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Serena Williams. The US Open. History. What an athlete. What a sportsman she is. She has the ability to become the 6th player in history to sweep the Grand Slam tournaments in a calendar year. She has 21 major titles, behind only Steffi Graf at 22 and Margaret Court at 24.
She has been trying not to think of the history she is making. She takes it one match, one set, one serve at a time. It was fitting that she got to play her sister again in such a historic run, though. I have never been one to actually sit and watch tennis, I still have to ask what certain things mean as I do watch. But I’ve always enjoyed the Williams’ sisters. They really took tennis to a whole new planet, put it on a whole new level with their strength and their style and their confidence across the board. She was scheduled for the semi-finals today, but rain has postponed the match until tomorrow. Friday, September 11th at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Serena plays unseeded Roberta Vinci of Italy while Flavia Pennatta (26) plays Simona Halep (2). I like to see records broken. Especially by someone who I thought would do it the first time I ever saw them play. As far as men go – Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are still playing. I like them, too. One volleyball season (of 3 teams this time around) got started yesterday. The league and I, unfortunately, aren’t seeing eye to eye anymore. The team that started yesterday were my young girls. They range from 9-12 this season on my team. This is my 9th season with the league. 7 of my 8 previous seasons there, my team has won. The one season they didn’t, they could have. They had already beat everyone in the league at least once. Their last game, it just didn’t happen for them. Hey, nobody can win them all!
My point with all that is, this season, the league directors are changing things. Let me take a step back, a couple of the people they just brought in as directors want to change things for this league. Our last practice of last season, our team was experimented upon to see if they could change up the games. They didn’t decide to change the games, but they have decided to change the practices. This season, they want me to follow practice plans already laid out for me. In fact, practice plans have been made so far in advance, the whole season is laid out already. I have multiple issues with this. I coach there because I enjoy coaching. I love teaching kids how to play volleyball, I love seeing them learn and grow. I’ve taken kids that have never touched a ball before and got them playing at a high level. I’ve done a lot within the league. I practice a certain way. Then, I take what happened in a game and decide what they really need to work on and focus on that. I don’t know that at the beginning of the season. Each week is a new plan based on what happened the previous week. I don’t know the purpose of having it all laid out already. That seems counter-productive to me. And, worst of all, I almost took a coaching position with another league right before I started there. In that league, the main coach tells all the other coaches what to do through each drill and then each coach takes their players and does that drill. The coaches have no say in what happens. I didn’t like that so I didn’t go there, I didn’t take my kids there. And now this league is becoming that. And I tell you what, it threw me all of at practice. I was being watched by one of the directors so I couldn’t veer too far off the plan. When I wasn’t being watched, I tried to run some of my drills. It was a mess and the kids saw that. It was one of my least effective practices and it was the first practice so that was bad. I was sad. Now I have to figure some things out. If this is where the league is going, do I want to continue? If I don’t want to continue, do I continue at the higher levels still? If I decide I don’t like where the organization is going as a whole, where do I send my kids? How do I get through a club season with them now that we’ve committed? I’m already questioning their decisions on who the club coaches are. It’s going to be a long couple of months in the coaching world for me. It makes me so sad that something I do voluntarily, something that is for kids, something that makes me so happy, has to have so many politics involved in it. I know the coaches will come to the assessments and then tell the coaches who they want on their teams. I just want to coach the kids that want to play. Other coaches call what court they want, I take whatever is open for me. Other coaches lose to me and they want things to change. The young league is changing, the middle league has had full club teams playing against league teams. I just want to coach. |
Coaching & Sportsby Jennifer Shriver ArchivesCategories |