How Tough it is to Repeat

Winning a championship is tough. Repeating as champions is extremely tough. When you win a championship the following year you have the label as the ‘champs’, and every game you play the opposing team will be gunning for you. You essentially have a bull’s-eye on your back because every team will be trying to de-thrown you. The opposing team will bring their A-games as they get a chance to measure up to the champions. Humber volleyball has a reputation of always being a contender and if you can beat Humber, you will have a chance to compete for a provincial championship. Even without being the reigning provincial champions we would get a good game out of our opponents, but now having the reputation of Humber, being ranked number one in the province and the defending champions, teams will be gunning for you. Looking at OCAA record books, men’s volleyball has not had a repeat champion since the 2001-2002 season when the Loyalist Lancers of Belleville repeated. So far this season, the Humber Men’s team seems to be on track to repeat. They have successfully repeated as champions at the Durham Cup Volleyball tournament, and the Humber Cup Volleyball tournament. They are also ranked first in the province and fourth nationally. I guess its safe to say for now, that the Men’ Volleyball team is on pace to repeat.

Practice

One of the most important aspects that determine success throughout the course of the season is practice. For some it’s where you get to work out all the kinks, flaws, and rust that may have built up over the summer. But for others it’s a chance to get in shape and work on skill development and try to perfect certain aspects of your game. Volleyball is a game of skill/ repetition and the more time you practice working on the skills, the better and more comfortable you will become. It’s amazing how fast you loose those skills when you take off a few practices or are away from the game. Usually the first thing to go is your timing. Timing plays a huge role in volleyball; it determines whether you hit the ball in the bottom of the net or getting a point (a kill) for your team. It also affects your passing, blocking, defense and just your overall movement on the court. A moment to slow or too quick you don’t make the play, but if you’re in rhythm and on time good things tend to happen. A varsity practice tends to last roughly 2 hours and the men’s team usually practices following the women’s team. Start time depends on the day but usually starts at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. For my first 3 years on the volleyball team practice on most nights was at 8p.m. but many of us found this difficult because practice wouldn’t end until 10p.m. and depending on where you live, you might not get home until much later. Practice starts with a warm up, which usually lasts 20 minutes. We use many different warm up drills such as blocking practice, ball control drills, or depending on how coach feels, head soccer (a player favorite). After warm up coach will have us focus on one or two aspects that he feels we need to work on as a group. Most of the time it’s working on passing or our defensive skills and system. Most volleyball players at the varsity level are fairly developed when it comes to their offensive skill because most of us when we’re with our friends playing around all we want to do is hit balls or spike. At the end of every practice we usually have some type of game situation practice either scrimmaging, with starters against the bench or a mix of the two. Losers in the scrimmage almost always have some sort of punishment. Punishments can be running lines, sit ups, push-ups, jumping exercises or a mix of them all. Most athletes are very competitive so they never want to loose and have to do punishments, which is why our practices are so intense. Intense practices usually carry over to intensity in games, which is a key reason why our team has been successful.

The Life of a Rookie

Every season brings in new players, new faces, and new relationships. A Rookie by definition can be defined as ‘an athlete playing his or her first season as a member of a amateur or professional sports team’. Your first year playing varsity is a year that you will never, ever forget. Excitement, a sense of accomplishment and nervousness can explain the way you feel when stepping on the court for the first time in front of the Humber faithful. Some players take advantage of the big stage and can perform well under the bright lights, others take time to develop and need seasoning before they can perform. First year players are not only battling themselves but other first years for court time as well as seasoned veterans. Even certain coaches choose not to play rookies simply for the fact that they are rookies and they believe they need a season or two to be ready for the challenges that college volleyball withholds. The life of a rookie also brings many duties that they must fulfill during their first year. Every rookie before them has had to carry the ball bag off the bus or collect the balls (shag up) in volleyball terms after practice and take the balls to the locker room. Every veteran has a rookie buddy and is paired up at the beginning of the season. Although it’s the veterans job to teach and show the rookies the ropes, a rookie has many jobs to do for their veteran like getting him lunch, or filling his water bottle when its empty. These jobs or ‘tasks’ might sound tedious or even childish but they are traditions that have gone on for years. You’re only a rookie once and the life of a rookie is one that you will never forget.

Exhibition Game

Every year the men’s volleyball program starts in a similar way with scheduled exhibition games against a number of University (OUA) teams. It is very well known that University teams are typically better than college team for a number of reasons. A typical college team practices two to three times per week, where a university team practices four to five times per week. The extra touches from those practices makes them more ‘crisp’ as there games are usually sharper. University teams also usually get the prized recruits who want to attend University as apposed to a college. This is not always the case but from my experience is definitely what happens. Another reason as to why university teams are usually better is because of the competition that they usually face. In the OCAA, there are roughly twenty men’s teams but maybe the top three or four teams (depending on how strong a year it is in the OCAA) could compete in the OUA against university teams. So whenever a college team plays a university team, the college team definitely has something to prove and wants to play well. We played against York last season, and we had a lead in every set but failed to close out any of the games losing 3-0. We were disappointed in our result because we felt like we were the better team but just failed to finish strong. The practices following that game did we ever spend a lot of time doing drills trying to close out games. Needless to say it was a learning experience that we as a team grew from. Fast forward to this year, and the Humber guys are playing the York Lions and it’s always a good test to see where you stand compared to the OUA teams. You know if you can compete with a University team in Ontario, then you’ll have a good chance of winning and competing for the OCAA championship. This year’s game had a lot of hype with two young superstars, Terrel Bramwell and Ray Szeto facing off. Ray is one of Ontario’s top high school recruits who played for Team Ontario over the summer and will be looked upon to carry York this year. It will be interesting to see how Humber plays and to see if they can come out victorious.