The problem: at this point I was a relatively unknown player on a mid level OUA team, which until then, had only dipped it's big toe into playoffs. I didn't exactly have the resume nor the confidance to be asking for money to play volleyball on a professional team.
At this point the team was sitting at 2-5 in the league which I'm pretty sure is not good for your odds come playoff time.
But then something amazing happened. Whatever had been our hang up for the last few months (vball girls you all know what, or who, I'm talking about), we got over it. We became a team. And we started to pay well. Very well. Like 'Mighty Ducks', 'Bad News Bears' and 'Miracle on Ice' rolled into one well.
I started to play with more purpose. If I wanted to go somewhere after this, I would need to have something besides OUA quarterfinalist on my resume to back me up. I played with more confidence, and so did my teammates. We weren't the best team according to stats, rankings or the regular season standings, but we knew we could be.
To make a long story short, our 7th seed team pulled a fast one on the league, and upset the #1, #2 and #3 seeds to take the OUA title.
Now if I were to look back through time, perhaps at award acceptance speeches at a certain Lancer Athletic Banquet or to absolutely inappropriate pep talks after getting trounced by Laval, you would think that one person, who 'always tries hard and plays with passion, and pride', was responsible for the success of the team (hint: not me). But truth be told, the success was a direct result of teamwork.
I learned a lot from playing this past year. It gave me the experience and more importantly, the confidence to leave everything behind to follow a dream.
I learned even more from my teammates, who showed me what it takes to be successful. They were great in pushing me and supporting me. They made the decision to try this Europe thing that much easier.
I started to play with more purpose. If I wanted to go somewhere after this, I would need to have something besides OUA quarterfinalist on my resume to back me up. I played with more confidence, and so did my teammates. We weren't the best team according to stats, rankings or the regular season standings, but we knew we could be.
To make a long story short, our 7th seed team pulled a fast one on the league, and upset the #1, #2 and #3 seeds to take the OUA title.
Now if I were to look back through time, perhaps at award acceptance speeches at a certain Lancer Athletic Banquet or to absolutely inappropriate pep talks after getting trounced by Laval, you would think that one person, who 'always tries hard and plays with passion, and pride', was responsible for the success of the team (hint: not me). But truth be told, the success was a direct result of teamwork.
I learned a lot from playing this past year. It gave me the experience and more importantly, the confidence to leave everything behind to follow a dream.
I learned even more from my teammates, who showed me what it takes to be successful. They were great in pushing me and supporting me. They made the decision to try this Europe thing that much easier.
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