It's already midnight here, and I feel like the minutes moved like seconds today. Sundays are usually my day of rest, which is probably why I wish they were longer. We had Open House today, so the campus was a bit more lively than usual. A recruit from Northlake, IL was in town for it and gave us a verbal commitment, so that's exciting. I look forward to hitting a couple open gyms with him this Christmas break. Pretty crazy to think that next year we'll potentially have 5 people from Illinois on the team!
Tomorrow I'll be missing the compliance meeting with our Athletic Director, and this concerns me, as supposively our trip to California is in jeopardy. Although I'm sure we'll come to an agreement to make it work, he's concerned with the effort of the guys selling raffle tickets to fund the trip. A little under half have stayed on track, while others have strayed from the plan. Part of it is because half of us are from out of state, and it simply takes time for the money to come in the mail. However, I'm sure we could be working harder, and as long as we give him some sort of proof that we're doing our best, we can make it work. I'd love to be there to say that, but I'll have to rely on the teammates to do so. Not too worried about it, they all have good heads on their shoulders, I'm sure they'll make it work.
Had my first official head coaching experience yesterday, on account of a family situation with the regular coach. It was definitely not what I expected. A complete roller-coaster of a day, with just about every situation you could imagine. Losing the first set 25-13, proceeding to win the 2nd and 3rd (the latter being 25-9), then proceeding to go up 17-10 in the fourth set only to have the other team rattle off a 15-2 run to send us to a fifth game, which they pulled off 15-12. We ended up getting swept the next match, but proceeded to play better each game.
It's a tough situation, especially when you're simply filling in. Also, there's just so many things you can take for granted as an assistant. Do I take a timeout when the other team is up 5-1 to stop the bleeding, or do I risk burning them too quickly so that I need to resort to subs late in the game? How are girls going to react to substitutions? How are the girls going to react in general to certain tones? When you don't have a second coach for them to turn to in the event that they don't agree with you, there's a risk that they'll shut down on you.
All that said, the girls worked hard and I'm pleased with the effort they showed. They made the conference tournament, and with the head coach returning for it, I have high hopes for it.
One week from preseason! I'm excited to get started... I'm still a bit concerned about my lower-back, but as long as I continue to stretch a couple times a day I think it'll keep me out of trouble. I hit an open gym Friday (I know, quite the wild Halloween for me) and everything felt great, although the serve receive was a bit rusty. The guys have been buzzing about this year, and it'll be nice to get back to work. It should be a pretty competitive season, as most of the guys I've talked to from other teams have been boasting about strong recruiting classes. Although some people would look at this as a bad thing, I think the more talented the teams we play, the better prepared we'll be for the tournament at the end of the season, so hopefully they live up to the hype!
I need to wrap up some homework, more updates later this week.
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