Senior Year - The Last Season

It’s no secret that the RHS girls’ volleyball team didn’t have the greatest season this year.

We ended with a 3-15 record, which wasn’t any better than last year’s 3-16 record. Being a varsity starter for the past two years, I find it difficult to walk away from my volleyball career with high spirits. Sure, we had a few wins, but to practice for two-and-a-half hours every day and still lose a majority of the time isn’t necessarily what I’d call “fun.”

A lot of people talk about pride being a major factor in having a successful team. We saw a sense of pride a lot this season. We saw it in the teams that consistently won, we saw it in the coaches of those teams, and we saw it in the fans of those teams who came out to support all of their games.

Now, when people define a “successful” team, they most likely mean one that does win consistently. These teams, though they do possess an incredible amount of pride, possess a lot of other aspects too. I’ve seen it in the four years I’ve been playing volleyball. There are rivalries between the hitters on those teams who are fighting for a starting position. There’s jealousy of other players who aren’t quite good enough to be part of the starting six. And mainly, there is a lot of pressure.

Volleyball was the first team sport I ever played, and I never really was on a winning team, even when I played in the offseason, so I can’t speak from experience. But from an outsider’s perspective, those so-called “successful” teams don’t look like they have very much fun. Sure they cheer and get excited and take pride in their winning seasons. Who wouldn’t? Everyone is raised to know that winning is an exciting thing.

But is the winning really worth all of the trouble?

After one of our losses this year, we were high-fiving the other team down the line with our usual “good game.” I noticed that one player in particular on the other team wouldn’t look at us while she high-fived us, and when she got to me, I noticed she was in tears. I don’t know why she was crying or what she was crying about, but I can say that the team she’s on is ridiculously competitive and ridiculously good.

It made me think about my team and how, even though we hadn’t won very much, we still all managed to smile and laugh and joke around. We all got along with each other and we all had fun together. We didn’t experience the same ridiculous pressures that those other teams did.

I guess, in a way, we did win, because our team possessed a humbleness that I didn’t notice in a lot of the other teams. I understand that sounds really cliché, but thinking back, I believe it to be true. We accepted our losses without any bitterness and said “good game” with a smile.

As a co-captain this year, it was my duty to make sure that the team stayed motivated and positive, and I never really had to worry about that. The other girls were always gracious about our wins and our losses, and I take a lot of pride in that. In my eyes, we were a successful team, even if we didn’t win every game. We were successful because we had the right attitude no matter what, and even if we were thrown off for a second with a few bad calls and a few close loses, we always found a way to get back to our positive mindsets and be good sports about everything. I only hope that, after I leave, the girls maintain these attitudes, even if they do tack on a few more wins in the next seasons.

They made me proud, and I can’t wait to come back and see them play next year.