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