My all time favorite t.v. show is Will and Grace. I didn't discover this show until about 3 years ago, but when I first saw it, I was hooked. It is a ritual that when I'm with my mom we have to watch Will and Grace every night at ten o'clock on lifetime. You can say that we are addicted. We then got my sister hooked on the show as well. This past Christmas my sister's Christmas present to us all was the entire set of Will and Grace episodes! We all have a season and are rotating so that we each will see the entire season. My sister and I like to quote movies and we will quote Will and Grace as well to see if we know what episode it came from.
It’s a great feeling to have knowing that even when you’re not at home, you have a place you can call home. And even when you’re not with your family, you have friends you can call family. That’s what I have here at USI with the volleyball team, and all USI athletes. Many people look at our team and find it amazing that we are ALWAYS together…
We all have at least one roommate that is on the volleyball team with us
We can be leaving straight from practice and already be making plans to hang out for the night or the weekend
Most of us have our best friend on the team or who is another USI athlete
I remember one particular story from last year…I was living in the on campus apartments with Krista and Danielle. It wasn’t too surprising for the 3 of us to make “family dinners” together. We’d all pitch in some food and cook together for what was always an amazing meal! For this special occasion, we were making spaghetti and meat sauce and breadsticks mmm mmm good! We were all pretty hyper from it being spring season having to wake up for early morning workouts. Trying to figure out if the noodles were done yet, Danielle thought of a brilliant idea…”Throw a noodle on the wall and if it sticks it’s done!” So, us in our hype started throwing noodles on the wall and sure enough they were done! Dinner was amazing, but don’t worry we didn’t eat the noodles we threw on the wall. That’s one Family memory I will never forget!
The bus rides are always fun. It's quality time spent with your teammates, the coaches, and Art (our bus driver, he's the best!). We always watch movies or t.v. series, do homework (well some of us that do not get motion sickness), eat, eat, eat. We really like to eat. Before every trip we get to decide what snacks we are going to take in the food bin. It is always healthy with an occasional treat. We always get the normal; fruit snacks, triscuts, fruit, cheese, bagels, etc. This one trip I thought it would be funny if I put my favorite food, Flamin' Hot Cheetos on the list. I thought there was no way that the coaches would buy them because they aren't "healthy". To my surprise they got them! However, I had to wait till the way home to get them. It was torture. I had to stare at them from Thursdays departure till after the game Saturday. So we get on the bus after the game for a long ride home. We stop and eat so I am not ready for Flamin Hots right away because I am kinda full. There is one thing you should know about Flamin Hots, they are the hottest right when you open the bag. Trust me I am a professional. Any way, I go to the bin to get my snack and there is only an open bag with barely any left. It was the same bag that had been open since Thursday! I was not about to eat "UnFlamin" Flamin Hots. So I began to search everywhere on the bus because someone decided to play a little trick on me. I flung off peoples blankets, I woke people up and I even told the coaches I was fasting till I got the fresh hot bag.
NO ONE and I mean NO ONE told me where they were. Not till we arrived back at USI did RASHINDA tell me she had them the WHOLE TIME!! It was funny yet cruel, but I was happy when she told me I could take the fresh hot bag of FLAMIN HOTS home with me! :)
I am very excited about Spring Training because I am getting in better shape and I have more time to really work on my position. Acceleration is hard, but I like it a lot. It is helping me become a faster and more diverse volleyball player. Waking up early is not fun, but I am getting use to it. Not only are we doing Acceleration at 7am but on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we get a chance to play in the gym. I like having individuals as well as morning workouts because then I have the opportunity to see some results from the exercises we do at Acceleration. I believe this spring training is going to help us when it comes time to playing in April and then hopefully continue over to the season in the fall.
Family. Love. Passion. Determination. Champions. Friendships. These words come to mind when I think about my USI experience. Laughter. Support. Fight. Fun. These words too. How do you put the best time of your life into words? How do you thank the people that mean the most to you? I don’t know the answer, but I can tell you that USI made me the person I am today and the athlete I was then!
I can’t tell you all the details of who we beat, what the score was, who had the most kills or aces, but I could tell you how much fun we had. I can tell you about numerous miles we put on Coach Mercer’s Jeep (don’t worry, she my teammate back then:)) traveling to Nashville, Chicago, Indianapolis, following around singers you have never heard or mountain biking trips where we thought we were going to kill ourselves and getting in the car on such an adrenaline rush and laughing for hours or eating dinner with teammates families after matches because they “adopted” me that night because my family couldn’t make it and I can tell you about watching my teammates grow up, get married and have children, just like we talked about in numerous 15 passenger van rides to our matches. And I wouldn’t be doing my team justice if I didn’t mention the moment I remember the most, achieving the goal my senior class set out as freshmen, when we beat Northern Kentucky in 2002 for our first GLVC Championship and trip to the NCAA tournament in school history. The part I remember the most is grabbing fellow captain Kristi “Kav” Kavanaugh (Griffin) and hugging her until our coach pried us apart to make us shake hands! We did it! I can tell you how much that banner means to me in the gym, that I tear up everytime I see it or think about it, not because I remember that match, but I remember my journey it took to get there!
I took away from USI tons of memories, but the what I value most is my relationship with my teammates and my coaches. I think one of the best compliments you can give to a coach is to become a coach yourself. My coaches were amazing in every way, as coaches and as people! They pushed me in so many different ways because they cared. They made me do things I never thought possible because they believed in me. They helped us reach our goals because they were competitive and had an undying love for the game! How do I give back to someone who has done so much for me? I became a coach and many times think back to the coaches (now mentors) I had in my life and remember those same exact things they did for me, because it meant so much. During my years at USI, we have had 5 people go into college coaching and numerous at the high school and club level. Thank you coaches (you know who you are) for believing in us and shaping our lives!
I had to give a speech when I was a senior in college at the GLVC banquet and I knew it was going to be an emotional one, but I hung pretty tough, thanking everyone such as my mom, my family, my previous coaches, the administration, the GLVC, but then I had to thank my teammates and I lost it because they meant so much to me and I was afraid to go out into the world without them. They were my family, my comfort, my security and I would miss them dearly, but what I didn’t realize is how my experience at USI and my relationships with these people had prepared me more than enough to face the real world on my own. We had ups and downs as a program and each of us as individuals had our low moments, but each one of those things shaped us into the people that we are and the person that I am. And at a moment’s notice I could call and they would be there and they are still there.
What we had as a team, was unreal, you couldn’t match it. Teams were jealous of it, coaches were jealous of it. We were special, it was normal to us, our love for each other drove us to be the best and drove us to push each other to the best. Coach Mercer says it’s back in the program and you have no idea how happy that makes me.
I love being a part of the USI family, I still watch old game tapes of my teams, watch us out there chest-bumping, diving all over the place, getting after each other, inspiring each other, cheering like we won a national championship on every point, and then I look at those people out there and see my USI family and I can’ t help but smile.
I am more proud than ever to tell people that I graduated from the University of Southern Indiana and I played Division II because it was the best experience of my life!
As a former player and as a coach, just some advice, enjoy the journey, whether you are a collegiate player or a high school player, because the things that matters the most are the relationships, not what you get out of them, but what you put into them as well, that is what you remember the most and that is what I truly cherish!
When Coach Reed asked me to write about my experience at USI, it took me a couple of days to even start. How could I awaken the artistry of words it would require to articulate precisely how I felt about all those days I spent at USI? So many hilarious things happened (is USI’s #14 is killing bees in the middle of a rally or is she clogging to ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’?). So many obstacles (Randi, seriously, dump him!). There were so many tough practices (twice through anyone?) and classes (don’t think of missing one or there will be hell to pay….in the form of bike sprints) and homework (a Mountain Dew and a quiet library) but woven through all my experiences there was a common thread: the people. So today, somewhere between counting how many camp volleyballs we needed for the summer and organizing Dig For Life contacts it dawned on me that all I had to do was talk about two things: my passion for the game and the people from USI I have been blessed to know.
My first exposure to the collegiate game was in the seventh grade when my coach asked for volunteers to act as ball roller at a Saint Joseph’s College home match. The women (because to my thirteen year old eyes, these were women!) were athletic and dynamic and they could jump and they got excited when they scored (very different from my basketball-oriented world)! And, truth be told, it looked so cool when the ball hit the floor at Mach 3! It was like nothing my little eyes had ever seen. And so it was: I am a volleyball player.
My path was a bit different than most aspiring collegiate players of today. I was not from a big prestigious club (or high school) program, not six foot two and not able to jump into the rafters. What I was capable of though, was accepting challenge and working my tail off. Fortunately for me, USI had an established culture of hard work and competitiveness that I would thrive in. Not six foot two high jumpers from great clubs. Girls who were like me: strong, athletic, and raw but REFUSED to lose and it was special. I had officially found where I belonged and ten instant best friends who would put themselves on the line for me in any situation. My most trusted and loyal friends to this day are my teammates from USI.
Now, that USI volleyball has experienced some success, they get more refined players from better club programs and it is so exciting to see. It’s due to the competitiveness, work-like-a-dog hard work, dedication, never-say-die attitude, we-will-get-this-stuff-done, I’m-with-you-no-matter-what, culture that has been established at USI. In my heart I know credit goes to the great coaches and players (I will not name names for fear of omission) the program has had in recent history. They built the program and won championships despite ridiculous barriers. I was just lucky enough to be there, trying to keep up with them. Fortunately, the program is run by an awesome coach who absolutely understands all this because she was there. Leah Mercer (or Mama Merce as she was known to me in our college days together), is not only a teammate, friend, and mentor of mine, she’s an exceptional person who is compassionate and understands what USI volleyball means and to me, that’s special.
My love for the game and passion for learning was fostered, not hindered and has yet to be quenched. That is why I coach. The USI volleyball experience is one I wouldn’t trade for any in the world and I know I’m not alone when I say this. If you don’t know, you better ask somebody!
You know that one must be motivated to tear them self away from a cozy bed and mentally prepare for a 7:00 am practice. Even though the the sun still hadn't risen and the weather outside was, let's just say...frightful, we were all excited to get back in the gym. There are so many new skills that we want to implement this season and the ladies were like sponges, ready to soak up knowledge. It can honestly be said that Spring Season, at times challenging, is an exciting time of year.
