In the locker room…
There are shrieks of greeting the
familiar
There are the silences of greeting
the unfamiliar
Music leak from earpods, in sych
with the players heartbeats and feeding the butterflies in their stomachs.
Brand new kneepads liberated from
the wrappings, knowing that smell will never come back after the first
practice.
Socks are put on with care with the
memories of long ago blisters.
Hair is tied back into a tight and
practical ponytail.
Arm sleeves and wrist bands are
placed just so.
Fingers are taped for maximum karma.
Shoes are tied and retied, never
reaching the sweet spot between too tight and not tight enough.
Newbies have eyes like saucers, absorbing the new. Fearing
the worst, hoping for the best.
Veterans watching the newbies, reading them.
Observing the strength, looking for cracks and the light
that inevitably shines through them.
The freshmen taking deep breaths.
The seniors also taking deep breaths.
Both are embarking on a new path.
One anticipating and dreading the first.
One anticipating and dreading the last.
In the gym…
Coaches huddle and debate.
Reviewing the practice plans that have been bled, sweated,
and cried over. Its content sear indelibly in their minds.
Plans that started as a thought on a coffee shop napkin and
evolved into something with a logic and chronology all its own.
Plans that had extracted a pound of flesh from each coach.
Managers are sweeping the floor for the hundredth time
because the previous 99 times were just not good enough.
Nets are tightened to the point of breaking.
Air compressors are whining their distinctive tone, filling
each volleyball to a rock-hard consistency.
Pressures are checked and rechecked.
Water stations are filled, complete, and ready.
Silent sentinels for what is to come. Good and bad.
It is the start of the Fall volleyball season, for the
tiniest tots to the most seasoned and grizzled collegians, and everyone in
between.
No skeptics or cynics are allowed
in the gym.
Everyone is 0-0.
Everyone has the chance to go
undefeated.
Everyone has the chance to go
winless.
And everything in between.
Everyone believes.
Coaches hope for progress and
revelation.
Player hope for progress and
revelation.
Never mind the drama, the
challenges, the practices, the matches, the conflicts.
Always believing in becoming and
being the best.
As the players enter the gym…
Some charge in excitedly.
Some saunter in nonchalantly.
Some creep in hesitantly.
Some enter while taking such deep
breath that they might pass out.
The sound of chatter is loud, energetic, fearful, hopeful,
equanimous, and everything else.
Coaches watch their teams…
They feel their own butterflies grow into Mothra.
“This is it,” they think.
This is us, from now until the end of the season.
We will learn together.
We will suffer together.
We will exult together.
We will love together.
We will bicker together.
We will live and die together.
Coaches watching each other.
Players watching the coaches.
Coaches and players bound together in anticipating and
dreading of the unknown.
Then it is time. One coach breaks out of their trance.
The whistle blows…
