Volleyball: A Good Choice

As Maddie and I were leaving her practice today during a cold and windy downpour, we crossed paths with a coach lugging a bag of soccer balls toward the frozen tundra of THEIR practice facility and I realized how thankful I am that Maddie has chosen volleyball as her sport. I spent 2 hours today in a lawn chair reading a travel magazine on a nice warm court while some poor club soccer dad spent time out freezing his rear end off. Good choice, Maddie! It was good to be back at practice; our first since the President's Day debacle. Some tough love and fundamentals were the order of the day. One thing that kind of bugs me is when we don't have all 12 girls at a practice. Maddie and I wanted to go to Palm Springs over Spring Break, but it would have meant missing a practice before a Power League, so we're not going. I guess I think that if you are going to play at this level, you've made a tacit agreement with your coach and teammates to show up and work hard to be the best at EVERY opportunity. I wonder how many WVBA girls miss practice? Hats off to all the DD's who have never missed a practice.

I got Maddie registered at the NCAA Clearinghouse today and plopped down my $65. Maddie wants to play college volleyball at a Northwest school, and as long as that is her dream and she keeps giving 100% in pursuit of that dream, mom and dad will do their parts, whether it's club or clinics or camps or tutors or campus visits...whatever it takes. Trying to become a college athlete means you are meeting certain academic requirements, continuing to improve, making sacrifices and learning to lead. And if the playing part doesn't pan out, at least you have learned to pursue your goals and become a better person doing it. Next step: reaching out to the schools she is interested in (which include Western, Central, Eastern, Montana State-Billings, Portland State and Western Oregon.) We may add some and we may drop some, but the important thing is to let them know you are there and to that end, Mads will be creating a flyer and mailing a 'Get to Know Me' letter to each of those coaches. The jorney begins.

Next up: Power League on Sunday!