More Volleyball, Less Sleep, More Stress

O.k., so I know many of you probably don't care or are not interested in my volleyball adventures. But, seeing as how Volleyball has taken up most of my time and energy, I feel I need to vent.

This week has been freakin' crazy. Starting last Friday (10/24), we traveled to our furthest away game (7 hours on the bus total.) Then on Saturday (10/25), we traveled another 4 hours on the bus (total time). On Monday (10/27) we had a home game. Yesterday (10/28), the JV and C squad had a game (only 1 hour on the bus total this time!). Thursday (10/30) we have another game (2 hours on the bus), and Saturday (11/1) we have our last game of the season (until district tournament.) Every game during this period is a conference game, except Thursday's. We only have 6 teams in district (7 including us), so 1/3 of our conference games have been played in 1 week. It's a THREE MONTH season! The girls are tired and are starting to get cranky.

To top it all off, I had a JV girl get mad at me, because I didn't play her the way she thought she needed to be played. Excuse me, I'm the coach. If you don't like it tough. I make decisions that I think will help the team play better and make decisions to help JV players grow and develop into better players. Winning is nice, but I also have to look at the development of all the JV players, most of which will eventually play varsity before they graduate high school.

I also had parents complaining yesterday. Of course, they won't talk and discuss this with me, just complain behind my back. To them, I say, the assistant coaching position was open for 3 months and no one applied. If you don't like my style or coaching philosophy, maybe you should have applied. (At least my head coach addresses these issues. I mean, that IS why she gets paid the big bucks.)

But the season is winding down, the Varsity players are playing, for the most part, like a State Contending Team.

And ... for the most part, all the girls on the team are pulling their weight, and respect my decisions, even if though don't agree with them.