As I sit in my dorm room enjoying a relaxing Sunday before going back to the normal grind of school, work, and other Monday-Friday obligations, I can't help but daydream about the upcoming season. I keep telling myself not to count the days, but the closer we get, the more difficult I find that to be. There's so much potential...
As this is my first post, I should probably give a brief background to anyone that decides to read. First off, who is this blog geared towards? To be honest, a large reason I'm doing it is for myself. With all the things I have going on with my life right now, I find it somewhat therapeutic to be able to get my thoughts out of my head and written down (or typed in this instance). On top of that, I've always found myself looking at other people's experiences and beliefs as coaches, players, or spectators, in order to further develop my own. That being the case, I figured that this blog could be used by high school athletes looking to play in college, aspiring coaches, or just volleyball fanatics in general.
So who am I? My name is Bryan McDermand, and I'm currently a Junior at Newbury College. I play on the Men's Volleyball team here, as well as coach the women's program over at Lasell College. I'm a 23 year old originally from Palatine, IL, and I'm currently double-majoring in Finance and Sports Management. I plan on graduating in the Spring of 2010, at which point there are many different directions I could end up heading in. In a perfect world, I'll be somewhere in Europe making a living playing volleyball. Time will tell.
What do I plan on writing? It will probably be a day-to-day process. Ideally, I'll be updating the blog each day, but realistically I'm sure there will be times I just want to crash and write later. The topics will be pretty much all geared towards the volleyball portion of my life, both as a coach and player. Sometimes I may throw a little blurb about something else, but most likely in a manner that discusses how it affects my season. If I end up getting any sort of on-line following, I'd be up for using posts to answer questions/messages I have, whether it be a response to a previous blog, or just picking my brain about something.
For now, I have quite a few things on my mind. As for the Lasell team, although I'm excited for my own season, I am bummed that theirs is coming to an end shortly. I've only been on board for about three weeks, and it's been a wonderful experience. They have 12 players on the team, and every single one of them get along with each other, no cliques or anything. I've never seen anything like it. Also, the head coach has been very warm in her welcome to me, and has helped me learn a lot during the short time I've been there. Their record isn't the greatest, but numbers don't show the hard work they put in, and they recently had a strong 4-game win streak, and have a good shot of making the GNAC Conference Tournament, at which point anything is possible. We shall see! For now, this was a one-year contract for coaching, but I really hope that they invite me back. I've worked hard, and feel that I've made positive contributions, but keep in mind that as a 23-year old, it isn't hard to replace me with someone more experienced. I'm just being realistic about the possibilities, and continue to give my all so that no matter what happens, I can say that I gave the team my best effort.
As for my own season, It's going to be difficult not to write too much each time, because I can honestly go on and on about it. For now, the big focus for me is last-minute preparations for the pre-season. I've put almost 15 pounds of muscle on since coming back this fall, which was nice as it's been too long since I took an off-season to just hit the weights. I'm a bit concerned about my lower-back as I crunch hard when I jump serve and attack the ball, but hopefully taking up yoga will help.
The team in general is ready. This is my third year playing here, and by far we've all worked harder than we ever did in previous off-seasons. It would have been really easy to become content with finishing 6th nationally for Division III last year, but it seems like that only inspired everyone that much more to do everything we could to try and win it all this year. I feel that everyone gels much better than previous years as well, and feel that if we continue to do what we're doing, the sky's the limit.
We're heading to California for Spring Break, and although the fundraising for it can be stressful (I'm blessed by being surrounded by a large group of supportive friends, but I HATE asking people to buy raffle tickets, which is what we have to do), we're all very excited for the trip, knowing that the best competition is out there. I've never been to California, and look forward to the overall experience. For now though, I need to raise the money to make it happen. Ah, the joys of being a Division III athlete.
15 days until preseason. We'll have 4 days of practice, a day off, then head off to Springfield for a tournament, which I'm excited for, as Springfield won the National Championship last year, and it'll be a great gauge on where we're at and what we need to work on. For now, I'm heading out to play some Grass ball, enjoying the warm weather while we have it!
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