Personal Narrative-My Journey Of Playing Volleyball

My Volleyball Journey

When I was a young child, I used to go watch my dad play volleyball with his friends. I was only 5 or 6 years-old. I used to be the only girl there and had to wake up early, like at 6 in the morning, but I had a lot of fun watching him. Arriving at the volleyball courts early in the morning felt like biting into a perfect apple. I used to get bored sometimes as I had no friends to play with, but I used to endure the boredom as I got to watch my dad play the sport. I loved playing volleyball because it seemed different than what I watched on TV all the time such as football, basketball, baseball, and even cricket because I grew up in an Indian household. Even in these sports, I would usually see men compete, never women.

About the time I got to second grade, I started playing with my dad and my neighbor. Although we only passed each other the ball and never played full games, it became my favorite sport.
I kept playing throughout the years. My favorite time to play was during school P.E. We always had sports units, and all of them except volleyball were tedious. So when volleyball came around, I was very enthusiastic and loved playing the sport. It became such a hobby, that I even started playing during break and at lunch with my friends. One day in fourth grade, my P.E. coach came over during class and offered me a flyer about a volleyball camp in the summer. I showed my dad and got very excited. There was a separate timing for the elementary school kids and a separate time for middle schoolers. Since I was going into 5th grade and was still in elementary, I arrived on the first day and saw that no one was here. We were then informed that no one except for me showed up from the little kids, so they invited me to the older one. When I arrived, I was apprehensive because I was playing along the middle schoolers, the towering, intimidating, smart-mouthed 8th graders. Everyone was surprised about my age, but weren’t rude or didn’t make fun of me for that. I didn’t let it get in my way, and at the end of the few weeks, I was very happy with what I had accomplished.
One of my first challenges was middle school. I made it through middle school, being on Team “B” for my first 2 years and then Team “A”, the higher-skilled players, for my last year. I got discouraged in 7th grade when I didn't make the higher team and it made me dejected. However, I didn’t worry too much as I was only in middle school. In my last year of 8th grade, I “shadowed” my cousin, went to her classes and observed how the high school I was going to go to, was like, and met the volleyball coach. I talked to her about the volleyball season and learned about the summer conditioning that was going to start, and that too soon after school would end. I decided to be very committed as my goal was to make varsity, and I came to every conditioning, every practice, even though we had to run. I hate running and it is my worst nightmare, but I came to the conditionings and ran the mile every time.
One of the problems I have had every year since I started playing volleyball were the tryouts.

Tryouts are torturous for me because I get nervous while doing anything in front of others. For instance, I would do great at the practices before and when I practiced at home, but as soon as I got to tryouts I wouldn’t be able to do anything. This is exactly what happened at freshman year volleyball tryouts. I couldn’t serve a single time. The fact that I wasn’t able to serve as soon as tryouts started and that I couldn't do anything about it made me incredibly angry. As a result, I made JV and then cried my eyes out. I wanted to quit. I didn't want to play anymore at all. I was annoyed at how every year, I would try so hard and wouldn’t be able to achieve my goal. Moreover, one of my friends, all she would do before tryouts was to say which team she wanted to get on, and it would happen. No matter how much it seemed impossible, she always got on the best team. At this point, I was really tempted to drop out of the team. I was done trying so hard and not being able to achieve my goals. I wanted to quit the sport, but then my dream of becoming a college volleyball player kept coming back to me. I finally decided I was going to keep playing and work even

harder.
I learned a lot and improved a lot more freshman year. Another reason I was discouraged earlier was that my coaches hadn’t ever been pushing or strict. This year though, my coaches were tougher on me and that encouraged me to work harder and play better. I really liked it. Also, many people on my team actually knew how to play. Previously, no one knew how to play volleyball but still got on the team because of the lack of players at our middle school, causing us to lose every game we played. This year, we won several games, had numerous team dinners, and I got really close with my team. Even the upperclassmen on the team made it feel like I had known them forever and were part of our family.
At the end of the day, I stayed in the team and experienced some of the best times of my life. I got a lot of play time being on junior varsity, and realized that if I had been on varsity I would’ve rarely gotten to play. I noticed this when we watched varsity games, that freshmen were the least likely to be put on court. Team bonding time, or our team dinners, were so pleasant. We made closer relationships with our teammates and it helped us play with each other on the court. I improved a lot on my skills and even learned how to overhand serve efficiently, which had always been a problem for me. Despite still being inconsistent with my overhand serves, I had a remarkable time playing freshman year volleyball and hopefully will never think about quitting again.