Another high school volleyball season ended for granddaughter Anna last night, with the team dropping both matches in its three-team regional. The first contest was with the fifth-seed Mountain Vista, which is led by Bridget Malone, who has played for U.S. national teams and was terrific. The PA announcer must have gotten a bit bored repeating "Bridget Malone... KILL!" I certainly did.
She is a six-foot junior who can jump. Her mother played volleyball for Providence and her father happens to be the coach of the Denver Nuggets. She is gifted genetically. Vista is blessed to have her live in its attendance area. I felt lucky to see her in action.
The second match was with an opponent, Lakewood, that was not all that better than Arapahoe, though seeded higher, 20 to 31 (of 36 total in 5A). That match started so well, with Anna's team racing out to an 18-9 lead. Then things fell apart, with Lakewood storming back to win 25-23... and the Warriors seemed to lose interest in continuing their mediocre season, dropping the final two sets.
Kathleen and I did what we have done over a dozen times this fall: sit on uncomfortable bleachers in a poorly lighted gym, this time with bizarre and deafening country rock music played every time there was a timeout. There oughta be a law...
Anna plays middle hitter and only in the front row, so she is on the bench about half of each match. You would think that I would lose interest and woolgather much the way I do during most sermons at church (another topic entirely), but the longer the season went on, the more I came to care about the performances and emotions and personalities of the players. I don't really know any of them, and yet...
There is the sophomore libero, who spent the first half of the season on the bench behind a senior... until the senior messed up her knee and had to have surgery. From that point, she rarely left the court. Last night, during the very first point of the very first set, she hustled so hard after an errant dig that she slid head-on into the back wall of the gym. Luckily, it was padded, but she clearly was concussed (and her neck obviously was jolted). She shook it off, as athletes universally attempt to do, and stayed in the match. But she made uncharacteristically bad plays in the back row, was increasingly inconsistent with her serving (hitting half of them into the net), and was generally moving erratically.
It was clear from the top row of the bleachers that she needed to go to urgent care but there seemed to be no trainers in the gym -- during a playoff? -- and the coaches were eager to take her at her word that she was fine. After all, there were no kids sitting on the bench who could replace her.
So much for the cliche promises that coaches always make about keeping the health and safety of their players foremost in their minds. In the end, not having her parents take her to the emergency room mattered not a whit; we lost all six sets in the two matches.
I hope her folks eventually had her checked out.
Anna suffered her own (thankfully) minor injury, though not sports-related, as she got her pinkie caught in her car door as she ran out between matches for something... and suddenly we saw some tape around two fingers on her left hand. There was a small cut, apparently, and it didn't affect her play. But I couldn't help focus on that bit of white tape during the entire second match. She and her parents came for pizza at our house after the matches and she seemed fine, inhaling pepperoni as if she would never eat again. I guess I shouldn't have worried, I guess.
I could share impressions of each player on the team, based on her play and her attitude on the bench and with teammates. They all experienced moments of greatness and humiliation (more of the latter, I'm afraid) during the two-month season. Part of that is due to the constant motion and many points volleyball demands. But that mix of highs and lows, joy and sorrow, is why we love sports, even old-timers fidgeting on bleachers designed to test even the strongest spines and most cushioned buttocks.
We get drawn in over time, sometimes without wishing to be. We see fellow humans trying to do something really hard, often failing and sometimes succeeding. We don't even need to fully understand the rules -- I never did figure out the bizarre substitution rules for volleyball which seemed to force some players to wait for the floor official to wave a player onto the court while others simply ran in and replaced someone. It was like some intricate dance and the Arapahoe coach choreographed things to the point that nearly everyone on the 12-player team participated in each set. The team remained mediocre despite these intricacies.
There were major characters, of course, such as the 6'3" junior who sparked gasps with her occasional thunderous kills, but they were all compelling characters, even the minor characters who appeared only to serve before returning to the bench. And compelling characters are the heart of great stories.
That's why I am constantly urging young journalists to spend some time observing practices and games and finding ways to share the stories of school teams. My nudges don't seem to be making much headway, if the papers and websites I judge are any indication.
But sports are still the most fertile area for writers wanting to tell stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment