The 1st Quarter

The first quarter: the opening tip-off, the first kickoff; finally what everyone has been waiting for. The first quarter can be kind of lame sometimes though. The players typically aren't in the groove of things yet and nothing too exciting really ever happens in the first quarter.

I remember Freshman year was all about maintaining a steady focus throughout the entire piece that I was working on, as in, not tailing off on random tangents during the piece. At the time, if there was going to be one thing that I learned during Freshman year writing workshop, it would be to remember to keep the same focus throughout a piece. Let's see how I did.

Alpha Formation

            Last winter, my club volleyball team and I, Sky High, went to the Wisconsin Boys’ Volleyball Festival National Qualifier, played pretty well, won a few games, and got ourselves a bid to the 2007 Junior Olympic Boys Volleyball Championships. For the rest of our season, we trained hard and then the time finally came to go to Atlanta, Georgia, where we would all become witnesses to some of the best volleyball in North America.

            It was the luckiest day of the century, the day we made our departure to the Peach State. We all met at O’Hare Airport wearing out specialized red “Atlanta, 2007” Sky High volleyball t-shirts, ready at last. We boarded the plane and then came upon the loudspeaker: “I would like to say good luck to Sky High. They are going to the Boys Volleyball Junior Olympics. Good luck and bring home the gold,” the pilot said. Then came a flight of drinking orange juice and water, along with trying to figure out what state we were flying over by looking to the ground through the window. We then had a safe and successful landing and departed from the plane.

            Once safely on the ground, we grabbed our bags from baggage claim and made our way to the MARTA trains. The MARTA would become our only mode of transportation throughout our entire trip. These trains rode throughout the city of Atlanta and featured overcrowded boarding populations and plastic seats with bars up ahead for those who couldn’t get a seat.

          
Once aboard the MARTA, my teammates and I got a skyline tour of the outskirts of Atlanta as we made our way to our hotel in Buckhead in Atlanta. We saw all sorts of restaurants, businesses, and the beauty of the parks of Atlanta.

            The hotel we stayed at was luxurious. One step into the lobby and you could tell this was one of the nicest hotels in the Atlanta area. The lobby was scattered with finely upholstered furniture, granite counters, and a small convenient store, where a bottle of Gatorade cost you $3.00 plus tax. The rooms were no different. Featuring snug bed comforters, top of the line mattresses, and nice showers, staying in these rooms were like staying at home.

            After getting a good sleep, dead beat from traveling the day before, my teammates and I went to the hotel restaurant to eat breakfast and we were greeted by a tall African-American man wearing a nice suit along with a nice white pair of gloves. Just by seeing those white gloves, I knew we were in for a good meal. I had golden, crisp waffles,  juicy bacon, and a variety of different fruits from the buffet. My friend sitting near me ordered a glass of chocolate milk. When the milk was brought to the table, it came in a tall wine glass with a small bit of chocolate placed into the brim of the glass. Talk about fancy!

            Then we were on the MARTA once again. This time it was to the World Congress Center, where the tournament was being held, just hundreds of feet away from the Georgia Dome. As we entered the World Congress Center, we were stopped by the amazement of the facility. This place was filled with a food court, a huge lobby, and volleyball courts in every direction you looked. The atmosphere was incredible with whistles blowing every second of the day and the roar of players as the celebrated each point scored. Everyone our team was excited for the first day of the tournament as well, not knowing what to expect as we were going to play teams from California, Virginia, and Missouri.

            Later that night as we rode the MARTA back home, we were mourning our three blowout losses to High Line Volleyball Club, Northern Virginia Volleyball Association, and St. Louis High Performance Volleyball Club. This wasn’t how I was expecting us to perform on our first day of competition. When we got back to the hotel, we were able to blow off some steam by taking a nice swim in the hotel’s big pool. The next day of competition was no different, as we were blown out again by the day’s competition. Things were starting to get pretty frustrating as we could figure out no way to pull off a victory in Atlanta.

            Despite our winless record so far, we were still having a lot of fun on our trip. During our rides to and from the hotel and World Congress Center, we had started playing a game to see who could stand up the longest during the tips and turns of the MARTA. I however did not participate in this game, as my tall body frame and I had trouble standing up on the MARTA even when hanging to the polls inside the train. Also, as a team, we started a little ritual known as the Alpha Formation. When the MARTA was in seeing distance of picking us up, we would all stand shoulder to shoulder as close to the tracks as possible without getting sucked up by the incoming train. Then back at the hotel, we got to go swimming in the pool each night and got to hang out with our roommates in our rooms until it was time to go to bed.

            On the last day of the tournament, we were up against NVVA once again, after beating a team from Pennsylvania the day before. This Virginia team was good. They had two kids over 6 feet tall that were heavy hitters, but this team had just come off a horrific loss to a California team due to a bad call by a referee. So they were at their highest peak of vulnerability, giving us our best opportunity to pull off the unthinkable upset. After the game had concluded, we did pull off the upset, besting NVVA 25-21, 26-24.

Beating NVVA was the perfect ending to our unbelievable experience at the Junior Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, finishing as one of the top 25 teams for our respective age group. On this trip, I learned a lot about myself and was able to create a special bond with my teammates and my coach. This experience is one that I will never forget.

This year’s Junior Olympics are being held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hopefully, my teammates and I will be fortunate enough to be able to make it Salt Lake City, as we face new and moving challenges on our way there.

 Phew. Glad that one is over. Overall, I don't think the piece was that bad for it being my Freshman year, but looking back I definitely should have tried to narrow down the amount of time I focused on. The focus was consistent, but it was too broad. This piece would have been a lot better had I focused on one specific moment from this trip, rather than the whole thing. Hopefully the second quarter is a little more exciting.