Personal Narrative: The Most Important Part Of A Volleyball Team

We walked together to the field, the spikes on the bottom of my cleats clicking with each step on the parking lot pavement. A huge field with onlookers filling the bleachers on the far side came into view, lit up by the soft evening light. I spotted the girls on my team and my tired looking grey-haired coach. Me and my dad split up, me going to warm up with my team and my dad going to sit with the team parents. As I was passing with my teammates I watched the opposing team carefully. I observed how neat their drills were and how accurate their shots and passes were. They all looked so athletic and that really made me doubt myself. How was I supposed to prove to everyone that I was a good player if I had to play against a team this good? What if I mess up and the other team completely destroys my team? The loud buzzer that ended the warm ups sounded and both teams went to their side of the field. My coach called today’s starters out, and luckily he didn’t choose me. Relieved, I went to go sit on one of the hard metal chairs they provided for the teams on the sidelines. The chairs were uncomfortable but that didn’t bother me. I had other things on my mind. I sat shivering watching the events of the game

I walked into school to be greeted by a janitor vacuuming the floors. It was time to start thinking about the game and getting my focus level up. My pregame ritual wasn’t always the same beside for one thing, be the first to the locker room to have time to think to myself. Walking into the light blue and worn-down locker room it was almost like I could feel the emotion from all the players who had been there before myself. I was greeted by a wave of smell, the smell of victory, defeat, and pure hard work. It was quite musty but I was used to it and had grown accustomed to it. I sat myself down and began to think about how I would perform tonight and what I had to do in order to be victorious. I pictured myself going out onto the court and seeing all the fans packed into our old wooden bleachers. All I wanted to do was make them proud of the team they came to watch. I looked out the window to see the vehicles of my fellow teammates driving into our dirt parking lot. Soon, the locker room would no longer be quite and it would be filled with the shrieks, laughs, and giggles of my

Day in, and day out, I was perfecting my performance, therefore Coach Dawn did not have to hesitate on choosing me to be on the team. When it was time for me to show off my skills I was beyond confident. We began running drills, I missed a few serves, but I was still amped up to do more. Less than seven minutes into our practice she had me gather all the volleyballs and put them in the cart.

While preparing for tryouts, I was expected to condition for two hours every day, playing and exercising vigorously. Once tryouts came along, I was in my best shape physically, but mentally, I still feared I wasn't good enough. Luckily, I was wrong to doubt myself because I made the team. All three teams spent hours practicing together, which made me nervous because most of the girls were more experienced. Even though I made more mistakes than the varsity players, they always encouraged me. Because of this, I became a better player and person. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu stated, “If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them.” By allowing me to make mistakes without making me feel like a complete failure, the varsity players set a good example of leadership. Since they were understanding and did not assume an attitude of superiority, I was inspired to be humble and compassionate toward others. Honestly, I am glad I persevered through the tough times because it has taught me the necessary lessons to be a great role model. I hope I can motivate girls to not only play volleyball but to also express the importance of transferring the life lessons learned from the game to their everyday

Christian like's to play soccer but he isn't that good . He want's to make to the soccer team, but the soccer coach doesn't think that he is good enough to make it, The other soccer players and his parents don't believe in him either.

It was my sophomore year, and the day had come to find out who made the varsity lacrosse team. We piled into the locker room to discover rows of brand new helmets. The list of the varsity players was written on the whiteboard. The team was excited, the locker room buzzing with noise. My heart dropped as I realized that my name wasn’t written there. My friends were admiring their new helmets and I had to hold back tears and disappointment. I know now that I still had to be developed at the junior varsity level, but it wasn’t easy to understand back then. At practice that day, I played out of pure spite, every move filled with rage. You aren’t good enough, I thought. I left practice that day without saying goodbye to my friends.

My palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy, as my dad tried to make awkward conversation with me as he drove. We were on our way to the Kettler Capitals Iceplex, the very new looking arena where the Washington Capitals practiced. The rink is far to begin with, down in Arlington Virginia, and the fact it was a dark and rainy Tuesday night did us no favors. The grueling stop and go traffic extended our ride to over an hour, good thing we left much earlier than we had to. The ice slot was set for 7:30, so I wanted to be there a little before 7 in order to have plenty of time to get dressed and get through my pre-game/practice rituals with ease. At 7:30 I would be on the ice trying out for my first AAA hockey team, The Washington Little Caps, the best team in the DMV.

I was doing everything I could to make Rock Ridge’s volleyball team. I was working out almost every day, I went to every volleyball open gym, and I went to many clinics and camps. Making this team was very important to me, and I didn’t know what I would do if I didn’t. I’ve been working very hard to get a spot on the team. However, nothing could mentally prepare me for the three-day long try-out process.

It was cloudy in the late morning, which meant even the weather didn’t look promising, Even more optimistically looking it seemed like the clouds were about to rupture into trillions of droplets each one a part of me about to shatter from humiliation. And obviously rain and humidity were the best conditions for field hockey. The building looked more downcast than I’d ever seen it, and when my dad parked the car it became more evident that this was not going to go as faultlessly as I hoped it would.

After joining the team, my natural instincts to compete took over and I battled everyday to get a spot in the playing lineup. Although joining the team as a junior, I quickly earned my teammates respect by being prepared for and persevering through difficult practice sessions. I played matches against my teammates every day in order to move into the team’s playing lineup, meaning a top six spot. My relentless effort and infectious enthusiasm at practice led to my place in the doubles lineup with Julian Lenz, one of the top ten players in college. I had to adapt quickly, getting stronger and adding more spin to my strokes in order to compete with Julian against some of the best players in the nation. In order for us to be a successful team, I had to match Julian’s mental focus and desire to win. Through spending time together on and off the court we were able to build a strong relationship that would propel us to an exceptional season. Julian and I were able to win key matches in the Big 12 tournament because we grew to trust one another in high-pressure situations. Ultimately, my success as a student-athlete was a result of my tenacity to succeed and ability to adapt to new circumstances.

I open my eyes and see that I’m surrounded by a volleyball net and hundreds of people in the crowd. I look to my side and see Kerri Walsh! All around me are signs with, “2016 Rio Summer Olympics” on them. I realize I’m actually in Rio at the Olympics and I’m playing sand volleyball with Kerri Walsh!! Woah. Kerri hands me the ball and tells me I’m up to serve. So I nervously shuffle back to the end line, still in awe that this is happening. The score is 20-19 and we’re down by one. I serve the ball and the other team retrieves it, hitting it back over. We volley back and forth 5 times, until Karri set me up and I hit the ball so hard that I get a kill! The crowd is going wild! It’s tied up with 5 points to go. I keep serving. We

Next thing I know, it’s half time and we’re down by 10. We walk into the locker room and sit, waiting to hear about how much we suck and about how we didn’t practice hard enough. To my surprise, coach didn’t say anything. He came in and looked at me and one of the other girls. “Captains.” We stand up. “Okay guys. I don’t need to tell you what we’re doing wrong. Focusing on the negative will get us nowhere. Focus on what we can do right, and use that.” We all huddle together and put our fists in. “Team on three. One… two… three, team!”

Walking toward the rink we could here the loud roar of the opposing crowds, chanting back and forth at each other. The arena was extremely cold, which made our muscles tighten up like a

The crowd was roaring like wild animals. Our teams had switched sides to start the second match and everything came into focus then. I could hear individual people cheering in the crowd, the student section was going nuts. The smell of the butter coming from the popcorn at the concession stands suddenly stood out to me. Most importantly, I could feel the yearning and the passion coming from my teammates. We wanted this win–bad. I was one of the leading hitters on the team and it was my job to produce the big hits for the team and motivate them to take everything the other team would hit at us. We started the second game and things were still going well for us! It wasn’t a fluke! We were playing well because we were working hard. If we didn’t hit hard they were going to pound it down, we couldn’t let up. So when our setter set me up and I saw out of the corner of my eye a triple block I knew I had to get it through their hands, but the ball was behind my head. In that split second I made a decision that changed my life forever. I swung away and I felt my shoulder pop and then the worst pain of my life went through my entire arm. I grabbed it right away knowing something was wrong. I’ve never felt pain like this in a game before. In that moment I knew that was the one. Every player knows what it’s like to get hurt. You get sprained ankles and sprained knees all the time, but this was the injury I knew had been coming to me. I looked up at my parents in the crowd and they knew too. Something was wrong.

I first started playing volleyball at a very young age. I was in the seventh grade when my volleyball career started. My sister started playing in the seventh grade and I just wanted to follow her footsteps. My seventh grade year was ok because I had just started out and really didn’t know the game. There was A team and a B team, where A team was better than the B team. I tried my best to be on the A-team, but guess where I ended up, on the B team.