So here I go. I wanted to find away to remember this summer. A friend of mine recommended blogging as a way to accomplish this. So again Here I go stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something new. As it turns out I have been selected to coach the Canadian Women's volleyball team in the FISU games. Which is incredible if you know the story of how I got here. I never played the game of volleyball and it wasn't until I started teaching middle years that I became involved. Little did I know then that I would end up with it as a full tiem gig coaching at a University and eventually to coaching the National team in a Major event.
The head coach is Alain Pellettier from Universite Laval, we seem to agree on most things dealing with volleyball. The other assistant is Joely Christian from Queens University. I think/hope we will all get along well and make this summer a great experience.
Today was day 1 of the camp. Earlier in May we had the tryout for this team, it started with 40 players and we are now down to 17. We eventually have to get this group down to 12. It will be a good battle in many different positions. I am extremely excited as we have the making of a strong team. the last FISU games team was raided a bit as more of the players were needed on the Senior team. This year though the Senir team is more experienced and so we get most of the top players available.
The 17 players are made up of athletes from both the NCAA and the CIS leagues. But it a lot harder for the NCAA players to take part because of the time frame of their season. We probably would have had two more players if they would have been eligible. The break down of the team is 9 Canada west players, 3 Quebec players, 1 OUA player and 3 NCAA players. By coaching in the Canada West I a familiar with a lot of the players and some of their tendancies.
It is an interesting concept where my goal this summer is to make my opposition's players better. I take that responsibility seriously. Also with a bit of humour in it as well.
We had a meeting to start off the camp, Alain used this as an opportunity to introduce everyone who is involved in the program, everyone from strength coaches, therapists, sport psych, to the day to day grind of admin. (the Admin for Volleyball Canada often go unnoticed but they do a tremendous job coordinating all the different things that are needed in such a short time). In this meeting we laid out some expectations and had a couple of the athletes talk about what the level is like. We only hav eone player who has played int he FISU games last time around. So we are all going in a bit blind. we hope to be fast learners.
My goal with this blog is to keep myself and anyone who finds it updated on our development as a team and are movement to the eventual game is China.
More to come.
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