Weekly Wrap-Up (3/21/21)

Sorry to get your hopes up, but I think I have to pass this week. I just haven’t been able to keep up with things as well as I needed to in order to make this not seem fake. I have been updating my Cancer Diary, which has been good for me. Tomorrow is up-in-the-air with discharge a strong possibility. This may mess up any plans for the Regional Leaders.

Here are a few volleyball musings, I guess. Coach Flora (Southwestern) was forced to miss this weekend’s matches against St. Thomas but it was cool to see Assistant Coach Palmer on the sidelines. She has ice in her veins as far as I could tell. So calm. Wonderful lady that will be missed after this season.

I’ve started the Points/Set work I do but am behind on that, as well. Still, through Thursday, there were some interesting story lines that I obviously missed originally. Did you know Belhaven and Louisiana College scored the exact number of points in both of their matches this week? Belhaven won both in 4-sets so LC was a bit unlucky. Most of the time, it’s when you score your points, right? I don’t understand George Fox. They only play 5-set matches and they still have an outstanding P/S number (didn’t do Friday’s match, yet). Is it a thing when a team doesn’t know how good they can be? The UTD and Belhaven first match is going to give us a record. This was the most dominating box score I’ve seen this year.

How does a team celebrate an AVCA #1 ranking at the end of the year? Us old people remember college football having multiple polls and no championship games to clearly define things. I guess you put a banner up. Lots of hard work went into it but so much weirdness has to account for it. I think it would be great if Coach Swan (final year) and Colorado College could hang on. It’s really up to Trinity in a sense. They will most likely play in the SCAC Championship. We still have a number of other teams that could be in the same position as CC by the end of their seasons, too. Number of matches and the quality of the conferences plays a huge role in my mind. I know you can’t lose a match and get the #1 ranking. That would just be wrong.

This pandemic is really a war. In all wars great advancements are made in all areas including medical advancements. I really hope the focus and money that has gone into the vaccines will help in other areas, as well. I think it has to and I really think in 20 years we’ll look back and see the benefits. Death is never worth anything, but seeing light in darkness can bring value to those that suffered. When the world is humming along, we basically exist in a vacuum. The same things happen over and over again and, to me, progress is slowed. Just looking for light, I guess.

I’ve heard from some coaches about how certain players didn’t come back this season in shape. Easy to do, really. You have to think the SCIAC coaches have to worry about this for the fall after such a long layoff. How do you motivate and train when you can’t see your players in person?

I use this post to hand out love to our wonderful DIII student-athletes and I’ve failed in this regard for the last 2 weeks and probably next week, too. So, from me, just know that I’m taking love from you when I get a moment to watch the matches and it means a lot to me. Anything normal is special right now. Thank you all for being special.