as i scan down the list of blogs i frequent, there is a pattern. no one has written anything in close to a week. that is an excuse of sorts, but i do wonder if, outside the "school" timeframe, things build up in the same way. then, what happens when you don't get breaks?!
i missed a post. i am working on a few longer-term blogs, ones that could be considered freelance material, possibly. but, in the meantime, i need material. for the fans!! speaking of my fans, there's another reason why i had to post today. it's March 4th! as my mother annually reminds me, it's the only day that commands us to be proactive!
our 9th and final week of the third quarter begins tomorrow. we have a week for spring break, then evaluations due again. then nine weeks with no breaks to finish the year.
so. i'm not here to waste anyone's time. i have settled into a process this semester when i decide what to blog aboot. first, what's on my mind? what have i been thinking about? then, i filter through to find something interesting AND related to teaching/coaching. THEN, i try to find an insightful or useful angle. then i write. it's worked much better than last semester, when i treated each entry like a column, and obsessed over it, and edited it, and blegh.
that last paragraph could be considered interesting/insightful, verdad? check.
quick aside: though i often treat things as checklists and can seem disturbingly detached, i think it's important to keep reminding you that i am not a soul-less robot. i just see both sides, that's all.
remind them i'm not a robot. check.
i could go on.
get this!! remember my post about beach volleyball? well, here is some background info on my newest coaching position. it's a first-year pilot program, meaning that this is the first time it's been a high school sport. Arizona is the only state to offer it. our athletic director is a ex-beach volleyballer, and he got us in. they started out with 10 teams in the Phoenix area, but that number has slowly dropped to 5, as schools experience problems of one sort or another.
how do i get the honor of coaching? well, our indoor coach's wife was due to have a baby during the first weeks of the season, and our athletic director was already committed to coaching junior high basketball. it just worked out. things do that sometimes.
i coached the track team at Trinity High School for two years after i graduated and was attending junior college, but this is my first legitimate, state-sanctioned, AIA-certified, high school coaching position. am i qualified? maybe. my biggest claim to fame is playing beach volleyball in Guatemala with Stefany last summer, or possibly being on the championship team for the Sigma Chi pig roast/volleyball tournament last year... also played volleyball three years in high school, and took the class twice at Hillsdale.. on that note, i'm probably more "qualified" to coach volleyball than football or soccer...
our first matches were last week. each school has five paired teams, ranked No. 1 to No. 5. each team of two plays a match that is best of three sets to 21. the school that wins 3+ (of 5) matches, wins. confusing enough? it makes sense, when you really think about it.
when we showed up to our first competition, there was a guy there taking pictures. he was a representative from AZ volleyball, there to document the "history". he even interviewed a few players.
and, believe it or not, we won. of our four possible opponents, we were matched up against the easiest. we beat them so easily it wasn't even fun. in fact, they didn't have a full squad, so our matches finished BEFORE the other game on adjacent courts. because of the perfect matchup, we had won the first-ever high school sand volleyball competition. cool beans.
on Tuesday, we play Xavier. Xavier is a 5A school (the biggest). we are in our first year at 1A (the smallest). they finished the indoor season ranked #35 in the nation at the highest level. my girls were somewhere below .500. they have a girl with a beach volleyball scholarship to USC. none of my girls had played volleyball on sand a month ago.
i'm not predicting what's going to happen on Tuesday. my point here is this — we could have started the season against this team.
the question i'm asking is this — how big of an impact do "random" variables play on our lives? who made the schedule? how did they choose the match-ups for the first week? i mean, i got three versions of the schedule before they arrived at the one we're currently following.
if we had played Xavier in the first game, and had gotten crushed, how different would our season be? it would definitely be different, and not for the better. do i have to prove it? fine.
the first game got the nervousness out of the way. we learned how everything worked without having a stressful game. we also have the ability to say we won the first match. ever. it wasn't glamorous, or intense, but it's ours. no one can take that away from us. that's a comfort, no matter what happens the rest of the season.
if you have any examples where something randomly worked out perfectly, pass them on.
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