SAFUN

Happy New Year!

So what’s new for 2010? I am coaching my first volleyball team! This is something I have always wanted to do but never ran into the opportunity. When my aunt contacted me about a volleyball club needing a volleyball coach for a 12 & under team, I jumped on it. I’m passionate about the sport and passionate about working with our youth so I felt this was my calling.

I can’t tell you how nervous I was meeting the parents. I have been in business for 7 years and have had to present to high profile clients and executive leadership numerous of times but never was I this nervous. These parents were meeting someone for the first time that would be working with their daughter for the next 6 months. I needed to earn their trust. Talking a bit about my experience helped. The next step was proving myself.

I outlined what I was going to go over in my first practice and reviewed it over and over and over and over in my head. Once practice came and I started running the drills, I realized that I was way ahead of myself. These girls are only 9 and 10 years old! I needed to teach them the fundamentals of just passing the ball and controlling the ball. I had to go back and re-outline my practices. I now have the hang of it.

Our first tournament was this past weekend. We are in the 12 & under division so I knew we were going up against girls that were older than my girls and had 1 year under their belt in club volleyball. Mentally, I was prepared for this. Was I prepared for our opposing team to be twice the size of my team? No! I showed up at 7:30am to see a bunch of mammoths warming up. I only had a few girls there and we were scheduled to play at 8am, against the mammoths! My poor parents were so freaked out. I kept my composure. I got my girls warmed up and ready to play. We had to play them so there was no use in freaking out. And although we lost, we took the mammoths to 3 games. Not bad.

We went on to lose 1 more match but won our last match, yeah! I was so exhausted by the end of our last match. I had such a blast and left with an amazing feeling inside. We are only going to get better and now, I actually want to play some more mammoths.

This year, it’s not about my success. For me, it’s about helping my girls succeed.

My cousin, Renee, a senior at O’Connor high school played for the varsity volleyball team this past season. They beat Reagan, making them number 1 in the city.  They made it to the final four for the 5A State Championship, beating a team from the valley. They went up against Austin Westlakes, a team that had won the IV-5A title the past 2 years. This was new for O’Connor and I am so happy Renee had the opportunity to make it that far. It will be an experience she will never forget. She is #5 on the far right. Go Renee! Read the full article here.

So some of you may know that I play volleyball. I grew up playing volleyball in grade school, high school and played club volleyball year round. It was the thing I did outside school, work and family. After college, I stopped playing. When I started working at Rackspace Managed Hosting, I met Elaine Lopez. She played volleyball and her team was looking for an extra player. I offered to play. Now, I was thinking fun and games. I showed up and found out these girls were serious. A lot of girls were ex D1 and D2 college players. They were part of the US Volleyball Association in the Womens 18 and over.

I stuck with it and have played with her team for the past 3 years. We pick up tournaments in the regional area such as Dallas, Houston and Austin. This year, I went with them to Nationals which happened to be held in Austin, Texas at the Convention Center. It was a 2 day tournament. We were in the BB/B Division (Team Name: SA Diggers) which is 5′9 height and under. There were 13 teams. Our first day, we started off a little shaky. We won all our games except 1. We lost to Kilakila, a team from Hawaii. They were an amazing defense team. No matter how hard we hit the ball, they dug it. So the next day, it was single elimination. We did way better because we got the hang from yesterday. We made it to the finals and guess who we were up against? Kilakila! This time we knew how to play them. We had to strategically place the ball to where they couldn’t get it. So we did just that and beat them in 2 games. It was great! So we won 1st place. We really rocked and represented San Antonio pretty nicely. I have bruises on my arm and knee to prove it!