Easter Sunday

I have never been much for gymnastics or cheerleading, as anyone who knows me very well would know. I’ve always been into sports, especially volleyball. Well, this past Sunday was Easter and my family was all outside watching my little cousin who just so happens to be a cheerleader. She was doing all her flips and hops and whatchamacallits. Everyone looked at me to see if I was going to do anything like that, and I just started to laugh. So, I looked at my older cousin, who also played volleyball in highschool, and who was also very, very good and asked her if she wanted to help me show them what real talent is. (No offense to cheerleaders of topsy tumbly people.) So, we found a volleyball and started playing. Everyone in the family wanted to join in, because they said it looked easier than all the flips and jumps that my other cousin was performing. Well, they started jumping in and playing with us and no one could hit the ball right. It was so funny to me because they all thought that it was so easy, and then they all quickly discovered that it really isn’t easy. Anyways, we had a good laugh, and a good time on Easter Sunday.

Beach Volleyball Adventure

My friends and I were trying to figure out something to do outside since the weather has been so beautiful recently. We all wanted to be outside, and doing something fun. So, finally beach volleyball came to my mind. There is a wonderful park in my hometown that has a volleyball court filled with sand. Now, I’ve never been one for beach volleyball, but it was so much fun! Not to mention it was a workout too. My friends and I all had a blast and it was the perfect way to spend a beautiful day. We weren’t really playing exactly the right way because there were only 10 of us, but we gradually got the hang of it. We played boys against girls, which made it even more fun. If you were wondering who won, it was definitely the girls!

Good Advice

If I could talk to a group of middle school age children, I would tell them all to give sports a chance. Not everyone is good at first, and some people just aren’t meant to play sports, but you never know until you try. When I started out playing volleyball in the sixth grade, I was awful, but so was everyone else. Staying with it turned out to be well worth it because I loved it and when I think about high school, I don’t think about drama, or boys, I think about volleyball. It was one of the greatest experiences in my life, and I wish everyone could experience that feeling. The only regret I have is not continuing to play in college. It is true that college is very hard, no matter what your major is. However, it would be amazing to still be playing volleyball, and when asked what I miss the most about highschool, I would answer playing volleyball. So, my best advice to children would be to stick with something they love, no matter how hard it is, because it’s always worth it in the end.

funny volleyball story

One of the funniest and most embarrassing things that has every happened to me while playing volleyball deals with a tanning bed. We had a volleyball game one evening and it was against one of our major components. I had time to go tanning before the game so I did. Sometimes it takes a while for the skin to burn so after starting lineup before the game, I was still the same color I had been before I went tanning. Well, as the game went on I continuously began to grow redder and redder. By the end of the game, I had a new nickname, lobster back. Everyone slapping me on the back telling me good game really didn’t help either, but it was really funny!

My Favorite Volleyball Memory

The summer in between my sophomore and junior year was when I experienced my favorite volleyball memory. We were all at practice and I had been working really hard to get my spikes down. By the end of practice, I was exhausted physically and mentally. We had a few minutes to practice on whatever we needed to do before it was time to leave, and I was going to work on my spike. My coach set me up and I went to spike, and it was perfect. It was fast and went straight down to the ground before anyone could dig it. Everyone was really proud of me and cheering me on and such. However, I was so impressed with myself that I forgot to move my feet when I was backing up, and fell down right on my behind. It was hilarious and everyone was having a laugh, including me. This just goes to show that no matter how you’re doing you shouldn’t get caught up in the moment because you could always forget to move your feet and the next thing you know you’re on your butt with everybody laughing at you.

They won 3 NCAA titles in a row!

The 2009 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Volleyball Tournament began on December 3, 2009, and ended on December 19, when Pennsylvania State defeated Texas, in the NCAA National Championship match. This win was not only a major victory for Penn State, but it was their 3rd NCAA title. This was a major accomplishment, and this set a few records. Penn State is the first women’s volleyball team to win 3 NCAA titles. Not only have they done that much, but they have over 100 consecutive wins. That’s a lot of winning! For those of you who don’t know that much about volleyball, it is very hard to win that many games consecutively, however Penn State makes it looks like a cake walk. So, now the question is, who will win the NCAA title for 2010?

More About Volleyball

The sport of volleyball is so complex, I could go on forever. However, for now, I’m just going to tell you about my own personal experience with volleyball. My volleyball career started way back in elementary school. In 4th grade, there was a volleyball summer camp that all my friends were so excited about it. I had no idea what volleyball was, but I wanted to go just because all my friends were going. The camp was a 5 days of vigorous work outs(for a 4th grader) and lots of bumps and bruises. Of course, none of us had any idea what we were doing, but we all loved it. The next year, they had the same camp and a few of us had improved a little bit since the last summer. In 6th grade, we started our official volleyball team. As the years went by, I started to grow taller and taller, eventually reaching 5’6 as a 7th grader. Needless to say, I didn’t have to jump very high to block the ball. To all my friends I was a giant, but I loved it because I could do all kinds of things that they couldn’t do. Our skills improved and finally we made it to high school. We had so many freshman that we had our own freshman team. We were so good that we defeated our rivalry by a land slide. Everyone was so excited for us to get into junior varsity and varsity. As the year progressed, we got even better. My summers didn’t consist of going to the beach, getting a tan, and all the other activities that summer brings. My summer was in a gym, working and working to improve those volleyball skills. We had many wins over my high school career, and although as team members we fought, we became a great family of friends.

Student Athletes

I started playing volleyball when I was in the fourth grade, and went all the way to the end of my senior year of high school. I absolutely loved it, and when I think about what I miss the most about high school, it is definitely volleyball. Volleyball helped me make new friends, friends that were so close you could almost call them family. I strongly recommend that students try sports during high school, because volleyball changed my life. It was a great learning experience too. You had to learn how to get along with everyone, even when you were having a bad day. You also had to learn how to work hard for something that you wanted. Wins didn’t come very easily for us at the beginning of my high school career, but we worked hard as a team and eventually we ended up with a very good record. So, if you are a student in high school, I would strongly recommend that you try out for sports. It’s not only a wonderful learning experience, it’s also a good time.

Basic Rules and Random Volleyball Lingo

The start of the game involves serving the ball over the net. The server stands behind the “out of bounds end line” and serves the ball. The serve may be underhand or overhand and there are many ways the ball can be served, depending on what the server prefers. Whenever the ball makes it over the net to the opponent’s side, they may bump it and then set up their plays however they choose. However, you are only allowed three hits. So, if you hit it four times, the other team would get a point. Usually, the game plan is to bump, set, and spike. There are 6 players on the court at one time, and every time a point is scored, they rotate clockwise around the court. Another general rule is that one player may not hit the ball twice in a row. If this happens, the other team gets the ball and they get a point. As with every sport, volleyball has its own lingo. An “ace” is when the ball is served to the other team and it hits the ground, inside the boundary lines, without anyone touching it. A  “dig” is when a player saves a very difficult spike. A “kill” is when a player spikes the ball and it ends up in a point. Hope you enjoyed learning some basic rules about volleyball.

A little history lesson.

In 2010, this sport is 115 years old, there are more than 46 million Americans who play this sport, and there are 8oo million people who play this sport worldwide. What kind of amazing sport could keep so many people interested you ask? Not only my favorite sport, but also 800 million people worldwide love this sport as well. The game we play is volleyball. Whether you are playing on the beach with your pals or playing on a court with hundreds of people watching you, it’s great either way.

The game of volleyball originated in the United States, in 1895, when William G. Morgan, an instructor at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Holyoke, Massachusetts, decided to blend elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball to create a new fun-filled game. He originally designed this game for his classes of businessmen thinking that it would demand less physical contact than basketball. Whenever he first created volleyball, he called it mintonette. He used the net in the middle of the court similarly to tennis, the only difference being that he raised it 6 feet 6 inches above the ground, which was just above the average man’s heighth. During a demonstration game, someone said to Morgan that the players seemed to be volleying the ball back and forth to each other. This is where the name “volleyball” came into play. The first game of volleyball was played on July 7, 1896 at Springfield College.