As I am watching the Stanford Volleyball’s recording of the women’s team celebrating their national championship match win, I am struck by the emotions etched in the faces of the players and coach Kevin Hambly. It was a mix of unadulterated joy for some and for others, particularly Libero Morgan Hentz, it was a look of desperate sadness. In the audio portion almost all the players made some comment about the sadness of seeing their four years end, a sadness that came with the recognition that this was the last time that this team, this particular alchemy of people was ever going to play together. Ever. The finality of the thought is brutal but honest.
However, it is Morgan’s demeanor and her human response to that finality that captured my thoughts about the reasons for coaching, at least the most important reason. The juxtaposition of her tear streaked face to go along with her big broad smile captures the juxtaposition of emotions that had enveloped her. Her absolute honesty and integrity made me think on this moment that is fraught with conflicting thoughts.
This scene plays all over the country at the end of Fall, as high school and college teams end their season. At least half of them will end in defeat, so they don’t experience the euphoria that the Stanford team experienced at that moment in PPG Paint Arena in Pittsburgh, only the very few get to do that. Johns Hopkins in Division III, Cal State-Bernardino in Division II, and Marian in NAIA all get to do the celebratory dance, as do the Junior College champions. No doubt their celebrations are joyous and over the top.
But the sense of sadness, the sense of finality of the last match hit every team without regard to winning or losing, we just get to see Morgan express her loss publicly. No doubt there are heartfelt expressions of love and loss in the locker rooms, both the winning and the losing ones. No doubt there are coaching staff sitting stoically in the seats in the arena, processing the meaning of the last match and the sense of loss which has finally hit them after the adrenaline of the match had worn off. No doubt players, staff, and coaches are feeling the weight of regret for things left unsaid, acts of friendship left unperformed, love unexpressed, hugs unhugged. For those who were lucky enough to win the last match together, it is a mixture of happiness, gratefulness, sadness and regret. For those who lose their last match together it is pangs of goals unmet, and missions unaccomplished mixed with the sadness and regret. The common denominator is the sadness and regret. From the team who did not win a match all season to the team who did not lose a match all season, the common denominator is the team, with all the adjectives which inadequately describe the meaning of the term team.
Coaches try to build teams from day one. They preach about family, they admonish the players about having each other’s back, they cajole them to be vulnerable to each other, and they think up ridiculous exercise to motivate the mélange of players to bond into a team. All to capture that magical alchemy call a cohesive team. Some think that team chemistry is a formula, a recipe. If we gave them an opportunity to do this, or to do that then at the end we will have a team. I am much more romantic than that. Each team is much greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts are important. There are as many disparate personalities, temperaments, cultures, logic, and mindsets as there are players, the job of melding them all into a strong and bonded collective is seemingly next to impossible. The team building tactics, and activities do help in progressing the team to their goals, but there is an element of magic which is unpredictable and undetected in all the interpersonal interactions that happen in a team. That magic must happen serendipitously, there are catalysts but their effects are all also uncertain. There are no ways to replicate the magic year after year, there are no ways to capture it if you don’t have it. You sow the ground the best you can and then you hope for the best. Prepare the ground, make sure it is fecund, and then let it happen. Or not.
For the coaches, watching the end of a chapter in your team or program is the ultimate test of your coaching philosophy. John Kessel used to always ask beginning coaches what they were coaching. He would play gotcha with them if they answered: volleyball. “NO!” he would bellow, scaring the dickens out of the group, “you don’t coach volleyball, you coach people!”
It is because we coach people that we value, actually treasure a true team.
It is because we coach people that we, volleyball coaches, are so touched and moved by the elation and sadness of the scene in PPG Paint Area. We don’t do this to win matches, the extrinsic rewards are obviously fantastic, but we do it for the intrinsic rewards, rewards we enjoy in the privacy of our minds and heart, rewards that are inexpressible to those who have not been where we have been. We do it for so many human and emotional reasons and the real rewards comes from witnessing and experiencing our teams become one and reveling in the presence of one another. You don’t need to win the national championship to experience that euphoria and love.
