets along, works well together, and has good team chemistry. If you don't, things might not click very well. 

College (423)

 Many athletes have hopes of playing a sport in college. This is a dream tons of athletes around the world share. Some have higher aspirations of going professional and earning a living off their talent and hard work. While going to college for sports is great, you must know the dedication it takes. There are many things you need to take into consideration before you jump right into the whole college athlete thing.
High school sports are very different than college sports. The coaches in college take sports much more seriously most of the time. These coaches are payed a lot of money to train you in college. Playing a sport in college is a year-long dedication. As long as you are a part of the team, you will always have some responsibilities. This includes working out in the off season, going to open gyms, and practicing daily for long periods of time when you are in-season. The responsibilities of playing in college are much higher and it is something athletes need to take very seriously, especially if you have a scholarship.
Knowing I am a high school athlete shows that I have not learned and experienced these things for myself. I think the amount of commitment to your sport depends on the school you go to and the division your sport is in. Division 1 sports seem to be the biggest commitment, while maybe a division 3 school is still very committed, but a lot less stressful. When it comes to choosing a college to go to there are a lot of things to take into consideration. The NCAA website shows sample questions to ask yourself when debating colleges. Not only is stress, commitment, and responsibility of playing a sport important, but going to a school that suits your hopes for your future. You want to make sure that the college is the right fit for YOU and not just your sport.
           Playing sports in college takes a lot of dedication, no matter what school, if you hope to be successful. The amount of effort you put in will ultimately determine how far you go in the sport. Each school has different levels of commitment to their sport. When choosing a college, it is extremely important to think about your life later on. Don't choose a school simply for athletics. Make sure it fits the subject you want to go into and make smart decisions. College is supposed to be the first step towards adulthood, so really really think through your decision.

Pep assemblies (261)

The biggest school wide competition is the spirit stick. What is the spirit stick? Well, the spirit stick is a prize for the most spirited class, although most of the competitions that determine a winner have nothing to do with spirit. Don’t get me wrong, some do, but others really do not measure spirit, but luck or chance. Also, the pep assemblies are originally about introducing our new season’s sports, clubs, activities, getting students excited for them, and recognizing the past sports’ accomplishments. Although they do this, the main purpose has moved away from this and towards winning the spirit stick. The students are way more focused on what class is the best than the actual reason for the assemblies. Even though the students probably don’t think of it this way, the competition for the stick may cause the classes to go against each other, because only one class is happy with the end result. This also somewhat goes against what the whole purpose of the spirit stick is for also. If the stick is meant to create spirit and pride in your school, and pride and spirit in a school promotes teamwork and a good environment. But, since the other three classes didn’t win, they are not going to be super happy about the outcome, but at the same time, they expected. Most of the student expect the seniors to win every time, so when they do it is no surprise. Because what school doesn’t want their seniors to win? Of course, you don’t want to lose your senior year!

Nationals

Nationals is what everyone looks forward to at the end of the season. It is the end of the year event that everyone tries to qualify for all season and train for. Nationals are one of the reasons for qualifiers, so that teams can qualify, other than at their regionals.
There are two different types of nationals: USA and AAU. The main difference is that you have to qualify to get into all the divisions except one at USA Nationals. In AAU, you don't have to qualify; you sign up for the division you think you should be in. Also, USA Nationals changes their location every year to a different city, and AAU Nationals is always in Orlando, Florida.
In USA Nationals, there are four different divisions: Open, National, American, and Patriot. You have to qualify for Open, National, and American, but not for Patriot. Patriot is the only one that you sign up for, so there are a lot of teams that want in on Patriot, just in case they don't qualify. They only take a certain amount, so in order to get a spot in that division, you have to sign up fairly early. Now, if you are signed up in Patriot early in the season, but you later qualify, then you can drop out of Patriot and join the division you qualified in.
There are multiple ways to qualify for nationals. One way is to get a bid through regionals. In Iowa, the first place team gets a National bid, and the second and third place teams get American bids. Another way is to win one at a qualifier. At qualifiers, you sign up for what division you want to play in and that is what bid you are fighting for. In different divisions the circumstances are different, for example; in the open division the top three teams get bids, but in the american division just the top team gets a bid. One last way to get a bid is a trickle down bid. This means that you placed just under a qualifying place at a tournament, but the team ahead of you either declined the bid or already has a different bid, so the bid then "trickles" down to you. For example: if you placed fourth at regionals, but the third place team already got a bid from a qualifier and they chose to keep that one, then they would decline the region's bid and it would go to you, the next one in line.
AAU Nationals, however, are different. There is no qualifying for them, you sign up, similar to the Patriot division. It is different though. There are four divisions: Open, Premier, Club, and Classic. The club will enter the tournament for a tournament fee and select a division based on their skill level and where they think they should be.
I have been to both nationals, and both are very competitive and are worth going to. Here is a link for more info about AAU Nationals: http://aauvolleyball.org/Events/NationalChampionships/2016GirlsNationals.aspx
Here is a link for more info about USA Nationals: http://www.teamusa.org/usa-volleyball/events/indoor/girls/2016-girls-jnc

Words: 531

Pin hitters (554)

Pin hitters are the name for the hitters other than the middles. They are the right sides and left sides. They can also be called outside and opposite. Outside hitters are supposed to be one of the best hitters on the team. They also should be a decent passer and some even play all six rotations because they are good enough passers to stay in for back row. Right sides, or opposites, are supposed to be good blockers, since they are blocking the other team's outside, or best hitter. You can either run a 5-1 or a 6-2 offense (either one or two setters) and some teams run a 6-2 so that they can have a right side hitter and blocker in at all times. 

There are 2 outsides and one right side in the rotation  of six players, but any of these players can be subbed out by a DS or a libero when they get to the back row. The 2 outsides are always opposite each other, or 3 rotations away from each other. 

The outsides usually get the majority of the sets, especially when there is a bad pass or they are out of system. On these bad passes, the set probably will not be perfect, so the hitter has to be ready and be able to put the ball in play and be able to adjust to the set. Since these hitters get a lot of the sets, they can also get tired faster than the other hitters, especially if they are playing six rotations. A lot of the time, a coach will tell their players to try and serve or hit at the other team's outside and make her pass to try and fire her out. If it works, she might not hit as well as when she wasn't tired. This might be because she isn't jumping as high, moving as fast, or hitting as hard. 

The opposites, on the other hand, usually have someone come in for their back row and are not usually six rotation players . The person who comes in for their back row is almost always a DS, not a libero, since liberos typically come in for the middles. 

Also, whenever the setter passes the first ball and the libero has to set, it is almost never going to the middle, so that means that all the balls that the libero sets have to go to the pin hitters. That's another reason why the pin hitters always have to be ready for the ball and be able to adjust to any set. A big part of being ready for a set is transitioning. Transitioning is literally the "transition" between defense(blocking or off block coverage) and offense( being ready to hit). When they transition to their hitting spot, they are supposed to go just past the ten foot line outside the court, although this could change depending on height, quickness, age, and if you are a righty or lefty. For example, if you have long legs and take bigger steps, then you would want to transition further off the net so you have more room for your hitting approach. Also, if you are left handed, you want to start your approach slightly to the right of where a right handed person would start their approach. 

Silent signals and signs (444)

Like terminology in a sport there are also hand signals involved. Hand signals are just as important as terminology. Depending on the sport hand, signals can be used differently. They also mean different things for different people playing or reefing the sport.

For the sport of volleyball hand signals are used to be secretive and faster for communicating what the hitters want. Because everyone that plays volleyball knows what a 1 ball is or a 31 ball etc., so the setter will use hand signals to replace the numbers to make it more secretive. To make it secretive, the setter will pull their jersey to make it act as a wall and then hold up a number or a signal for the play. There are different plays for different situations. In serve receive the plays are going to more simple and not so complex. When there is a free ball plays are going to be complicated and hard for the opponents defense and block.  You will see more pin hitters hitting faster and different kind of sets than they would on a serve receive ball.

For the reefing point of view, they have a huge amount of signals to give. They don't communicate by yelling out number usually. Reefing is a hard job. If you would like to be a ref I would suggest to have the personality of toughness and standing your ground. Parents, coaches and players get on their back for the type of calls they make. When they give the right away to serve, their signal will be, their arm coming across their chest to hit the opposite shoulder. Every type of call they make has to be accompanied by their whistle. By making a call they will have to do the following;  they will blow their whistle and then point to the side that received the point, then signal what happened on the side that made the mistake. By calling a lift, they will move their hand up looking like they are carrying a tray. A double hit will be called sometimes and that is referred to just the number two being held up with their fingers. If one of the players touches the tape or hits the net, they will give the signal to the team that won the point and then give the signal by slightly touching the net, while telling the coach what number it was by their fingers. If the setter or one of the players trying to save a ball crosses the center line the ref will point at the center line with their pointer finger. There are a lot more signals refs will give.

Club vs. School

There are many differences between club volleyball and high school volleyball. Club season can last up to eight months and as short as five months. High school volleyball only last up to three months. Both club and high school have one goal, and that is to get to state and win it and for club to make it to nationals and succeed at nationals. In high school to get to state all depends on how well they do in the beginning of the year. If the high school volleyball team has a winning start of the season they will have a better regional seeding to have their ride to state. Now club volleyball is all about the tournaments the team is in and how well they do. If they are in more qualifiers: tournaments with teams all over America to receive a bid to nationals. Teams can either receive a bid from a qualifier tournament or the state that team is from regionals. If they place first or second in either of those tournaments they will receive a bid to nationals. This is extremely exciting! It is an award of how hard you have worked. 

High school state volleyball is short. It last for three days. Each class plays on a different day. There is 5a, 4a, 3a, 2a, and 1a. Volleyball, basketball and softball are the only sports in high school that have 5a. There is a total of three days for each class that the state tournament lasts. If the team makes it all the way to the championship they would have played a total of three matches, one match a day. This is a big thing to be apart of in high school. Going to state is the ultimate goal for high school athletes. State volleyball is hosted in the U.S. Cellular Center downtown Cedar Rapids. There are two courts set up right next to each other with a curtain between them, so the game balls won't be interrupting the courts. Once you lose you are done with that high school volleyball season. The girls cry and the seniors realize that they are done with high school volleyball and on to the next step in their lives.

Club nationals is a lot different than high school state volleyball. State volleyball is right after regional. Nationals are hosted in June and last about three weeks. There are multiple different age groups ranging from eleven year olds to eighteen year olds. Then on top of that there are different divisions in the age groups. There are five different divisions. Patriot which is the lowest, then there is USA, American, National, and Open. Open is the best of the best. Usually there are only 26 teams that are allowed to be in the open division. This is where most of the college coaches come to scout players. National division still has top teams, because the teams that didn't make open but at a national qualifier ended up in the top 5, but couldn't pull it through to receive a bid got pushed down to the national division. If you make the national division instead of open you still should be ready to compete, because there are tough teams and triple the amount of teams than in open. Winning or even placing in the top 15 at nationals is outstanding and will get your club name out there.
Words: 568

Diving (365)

How many volleyball players really know how to dive for a ball? Not many actually. When you are learning how to play the game of volleyball they don't usually teach you how to dive. This lesson is usually taught later, because learning the technique of passing is much more important than diving. Playing volleyball you want to pass the ball before you dive. If a volleyball player is always on the floor and not getting balls up then they aren't doing anything for the team. There is a saying that goes, "my grandmother can dive too. STAY ON YOUR FEET."

When on defensive and there is a strong powerful hitter coming up against the defenders, the defense is usually on their heels so when they tip the defenders will dive for the ball, because they aren't ready for it. Coaches and the other teammates get mad if the defender misses the tip.Tips are the easiest kind of balls to pick up.

The correct way to dive is by tucking in your leg and landing on your outer thigh. Knee pads are to protect your knees from brusies and cuts. Because many players don't learn how to dive at a young age, they land on their knees using their knee pads. This is extremely dangerous and bad for their knees. It is important to learn how to dive right, so they can not only save their knees but get balls up that they wouldn't be able to get up before. This helps both them and their team.

When going after a ball you are going to take a big step towards that direction and then tuck your leg and land on your thigh. After the dive you will either do a log roll or a summer salt roll. the summer salt roll is when after the ball is up you will roll over the shoulder that is on the same side of the thigh that you dove on. A log roll is when you roll side ways like a log. The summer salt roll is used more often. It really depends on what the person is doing in the moment on which roll they choose.

Brands

What brands are popular in volleyball? Well, there are a lot of different brands in different areas, and different types of volleyball(sand vs. indoor). Also, there is a difference in brands for volleyball gear, and the actual volleyballs and equipment.
For the actual volleyballs, some of the most popular brands are Tachikara, Molten, Spalding, Wilson, Mikasa, and Baden. There are others, but these are the only ones that I have actually seen in person. Most of the indoor club tournaments, USA and AAU, use Molten balls, and very rarely have been to a tournament that uses any other brand of ball. NCAA also uses Molten, along with FIVB. Sand tournaments usually use Molten, Wilson, and Spalding, because those brands make good outdoor balls, which are slightly different than indoor balls.
The volleyball gear brands, however, are different. Some of the most popular brands for gear are Mizuno, Infinity, Nike, Asics, Rox, Adidas, and more. You can buy gear at any of these places, but a lot of the time, a team will all get the same brand of things, especially if their team, school, or club is sponsored by that brand. If a team is sponsored by a brand, that means they have to wear that brand's gear when they play in matches or tournaments, and that team gets a discount off of the gear. Most club teams and school teams are sponsored by a certain brand, and in order to have matching jerseys, they obviously all have to be the same brand. For example, my club team is sponsored by Rox, so at tournaments we all have to wear our Rox jersey, spandex, kneepads, and socks, but we can wear whatever shoes we want. Some teams will or will not include different things, like shoes, socks, spandex, etc., but every team always has to be wearing the same jerseys.
Also, some of the brands in certain types of volleyball are different than others. For example, Rox is a popular beach brand, but not as popular indoor brand, and Infinity is a popular indoor brand, but not as much in sand.
Words: 351

Cost for Club (419)

Club sports are costly for parents. Every sport has a club fee fro playing the game, some more than others. They not only have a fee for playing, but they have to pay for their jerseys, team shoes, and socks if the sport team requires it. They also have to pay for every tournament they enter in.
Every tournament has a fee that the club will pay. It could be $100 to $800. The club then splits the amount among the athletes on the team. The more girls on a team, the less the cost is going to be for one player. A volleyball team has up to about 10 girls on the team, similar to a basketball team. There are perks to having more people on a team, because the cost will be lower. At the same time, having more players on a team could be stressful, because some girls might not get a lot of playing time, and you have to work harder for your spot.
A lot of teams that are good and have players that are going to big places will have matching shoes, socks, and knee pads. Having to buy new apparel can get expensive. If a team is sponsored by a certain company, like Nike, then they will have to wear Nike apparel when they play in tournaments. Say you had Mizuno shoes and Infinity knee pads, but your team is sponsored by Nike, then you would have to buy new Nike shoes and knee pads to play for the team.
To play for a team, there are tryouts that the athletes have to attend in order to be considered fro the team. These tryouts also have a cost. Usually a club hosts 3 or 4 tryouts. They will cost around 60 dollars, but you get to go to every tryout. It isn't just one and done; you can go to multiple to show that you are dedicated and want to be on the team. Now say you didn't make the team. That means you payed that club money but you will not even be playing there, and if you do make the team, you will have to pay even more for the club fee and everything else the club requires. Also, if you don't make their team, but still want to play volleyball, then you have to tryout at multiple places, just in case you don't make your first pick, and the more tryouts you go to, the more money you pay.

Liberos

For starters, liberos are the ones with the different color jersey. That is usually the most popular question about volleyball. They wear a different color jersey because they are the only ones who can go in for someone without using up a substitution. You usually use a libero for a certain position the whole time, and not just once in a while. They know for sure that the libero will be going in all of the time for the same two people every time, but you can change who they go in for. The reason why they can go in without using a substitution is because they are constantly going in and out so they would take up a ton of subs. This would be a problem because you get a limited amount of substitutions. Even though they can just run in without using a sub, that doesn't mean they can just do whatever they want. There are rules to being a libero, and there is even a designated ref called the libero tracker keeping track of when and who the libero for each team goes in for. One of the rules is that when the libero goes in for someone, that same person has to go back in for the libero when the libero comes out. Another rule is that the libero can only serve for one person, for example if she served for the first middle, she cannot also serve for the second middle. There is another rule about the libero setting, and it's kind of complicated. If the libero sets a hitter, she must be behind the ten foot line when she sets the ball, otherwise the hitter can't jump and hit it. If she does hit it when the libero sets in front of the ten foot line, then the ref calls, but if the hitter sees that the libero set in front of he ten foot line, the could stay down(not jump) and hit it over. Another option, and one that a lot of liberos do, is to just pass set the ball with their platform instead of actually setting, that way they don't have to worry about being in front of the ten foot line. The liberos are suppose to be the best passer on the team, which makes sense because they usually on the court all the time. They are the defensive leaders who also should be one of the ones who communicate the most on the court. 

Word count: 418

Volleyball vocab

In volleyball, just like any sport, there are certain words that only the people who play, or know the game, will know what it means. These words are a sort of "jargon" for volleyball, and if used by people who don't play, they probably wouldn't understand what it meant. Here is a list of some of these words:

Pancake- while most think of the breakfast food, to volleyball players it is a one handed dive where the ball to the floor, but you get one hand in between the floor and the ball.

Ace- instead of a card from a deck, this is when the server scores a point off of serve receive. 

Pepper- most people think of a spice or vegetable, but volleyball players think of passing, setting, and hitting back and forth to your partner. 

Joust- when I think of a joust(the non volleyball one) I think of a midieval game played on horses. When volleyball players hear it, they think of when the ball is falling on top of the net and two players go up and try to push the ball over at the same time.

Hut- no this is not a small house, but a low set to the outside hitter.

Pipe- not the metal pipe, but a back row set to the back middle. 

Six-pack- no this is not beer, this is when a defending player gets hit in the face by another hit or block. 

Roof- this is when the blockers block the ball right back down to the other side, not the top of your house. 

Tool- this is when a hitter hits the ball off of the blockers hands and scores a point off of it.
Like all the other sports, and really any group or club of any kind, volleyball has specific "jargon" and slang words that only pertain to that specific group, and only the people in it will understand. It is really quite interesting that things that are very familiar to you, a different person might have no idea what it is or what you mean when you say it.

Words: 352

Setters

How do the hitters know what to run? Who decides? This would be the setter. The setter is one of the leaders on the court who is constantly communicating with everyone on the court. They decide what plays the hitters run and when. The setters are the ones who take the second ball almost every time and "set" it up for the hitters to hit. The only times that the setter doesn't take the second ball is when the setter takes the first ball in defense, and when it is out of system. When the setter digs the ball on defense, they are trained to dig it to the middle of the court and the libero or left back takes the second ball. They usually will set a nice, high ball to the outside. Most teams have the libero take the second ball out of system, but some do it differently, for example they  would have the right front take the second ball instead of the libero. The other way to be out of system is to have a pass not to target. Setters can get to a lot of our of system balls, but they will not have all three hitting options, or they might not be able to run the tempo that they would on a good pass. If the pass is far enough away and the setter can not get to it, then a different player, usually who ever is the closest to the ball, will take it. 

In system passes, however, are different. You can run all three options, or two options if the setter is front row, plus any back row attacks. A lot of coaches teach tempo, which is setting at a faster pace. Tempo is harder for the other team to defend, and can fake the other team out if the setter sets something else. A team can run combination plays, where the hitters run different tempo sets. These plays are run on 3 passes(perfect/great passes) and on serve receive. They can throw another team off, and open up spots for certain hitter to score. For example if the middle runs a slide, they might pull the other middle blocker with them, leaving the outside hitter with only one blocker to hit around. The setters are the ones who come up with the plays that the hitters run. There are many things they take into consideration when deciding which plays to run and who to set: the other team's defense(open spots), their blockers(if they cheat one way or are weak or strong), hot hitter, match ups, setter back or front row, what plays work well together, and when to run them. It is important to have a smart setter who knows how to look at the match ups, the other team, and makes smart setting decisions. 

Word count: 477 

Middles

When a volleyball player talks about middles, they mean the middle in the front row, not the back row. They are usually some of the tallest players on the court along with the right side. Their main jobs on the court are to be a big blocker and run a fast offense, which helps out the other hitters. They have to be a big blocker because they block every hit- the other team's middle, left and right side hitters. They are always putting a block up to help the back row and to make it difficult on the other team's hitters. They also have to be quick to be a middle because they block every one. So when the setter sets the hitters they have to react fast and get there to block bridge the hitter hits the ball, which can be only a 1 or 2 second period of time. Their main responsibility is to stay on the other team's middle, so when the middle comes in for a fast set they go up with them, but if the setter sets a different hitter, the blocker has to land and try to get to that hitter and put up  a block before they hit as well. Another reason they have to be fast is to run a fast offense with the setter. Most of the sets that go to the middle are faster paced, or more tempo, than the pin (outside) hitters. Some of these tempo sets are quicks, which are low sets right in front of the setter, 31's, which are fast low sets that that are in a spot in between the middle spot and the outside spot, a six, which is just like a quick but behind the setter, and a slide, which is a fast low set behind the setter that goes all the way to the right pin. The middles have to be very fast to run these plays because during a play, or in transition, they have to come down from blocking and be fast enough to track the ball to the setter and already be taking their steps for an approach before the setter even touches the ball.

Defensively, however, they aren't as important, unless you have a middle that is also a stud at defense. Typically, they are taller so they don't move as fast when they are down low for defense. This is why the libero usually goes in for the middles so that they don't have to play defense.

Words: 420

Run Throughs (292)

There are a lot of ways to prepare for a match, and one of the Kennedy volleyball team's ways is to do a run through on gamedays. A run through is similar to a mini practice. It is always right after school on gamedays, and it gets done in enough time to go home or go get something to eat before the match. We try to make these run throughs game like, so the first thing we do is run out from the doors like we would at a game and do our warm up while listening to the CD that we will listen to that night. At these run throughs, we "run through" all of our rotations and the other teams rotations, hence the name "run throughs". We also look at all the match ups with what players in what spots would work the best against the other team's players. We get the information about the other teams through watching film, which we do a couple days before a match, and maybe even multiple times if it is a very important match. The run throughs are meant to get you warmed up a little and thinking about the rotations you are going to run in the game so that there is no confusion in the match about who goes where. It is also a chance to get mentally prepared for the match, which is very important because a large part of volleyball is mental. It is also important to have a routine, which this is a part of, before a game. It helps get you into the game time mindset. This helps us get focused, mentally prepared, physically prepared, and gets us thinking about the other team's offensive and defensive systems. 

Watching Film

Many teams watch film of their opponents. This is typically used in high school volleyball more than in club volleyball because in school volleyball you know who your opponent is way before you play them and have access to their game film. 

In club, it is much different. In club, you do not know who you are going to play in advance. For tournaments, you receive a tournament schedule, saying which teams are in your starting pools, but you still don't know which teams you would play later in the tournament. You receive this schedule about a week before the tournament, since they have to deal with teams dropping out of the tournament or adding on. And then you still don't know anything about these teams if it is a national tournament, like a qualifier, because they are from a different state than you. You may recognize some of the teams from previous years, but most of the teams there are ones you have never seen play before. The only exception might be in town tournaments, because you know how the local teams play, but you still don't watch any film on them. 

When we watch film for school volleyball, it is usually for important or difficult upcoming matches. Sometimes we just watch it first without talking about rotations, so we can just take notes on things we notice about the team. Other times, we will talk about rotations and certain players first so that we know what to look for when we watch it. We usually  look for team and player weaknesses, strengths, rotations, defense and offense systems, team tendencies, and anything else worth noting. We then take that and think of things that we can do or change to help us win against them. On very important matches, we watch film a couple of times before the match, so we can see them multiple times and maybe notice things we didn't before.  

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Cedar Falls vs Kennedy (381)

This is the match we've all waited the whole season for. All of our hard work and dedication leading up to that moment. On Tuesday, November 10th, at 10 AM, we have our state quarter final match. This is our first game of state and the first state game that Kennedy Volleyball has played in 4 years. This game is very important and we will be doing a lot of preparation leading up to the match. This weekend, we had a scrimmage against West Liberty at our gym, then a team dinner in the Kennedy cafeteria. Following that, we had some team bonding time. Coach Goodall had us split up into 4 teams to play team building games. On Monday, we will have practice then our end of the year banquet and Tuesday is our match! No one from the volleyball team will be in classes that day, but we will be at Kennedy. We will have a run through practice starting at 9 AM, followed by a short review of Cedar Falls. Since we've already played Cedar Falls, there are some things we already know about them. They beat us in a tournament earlier in the season, but we then beat them in our conference game. They are a young team, and we are not. This is good for us because we will be more likely to handle the pressure of being in the crowded US Cellular Center in the State Tournament. We also know about their offense and defense they run, so we can try to prepare for it. If there are any changes though, we can adjust accordingly. After the review, we have a send off in the foyer at about 10:48 AM. This will be similar to the state swimming send off we had on Friday. Right after the send off, we will be on our way to the US Cellular Center! We are going to arrive early to watch the 12 o'clock match to get use to the atmosphere and feel of the place we will be playing in. Then, before we know it, it will be time to warm up for our match! I think we can beat Cedar Falls, but they are a very good team and we cannot take them for granted!

Upcoming club season

One season is over, another begins. Everyone has just got over with their high school season. Some are sad, but some are ready for a change. For me, club is something I look forward to and it is a nice change from high school season, even though high school season was fun.   After everyone finished their high school season, they go to a tryout or tryouts. Tryouts are exciting because you get to play with some different players and it is a little preview of club before it starts! That is the same with camps; they are a good way of getting players excited for the season and maybe even to play for that club.
It is even more exciting to get that call or text from a coach saying that you have a spot and they want you on the team! Although this is very exciting, this can be one of the hardest decisions if you get multiple offers and you have to make a choice. This is sometimes stressful because this choice can affect your improvement that season depending on how much good coaching and playing experience you get on a certain team. Once you have decided and committed though, it is a great feeling, and you are very anxious to start your season with new, or old, teammates.
Once you get your team together and start practice, you really get to know your teammates and they become really good friends. The team bonding is one of the most fun parts about being a team and one thing that I have done almost every year of club volleyball is team sleepovers. It is a great way to get to know your teammates and become friends with them, and they are always really fun!
At the beginning of the season, you start off with smaller tournaments that are closer, or leagues, like the league that our club hosts for three weekends in January. These are tournaments to help kick start a season and figure out what line ups and systems work the best for your team before you go to the big tournaments and qualifiers later on. They also give the players a little taste of what's to come: the three day qualifiers. This is what a lot of players, including me, look forward to, and at the beginning of the season, we all just can't wait for them! Personally, I am super excited for this club season and I already really like my team!
Words: 416

Post Season (429)

Some high school teams' seasons are done in late October, but for others, like our volleyball team, are not finished until mid November. This is because of sub state. Sub state is a series of matches after the normal season. Only one of them is guaranteed, and the other two you have to earn. The way to earn them is by winning your previous games. So if you win the first one, you move on to regional semi finals,which was our game against Jefferson. Then if you win that game you continue on to regional finals, which was our game against Ankeny. If you win your regional final, then you qualify for State. If you lose any of these games, your season ends and you don't get to go to state unless you are watching other teams. State volleyball has been held at the Wells Fargo Center in the past, but recently it has been at the US Cellular Center in downtown Cedar Rapids. That explains the saying "to the cell." State volleyball is split into five different divisions, just like other sports. These divisions are 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A. Kennedy is 5A, the biggest division. Making state is a very big achievement because only eight teams from each class make it, and this is the first time in 4 years that Kennedy has made it to state, losing in the regional final for the past 3 years. The other schools who made it to state in the 5A division are IC West, who beat Linn Mar in the regional final, Dowling Catholic, who beat Valley, Cedar Falls, who beat Marshalltown, Dubuque Hempstead, who beat Prairie,  Bettendorf, who beat Pleasant Valley, Johnston, who beat Southeast Polk, and Ankeny Centennial, who beat Sioux City East. State works the same way that regionals do; only one game is guaranteed and you have to earn your other games by winning. If you end up making it all the way to finals, you will play a total of three matches at state. Our first game, the quarter finals, is against Cedar Falls, who we have played before in tournament and conference. They beat us in the tournament, but we beat them in the conference match. If we defeat them, then we move onto the semi finals and play the winner of IC West and Bettendorf. Then if we win that, we would move on to the finals against the semi final winner from the other side of the bracket. The winner of that match would then be the state champions!

US Cellular Center (436)

      The US Cellular Center. What is it you might ask? It's the end of the road for most volleyball teams, it's the sweet, sweet smell of victory. Only 8 teams, the best of the best, get the honor of playing on the perfectly laid down sport court in the middle of hundreds of cheering fans. The electrifying energy of the US Cellular Center is something you can't explain, you can only experience.
       The "Cell Center" as some call it, is the sanctuary of state volleyball. 5a, 4a, 3a, 2a, 1a, it doesn't matter how big or small the team is, as long as you win the regional games, you will have the honor to play at the Cell Center. In previous years, the State Volleyball tournament was played at the Ice Arena, down the street from the Cell Center, which was under construction, and when they made the announcement last year that the Tournament was being held at Cell Center again, everyone was excited that they once again will have the chance to play under the bright LED lights of the Cell Center.
     But don't get me wrong, even though playing at the Cell Center is such a magical experience, every team ends their season in heart break except for one, the State Champion. Only a handful of teams can describe the feeling of being State Champions. During the state tournament, there are two courts squeezed into the arena floor, but for the championship game, overnight the two courts are morphed into one and the real fun begins. Not only do family and friends come to support the championship game, but teams from all over Iowa, news stations, newspaper reporters, maybe even Ashton Kutcher or Chris Soules make an appearance to watch the battle of all battles.
       And this year, it is our year. Kennedy Highschool Volleyball. We have had three years of heartbreaking losses in the regional final, but this year we finally made it, and we are NOT letting our chance slide away from us. This year, we have all the weapons we need to finally snatch a state title for our school, we have the DRIVE. Something about the Kennedy Highschool Volleyball Team, we are like conductors of the electricity running through the air, we love it, we want more, we yearn to play for big crowds. We have been preparing for this Tuesday for years. This Tuesday we will make history, this Tuesday we will make The US Cellular Center our home. The Cell Center is calling our name, and we will come running, because this year, The Cell Center is ours.

Frequently Asked Questions (690)

Who wears the different color jersey and why?

A: the player who wears the different color jersey is called the libero. The libero is the best passer on the team and the defensive leader. Since they are the best passer, they get more playing time. The libero can go in for someone with out using a substitution. They typically go in for the middles when they get to the back row, but can go in for anyone in the back row. They usually play left back, but they could play right or middle back too. 
How do you get out of rotation?

A: first off, your team will start off in a line up, or an order, that you have to stay in the whole game, so when you rotate, you keep that same order. An easy was to tell if you are in the right spot is to look at the people to the right and left of you and your opposite, and if they are the same as when you started then you are in the right spot. 
How do you know who's turn it is to serve?

A: this goes with the rotations; if you know who is next to you in the rotation and you know where you are on the court, then it is easy to tell when you serve. The right back player is always the server so when your team rotates, then so does the server. So if you keep track of who serves right before you, you can tell when it's almost your turn to serve! 
What are the positions?

A: there are three categories to positions in volleyball: passing, setting, and hitting. For passing, you can have one or two liberos and then the rest of the passers are called defensive specialists, or DS for short, and sub in for hitters when they get to the back row. For setting, there is a setter. Their job is to set the ball after the pass and set it up to the hitters so they can hit. The setter is a leader who runs the offense and decides what the hitters are running. There can be one setter that sets all the way around for 6 rotations, or there can be 2 setters who set for 3 rotations each. Lastly, for hitting, there are different types of hitters. There are left or outside hitters who play left front. They usually get the majority of the sets and are supposed to be somewhat good at passing also. There are middles who play in middle front and they usually run faster paced sets like 1s, 31s, and slides. They are also one of the biggest blockers, since they are always blocking every hit from the other team. There are right side or opposite hitters who are opposite the setter and play in right front. They are also supposed to be one of the strongest blockers because they are blocking the other team's outside hitter, which is the player who gets the most sets. 
Why can't you touch the net?

A: just think if you COULD touch the net. People would be running into the net and the other team's players all the time. The passes would also get sloppy because the setter doesn't have to worry about being in the net. The purpose for the net rule is to prevent injury from happening. There are a lot of injuries, like sprained ankles, that happen at the net when people go up for a tight ball and one lands on the other's foot. This is also the reason for the center line rule that goes with the net rule. 
How many people play at a time?

A: There are six people on the court at one time; three in the front and three in the back.

What do you have to do for conditioning and workouts?

A: Honestly, this depends on the coach. Some coaches will have their team do a lot of conditioning, and some won't. Also, some will try to incorporate conditioning into the drills they do at practice instead of doing conditioning seperately. 

Tournaments (312)

People have asked how you run tournaments in volleyball, and my answer is this; it is similar to other sports. You have pool play, then move on to bracket/tournament play. In smaller tournaments, the pools are random, but in bigger tournaments they usually base the pools off of seedings. Seedings are what "rank" your team has before a tournament based on your record so far that season. They arrange the pools so that all of the highest seeded teams, which are "suppose to be" the best teams there, are all in different pools. They do this so that hopefully those good teams will meet up later in bracket play and in the championships. 

Once pool play is done, a certain number of teams move up depending on the size of the tournament. At smaller tournaments, only the #1 team in each pool might move up, but in bigger tournaments with 100 or more teams the 1st and 2nd team and sometimes 3rd teams from each pool move up to gold. 

Once pool play is over, bracket/tournament play starts. You either move to gold, silver, bronze, etc, depending on how you preformed in pool play. In this bracket, you have to keep winning to continue playing, so if you lose, you're done, although sometimes you can lose and still play if a third place team needs to be determined. This would be at tournaments that gave away bids to nationals, or any big tournament that would be a big part of your record and future seedings. So technically the only team that ends a tournament on a win is the champion and the winner of each bracket, if there are several different brackets. But at smaller tournaments, there are not several different brackets; instead there is a consolation bracket, where the lower half of the pools play for a consolation champion. 

Serving (434)

How does one serve? 

This depends on a couple of things. What level of volleyball is it? What type of serve are you trying to learn? 

For beginner volleyball, people usually start with an underhand serve. This is the most basic type of serve in volleyball, and this serve doesn't have very much control. All you have to do is swing your arm a little and hit the ball with the knuckle and palm side of the fist. For higher-level volleyball you serve overhand. There are different types of overhand serves including standing float, standing topspin, jump float, and jump topspin. Anytime you are serving, you want to hit the ball with a firm, open hand and aim more upwards. For any float serve, you want to hit the ball mainly with your palm, drive through the ball, and don't snap your wrist or follow through all the way. For this type of serve, the less spin the better. The purpose of this serve is to make the ball "float" or move a little in the air, making it difficult for the passer on the other side. For a jump float, the footwork is almost like a rhythm. I take my first(and biggest) step at the same time as tossing the ball just above my head, then take two little steps, then jump and swing. Since I'm right handed, my footwork is left, right left. A lefty's footwork would be the opposite: right, left right. 

For topspin serves, you want to contact the ball high and snap your wrist, causing the ball to have spin. When you toss the ball, you can either toss plain or put spin on your toss. When you jump serve, toss like you are bowling up at the ceiling with your hitting hand, then go into your approach, which is the same footwork for right handers: left, right left, or for left handers: right, left right. The toss should be higher and have some spin on it. 

To get even more complex, your coaches can call which zones on the court they want you to serve. The way you are facing, the direction of your swing,how high you aim, and the way you turn your hand can all change where the ball is going to go on the court. For example, a person's normal serve usually goes to a back row player on the other team, but your coach can call a short zone, for which you would have to change the trajectory of the ball(how high you aim) and how hard you hit the ball. 

Club Tryouts (577)

One of my favorite times of the year is club volleyball season, and to start this, there are club tryouts. These can be stressful for some, and not for others. It can be stressful for players to be trying out for a position on a team they would really like to play for, especially I might it is their top pick. A lot of players who tryout will tryout for multiple teams, just in case they don't make their top pick. Personally, I do not get very nervous about things like tryouts and tests. My thinking is that I will give my best effort and not worry about it. 

The first thing a player needs to do is decide which clubs they would consider playing for, and decide which ones they want to try out for. You can either pre-register or be a "walk up" and sign up the day of the tryout. At tryouts you get a preview of the players you are competing with, how the coaches are, and a feel for the gym atmosphere and intensity. The coaches are evaluating you as a player in different ways. They will evaluate your skills, attitude, court IQ, how you connect with the other players, effort level, and anything else they are looking for in a player. 

One of the most stressful, hard decisions in this process is choosing where to play. This is a big decision because where you choose to play includes the players you play with, the coaches who coach you, and the tournaments you go to. These things can affect how you will grow as a player. For example, if you get good coaching, that will improve your skills, and if you go to bigger tournaments and play in harder divisions that will improve your team and give you more exposure to college coaches. Another aspect is recruiting for college. Which club coaches will work the hardest to help you get recruited? Some clubs will even try to convince you to choose them by telling you what players have already committed to that team. 

There are some rules with these tryouts. Some coaches like to get a head start and secure spots for the players they are 100% sure they want to take on their team again, so they ask them to commit early. If you say yes and commit early, then you can only go to that club's tryout, and no one else's. For some, it feels like a weight is lifted off their shoulders since they made the decision early and got it out of the way. If you don't want to commit early, you can say no and you are not completely off the list. If you tryout, you could still make the team and decide then that you want to commit. Another rule with tryouts deals with the overlap of high school volleyball. The rule is that you cannot do any club tryouts until your high school season is over, so if your team qualifies for the state tournament, then those players can't participate in any tryouts until they are done at state. Because of this rule, many clubs offer a third tryout date specifically for the varsity players who make it to state and can't go to the normal tryout dates. 

For many people this is a stressful time where they need to make and important decision, but for others it is and exciting start to club season! 

Club vs School (293)

Most volleyball players play both high school and club volleyball. There are some similarities and also some differences. The biggest difference is probably the time frame. School volleyball is only 3 months- August, September, and October. Club volleyball lasts about 6 months- December to late June or early July. Part of the reason that the club season lasts so long is because of nationals. The last big tournament is usually in April or May and nationals is in late June, so there is a gap where you just practice and prepare for nationals. 

Another difference is that in club you are only playing with your age group, while in high school you are playing with a mix of up to four different age groups. Also, in club you travel out of state and in school you don't leave Iowa. 

There are some ways that they are similar though. Even though the end of the season tournament is different(nationals vs state) you are both working hard to qualify for the post season. If you are on varsity, then they are also similar because they are both highly competitive teams. 

Some players prefer one over the other for various reasons. Personally, I like club better. I love to travel and play in huge qualifiers, and the players and coaches are more dedicated. The players that aren't as serious about volleyball might either only play school volleyball or just like school volleyball better since some levels aren't as competitive(JV, sophomore, freshman) and you don't have to pay for school volleyball, unlike club volleyball where there is a club fee. 

Club and school both have their ups and downs, but overall they are both great programs to be involved in if you live playing volleyball! 

Team Bonding (473)

Team bonding is essential to good team chemistry, no matter what sport or who is playing. Having good team chemistry creates a sense of unity among the team in practices and matches. Most of this can be helped with team bonding. Team bonding comes in many different ways whether it is mandatory or just for fun. 

Some coaches will plan different mandatory team bonding times, like team dinners or scouting a team. A lot of times when we're at tournaments the coaches will have us all sit and watch one of the matches as a team so we know a little more about the other team, but also we are bonding instead of all being separate. At club tournaments, some coaches make a team watch other age teams from that same club play if they are at the same tournament as them, but if they don't have to watch anybody play, they just require that the team hang out together during any down time. 

Team dinners can be either planned by the coach or the parents (in club the patents always planned it). For school volleyball, it is usually at one of the player's houses, but for club the tournaments are out of town most of the time, so we find a restaurant to eat at. 

At the team dinners that I've been to, the coaches aren't there, although every coach is different- some might enjoy coming to them and talking with players and parents but others might not. 

During out of town tournaments, we stay in hotels and typically all of the time we are not playing is spent hanging out with the team at the hotel. You might think this sound boring, but you'd be surprised at how many things to do we've found at a hotel. 

Another way of team bonding is to have a sleepover! This is actually one of the best ways, since you are together (not playing volleyball) with the team for a whole night, and not only a few hours. We have a lot of fun at these sleepovers and this is usually where people get to know each other the best, especially when it is a new team or team with some new people on it. In club they are usually in the beginning of the season when everyone is getting to know each other, and for school a lot of them happen in the summer during pre season training when there is no school, or the night of a tournament. These are unplanned and happen with late notice, so it's okay if not everyone comes to them. 

All of these things greatly help the team dynamics on and off the court, and I think that our Kennedy volleyball team does a good job with bonding; we've had several team sleepovers and many team dinners! 

The Boys (458)

Believe it or not, there is boys volleyball. In Iowa it is not super popular, but in other big cities it is very popular, with almost as many guys teams as girls teams. When we go to national tournaments or qualifiers it is sometimes also a boys tournament. They will have the girls games on certain courts and the boys teams on other courts. Last year my team went to the President's Day Classic, which is not a qualifier for girls, but it was a qualifier for the boys teams. It was the only tournament last year that we went to that also had a boys division playing in it. It was really neat to see, and a bit weird, because I was not used to seeing guys playing volleyball at such a high skill level. The skill level of the U18 Open boys was incredible, of course they all jump so high and have so much power. We were watching the boys U18 Open finals with at least 200 other people surrounding the court to watch. 

In Iowa, we have very few boys volleyball teams. There are no school teams for boys, and for club there are only a few.  The club I played for last year, Adrenaline Volleyball Academy, had a boys team. It was made up of guys from age 12 to 18 but it had to be a U18 team since the oldest guy was in the 18s age group. They won the boys regionals and were the best guys team in the state, but compared to other states with hundreds of guys teams, they weren't at that skill level. 

High Performance (which I blogged about earlier) also has boys teams. In Iowa, they have less teams than the girls because of the smaller number of boys that play volleyball. They have a U15 team and a U18 team, which both compete in the HP nationals.  

Right now there are lots of opportunities for guys to play volleyball, and people who run the programs like High Performance and clubs who have boys teams are trying to expand the game for boys. Another opportunity for boys to play is playing now on a girls team. If they are 14 or under, they are able to play on a girls club team, but not any older because then they view it as unfair for a boy to be playing against girls. Other opportunities that are more for fun are sand and indoor leagues, like Volley's, where you can play 6s, 4s, or doubles. There are many ways to get more guys to play volleyball, but I think one of the easiest ways, that doesn't already exist, would be to have boys high school teams in Iowa. 

Reffing (338)

Have you ever been mad at a ref's call? Or even more mad if a player is reffing and they make a bad call or aren't paying attention? That is why we have to take a reffing course to be certified to ref. As a player for USA volleyball this is required so that we know what we are doing when we ref. It is necessary for us to learn this because at tournaments you get assigned to ref other matches in your pool. Sometimes they have an official to up ref (the main ref) and down ref (the other main ref) but you still have to do the other reffing jobs. 

There is a variety of things to do when reffing. First, you have to have an up ref who stands on the post above the net. They make all of the main calls. Then, there is a down ref who stands on the ground on the opposite side of the up ref and they watch for things that the up ref might not see like net, under the net, substitutions, score table, and out of rotation calls. Sitting at the table there is a scorekeeper who flips the score, a libero tracker who keeps track of who the libero goes in and out for, and a book keeper who has a score sheet that keeps track of rotations, substitutions, penalties, serving order, score, and all the information about the match. (I usually do this when I'm reffing.) The last thing that is needed is line judges. They stand on the corners of the court and say if the ball was in or out. They also watch for foot faults from the servers, which means the server stepped on the line. 

We need to learn how to do all of these things to be able to play club volleyball since it is required that teams ref during tournaments. It seems hard at first, but once you practice it and do it for a while it is easy. 

Being a Good Teammate (278)

One of the biggest components to being a great team is having good teammates. Teams that have good teammates also have good team chemistry, which helps them play better. Being a good teammate is not only important in sports, but in work and school. 

One way to be a good teammate is your attitude. You should have a positives mad encouraging attitude towards your teammates. Towards the coaches, you should be coachable and ready to take their advice. Even if you don't play that much, you should have a good attitude on the bench and understand that the situation is the best for the team, although sometimes that is not easy to do. Players shouldn't just focus on if they are a starter or how much play time they get because everyone has a roll on the team and they are all important in the team's success, no matter how much play time they may or may not get. 

Another part of being a good teammate is your effort at practices and games; are you working to make you and your team better? Are you giving 100% on the court? By always giving a high effort level you are helping your team improve. You are also showing that you care about what you are doing and showing that you want to be there. Not only do your teammates see this, but so do your coaches, and they want to see players  working hard. 

Being a good teammate is about helping the team, so sometimes the focus is not on just improving yourself, but helping to improve the team. Also, teams full of good teammates just have more fun! 

Stresses and Problems (530)

There are many stresses and things that could go wrong being an athlete. The biggest thing for me is the time management. I have practices every day along with the homework and family priorities. I often find myself very busy with little free time to relax or do activities. This is the worst during the busiest part of school season and the busiest part of club season when we are gone for days at a time. When you miss school, you have to do all the make up work along with all the current work. It can get very tiring and annoying. Also, it is VERY hard not to get distracted by your phone or other devices, especially after a game day or tournament, when you want to check what people said about the game. 
Another stressful thing about playing a sport is being frustrated about being in a rough patch. Sometimes, when you are working at things and trying to get better, you feel like you're getting worse before you get better. There are a lot of failures before success, but eventually you get it. Also, people get frustrated when they are  not doing so well in practice or in a game. In volleyball this is easy to do, and because so much of the game is mental, one mistake could affect the next play and sometimes the one after that if you get mad, upset, or let it bother you. We just have to remember that it is okay to make mistakes and that you learn from them. 

Another problem with some athletes is getting tired of your sport. If someone is constantly practicing and playing with no breaks, they might get burnt out and not enjoy playing or not want to play anymore. This is probably more likely to happen if the practices seem repetitive, like they're doing the same things all the time in practice. Some people will get burnt out, but some who really enjoy the game won't. It just depends on the person. Some ways to prevent this from happening is to take a break from it, or in your free time do things non sports related, so you're not always thinking about it and you're not always with the same people all the time. Sometimes it's not always the sport you get tired of, but the people. 

In sports, it's important to have good team chemistry. It is important for the team to get along so they can play well together, and when they don't it can be frustrating. That is another tough thing about playing sports; getting along with your teammates and how to deal with it if you don't. When people don't get along or if players have bad attitudes it can affect the whole team, even if it is just a couple people from the team because it can make the game not fun to play. 

All these things are very hard to deal with, but as athletes we have to push through it because that is what happens in sports, and if you love the sport enough it won't matter what you have to deal with to play it. 

Life of Vballmonkey (580)

Practice everyday. Match nights on Tuesdays. Tournaments on the weekends. Film sessions every week. All a part of being a high school athlete. This is what the Kennedy Volleyball Squad does for a third of the school year. Since we are spending so much time together, they become a second family.
In the beginning, practices start much sooner than the season. This year we had open gyms as early as  the last month of school before the summer! We had open gyms and strength training all summer, followed by camps later in the summer, and for varsity a couple tournaments. Our official practices started on August 10th, two weeks before school started, and since there was no school, we could have two-a-days! Then when school started, it was back to one practice a week. Our practices are right after school at 3:15 to about 5:30 or 6, but sometimes they go late.
We don't have to have morning practice, although we have had one. We keep that option open for Fridays sometimes if people want to go to a football game, but it doesn't usually happen. The one time it did was for the homecoming game, since one of our players made top seven for homecoming queen.
On the few practices before a tough match, we watch game film on the team we are playing. We take notes on who and what to watch for, what we need to change for the match, what match-ups we need to have, and what we need to do to win the match. In the next practice or run through we will practice these line ups to get ready for the game.
Match nights are my favorite thing about school volleyball. I love playing in front of the crowds and student sections with pressure and loud voices yelling. We start the night right after school with a run through (a mini practice), then if its a home or in town game we have to be back to the gym at 5:15. If it's an away game, we wither leave right after school or before school's over depending on how far away we have to go. When we get to the gym, we watch the sophomore play for a little while, then we pump up in the locker room, one of my favorite things. After that, we warm up in the halls before we take the court to warm up. Then, its GAME TIME. After the game we ride the bus back to Kennedy or if its a home game we go home. When I get home it is ALWAYS hard to go to bed. I'm still pumped up from the game, and especially after a win there's a lot going on on social media about the game, which of course I want to look at!
On some weekends we have tournaments. These tournaments are one day tournaments that are no longer than two and a half hours away, and usually on a Saturday. Most of the time these tournaments don't conflict with anything, but this year one of our tournaments was on the same day as homecoming. Our tournament was in Osage, two hours away, and we all hustled back and got to homecoming a little late.
We put in a lot of time to be a part of this team, and in the end it is worth it.

Vballmokey's Road to Success (454)

One team, one goal: winning state. It is a very difficult thing to do, but it is possible. It takes a lot of determination, hard work, and teamwork. I think we have the capability to stay focused this season and accomplish our goal. There are also smaller goals along the way that helps us get to our goal, like being conference champions. Kennedy volleyball has never been conference champions, except when they tied for it in 2006, so this would be a big accomplishment. In order to be the conference champions we need to have the best conference record, which we are off to a good start to. We have an undefeated conference record of 4-0 so far. We have beaten Linn Mar, Dubuque Walhert, Iowa City West, and Cedar Falls, who was ranked number one at the time. Next Tuesday we play Jefferson at home, which should be a good match for us. 

Tournaments, however, are a different story. We haven't gone undefeated at tournaments, but we have done well. The teams we've lost to in tournament are Valley, Ankeny, Dubuque Hemostead, Cedar Falls (who we later beat in conference), and Bettendorf. We've had the tournaments at Prairie, Valley, Osage, and Dubuque Hempstead. The tournaments are fun for the team; we ride the vans or a bus and get to spend all day together. Also, tournaments are always on Saturdays, which is nice because then you have Sunday to relax and do some homework. 

Another big part of building a championship team is the team chemistry. To help this, we have a lot of team bonding opportunities. Every Monday before game days we have a team dinner after practice. It is usually at someone's house and sometimes a restaurant. We also have team sleepovers, usually after a Saturday tournament. We also have team film sessions. These are at school before or after practice, or they can be at someone's house if the game is on TV, like what we did for Iowa City West. 

We also watched film for Jefferson, who we play on Tuesday. This game, Johnson will be our head coach instead of Goodall. On Sunday, Goodall left to visit the Philippines for a few days. She was asked by USA volleyball to go over on a mission to empower women through sports. Even though there will be a change in coaching, I still think we will play just like we always do. Our team has fun and get really excited for game days. We even have a pre game pump up tradition.  

We definitely have some things to work on and improve if we want to make it to state and do well there, but we have what it takes. 

Traveling for Club Volleyball (518)

One of my favorite things that come along with playing club volleyball is all the travel. Traveling to different cities every other weekend is exciting and something I miss during the off season. Even going to the places I've been before is fun because I remember the city from the previous year and can explore different areas I haven't visited before.
Some people don't like travel; they don't like the stress taking work with them, packing and unpacking, being away from home, or long trips. Planning these events, booking hotels, and interrupting home life can be stressful, and missing things while your gone can put you behind. The bigger tournaments are usually three days long, so I miss some school for them. As a student, I get all my assignments that I will miss ahead of time so I can do them during any down time I have, if any, which is usually during the car or plane ride to and from our destination. I like car rides, even though a lot of people don't; I like listening to music, sleeping, and having long conversations. Most of the time any free time we have during the evening at our hotel is used for team bonding.
Team bonding is another big part of travel. When we're traveling we team bond by hanging out at the hotel, going swimming, going out to eat, going to see city attractions, and more. One of my favorite things we did was go to Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida, last year during nationals. The weather was beautiful, in the 90s! Another one of the most fun things I have done was go to the City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. It is called the City Museum, but it is the furthest thing from a museum. Check it out! - http://www.citymuseum.org
Some people may ask, why travel that far just for a tournament? The reason is that these tournaments are very big and highly competitive. Most of them are held in convention centers with 100 or more courts in them, and anywhere from 500 to 1000 teams playing. A lot of these tournaments offer a bid to nationals for the first place team, or in the best division the top three teams, that hundreds of teams come to try and win. It is also a good exposure for recruiting. At one tournament there might be over 300 college coaches watching and recruiting.
For me, just the chance to play at a high, competitive level would be enough to get me to travel. I also think it prepares you for later in life by getting you used to travel and being away from home. It would also give you a sense for if you like the city life or being away from home for college, because if you can't handle being gone for one weekend, then you might want to consider staying close to home for college! I love the travel; I could stay for a long time and not get homesick, so I might not need to worry about staying close to home for college.

Good Choices (401)

A big part of sports is your skills, mental toughness, strength, being healthy, and physical ability, but that is not the only component to being an athlete. One big thing that most people don't think about is your social decisions. Do you take unnecessary risks or do things you shouldn't? Making bad decisions involving drugs, alcohol, the law, or the code of conduct can negatively impact you and your team. Typically if you get in trouble with these things, you get suspended (in school volleyball) for 30 days, which is a big chunk of your season. In club, there is no regional rule for a punishment, but each club or coach might have their own rules specific to that club or team. This is bad for you because that is taking away from your match experience when you could be playing and getting better. This also hurts your team because each person is important and each person contributes to the team, and when you take one component away, the team has to adjust to it. 

This also is bad for your reputation or image, and ruin your future opportunities. Do you think that a club will want that player playing for them if they have a history of making bad decisions? More important than that, do you think a college will want a player who makes poor choices? Probably not. 

Lastly, this ruins your team's reputation. When other people hear about your team they might think, oh yeah, the team who had a girl suspended. Even one person's bad choice can make the whole team look bad because as a player, you are representing your team and your school or club during club season. Also, this puts your coach in a sticky situation because if you are a vital part of your team it is a lose lose situation. If the coach suspends you from playing, this hurts the team's performance, but if they don't punish you and let you play, this reflects badly on them as a coach. Others will think the coach has no discipline and players can get away with whatever they want. If the coach doesn't want the players and parents thinking that they will tolerate that behavior or those decisions, they must suspend the player. Lastly, this might affect team chemistry because the other players may be disappointed or even angry with the player's bad choices.

High Performance (429)

HP stands for High Performance which is separate from club and school. It is a different program you have to try out for. There are two types of indoor HP: region and national. Our region is just Iowa, so the region tryouts would be full of players from Iowa. At a USA tryout, however, there are players from all over the country. These tryouts are usually at the convention centers the night before qualifier tournaments, where teams from all over the country come to play in a tournament to earn a bid. 

The selection for the two are different also. For the regional HP, you try out to make a camp, which happens in June. Then, from the people at the camp, they select players for the teams. In Iowa we have 2 teams: international and national, which just means that the top team will be playing teams from other countries and the other team will be playing other regions from the US. From the USA tryouts they select players to go to camps. The camps are A1, A2, A3, and a training camp. If you are on A1 or A2 then you are on that team. The camp is just you practicing with the team for a week. 

Once the teams are made, then they all train for about 5 days, then head off to High Performance Nationals at the end of the summer where they play each other. 

Personally, I've never been on a team, but I have been at the Iowa HP camp 5 times. I think it is a really fun experience and a good opportunity to play with skilled players, making it a very competitive camp. I also like the coaching staff; they try to make you a better player even in the short time that you are at the camp. They also bring Olympic players and coaches to share their knowledge of the game and their stories of playing for Olympic teams.  

The four day camp is held at a college, so the players stay in the dorms with roommates, which is really fun. There are 3 sessions a day, with lunch and dinner breaks, where we eat in the campus cafeteria. The first three days are position training, drills, and scrimmage play, and the last day is a camp tournament. We get split up into teams and play each other in a tournament and there is a winner! 

For me, High Performance is a fun opportunity to play high level volleyball with different coaches that is separate from club and school ball. 

Sand Volleyball (305)

Although no one wants to admit it, summer is coming to an end. This means the time for sand volleyball is over. Sand volleyball is one of the many highlights of summer, and there are lots of opportunities to play it in these few summer months.
The first half of the sand season is spent practicing and getting used to your partner (if you play doubles). There are different leagues to sign up for: doubles, fours, and sixes, but my personal favorite is doubles. In doubles you and your partner are the only people playing, so you are always touching the ball and always a part of the play. In the second, and main, part of the season, you and your partner play in sand tournaments, so big and some small. The big ones are qualifiers, so if you get 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, you earn a bid to Junior Beach Nationals, and you also get a free Junior Beach Tour teeshirt for participating in the tournament, which I have several of.
If you want to play fours or sixes, there are also tournaments and leagues for those, but I don't participate or know much about them, except the fours and sixes leagues run at Volley's located on Blairs Ferry in Cedar Rapids. They have adult and kids leagues and I've played in both of those.
Sand volleyball is awesome for indoor volleyball players because it is much harder to move and jump in the sand, so it helps you to move faster and jump higher and that helps you when you get back to indoor. It's also an awesome game for friends to play in the summer to have fun on the beach! Anyone can play!
If you want to learn more about sand volleyball, here is a link to the USA Volleyball website- http://www.teamusa.org/usa-volleyball/usa-teams/beach-volleyball