Coach Dad, tourney day

If it were possible to take just one of life's days and bottle it up to savor forever, today might very well have been that day.

Two years ago I traveled to Hutchinson, MN, for an all-day volleyball tournament with Daughter 2, an event which led to one of the more thoughtful posts I've penned (if I do say so myself).   Today, for the first time since, I returned to that same city with all three of my daughters for another all-day tournament.  And I do mean all day - we backed out of our driveway at 5:30 a.m. and drove back in at 9:35 this evening.  Between the leaving and the returning was a lot of volleyball, a lot of music, and a lot of memory making.

The volleyball:  I am so proud of our team, so proud of my daughters.  It's been a rough winter and spring for us; team dissension and sparse attendance at too many practices turned what should be a fun activity into a challenging and stressful situation for my daughters, for their teammates, for me.  But we sat down at a practice in early March and communicated some hard truths to one another.....and started to learn about each other......and realized we could learn from each other....then we started to enjoy playing together......and today we finally got to enjoy winning together.

We are not a powerhouse team.  There are no state championships on the horizon for our volleyball program.  But on a court where this morning our six players began the day, our one team ended the day as champions.  Ok, so it was champions of the consolation bracket, the second-tier teams.  But try telling that to my daughters, or their teammates, who were quite pleased to end the day as winners.  Regardless of tiers or levels or records, we had to scratch and claw and fight for every point of our final game.  Twice our fate was being crushed in the jaws of defeat, and twice we forced those jaws open and climbed out with victory.  When the final whistle blew and the championship point was awarded to our team - OUR team! - to stand and watch my players share smiles and hugs with teammates who a couple of months ago wouldn't even return a smile let alone a hug, well.....chills.

The music: Mostly 80's with brief interruptions of today's phony garbage.  And a healthy dose of the soundtrack from The Greatest Showman....which has grown on me like a runaway fungus.  Terrible movie, killer soundtrack.  But honestly, this post isn't about music, I just threw it in that sentence up there because I needed a trio of "most of's" from the day.  So back to daughters and volleyball....

The memories:  We grabbed some burgers and fries for the road before leaving town.  We cranked up the music.  We ate, we laughed, we sang, we looked at pictures, we shared comments that seemed to all begin with "that one play" and "did you see when" and "I couldn't believe I".  In the midst of this completely relaxed jubilance I looked to my left to see the sun dipping below the horizon, much as I had done a little more than 12 hours earlier as it appeared in the opposite direction, and as it sank I knew I, we, had just shared a perfect day with each other.

Yes, perfect.  The weather was gorgeous.  The volleyball was fun.  The times between games was nothing but relaxed.  We won more than we lost.  We played better more often than we played poorly.  We left worries and cares and stresses home for the day.  Daughter 1 ended her high school spring volleyball career on as high a note as she could have hoped for, playing tough, determined volleyball and being the glue that held her team together while providing the power we needed to push opponents back on their heels.  Daughter 2, an eighth grader, stood with and against players two and three years her elder and played older than her years.  And Daughter 3 was right there by my side for all of it, charting hustle plays and grabbing water bottles and cheering for her sisters and their team.  Dang it, how lucky was I to have been given this day?  To have the chance to lead a group of players to something so special for them, with all three of my children right in the middle of it.  Like I said in the opening, if I could bottle one day......

Say "hello" to a team (and a coach) who can't quite believe what they've just done.

2018 Hutchinson 17U Consolation Champs!

The spring seasons will roll on.  Players will change.  Daughter 1's tourneys are over, Daughter 3's tourneys are still ahead.  There will be days when things on the court go right, and days when pretty much everything looks horrid.  But there will always, always be this day.  I don't need a bottle or the pictures or this blog.  This day went straight to my heart.  I don't intend to ever let it leave.