The Ultimate Game

I have this passion for this game that I can't describe, which is why I am trying. I am horrible at articulating my emotions about 90% of the time, but occasionally if I write (type) things out, then they become clearer to me and maybe will allow me to explain it to others better.

Volleyball is the greatest game in the world for the female athlete. I am passionate about it. I love it! I truly love it (in the real sense of the word love). At one time in my life it was my first love, then my second(God, volleyball), and now my fourth (God, family, ministry, volleyball). When I was a player, back in my prime, I would do anything for that little white leather ball. I sacrificed my body time and time again. I broke three ribs two different times, just to make one play on the ball. I don't remember if I got it over or not, but that's just it...it didn't matter. I just wanted to give my all, to try, to bust it, JUST IN CASE. I was good. But I wasn't the best skilled player there was (I don't think at all). I just had heart...maybe the biggest heart and the most competitive spirit out there.

I have come to realize that, as a coach, you can't teach, train, or even demand heart. You either have it or you don't. You can't just go buy it either, which in this day and age is a real bummer, since most of this generation is so used to that. When they want something they just get it handed to them on a silver platter, without ever having to think about, want it for more than a second--if its buyable, its theirs. These kids these days don't seem to know what the word 'desire' is. Just by definition alone--"to wish or long for; crave; want"--you have to 'long' for something, but when it is just flown in a jet plane with a cherry on top, how is that you have 'longed' for it?

I hunger for the game of volleyball, which is why I am now coaching. I would give up my coaching seat in an instant to suit up and play, if I could. I want to show them what it looks like. I want them to know. I desperately want them to know--to know what it feels like, to know what it looks like, to be in it with everything that you have, to want something so bad it hurts, to leave the court without your heart (because its still on the floor)...I did that. I hope I did that EVERY single game I ever played (I don't know if I did or not). But I know what it feels like to love the game because I won and lost with pride, with heart, with tears, with smiles, with cheers and with heartache. I risked everything, just for the sake of a little white leather ball.

Heart certainly can't win every match for every kid, but I know it can and did win some for me. I wasn't always the best player, wasn't always the best athlete, but I think I always wanted it more than anyone else out there, and for that reason, I am still remembered today as one of the greatest in Oklahoma High School volleyball. At least four times this year I have been told this by coaches and refs who are still around today that were around back in my day. We carry on conversation after conversation about how they just need someone to be the "go-to-kid." I was that. I wanted to be that. I still do.

There is no greater game. You can be beautiful and long and lean (not that I was any of those things...)to play volleyball. You don't have to be butch and mean and big and bulky. You can be a super-model and then go beat the daylights out of the volleyball. That is terrific. This sport is just unlike any other one I have ever known, or ever seen. It is a beautiful game, one of teamwork, hard work, perseverance, and determination (oh yeah, and big thing called heart). It is powerful. It is intriguing. It is engaging.