Early Morning Drive
I woke up to my loud phone alarm clock Friday morning at 5:30am. Getting off to a slow start, I gradually forced myself out of bed and got ready for our games. 30 minutes later, we arrived at the Georgia World Congress Center, where the tournament was being held. Once inside, you could see all 228 volleyball courts and hear hundreds of whistles being blown. As I finally made my way to my team’s court, we began warmups and prepared for our competitors to arrive.
Team Lunch
As soon as my team and I finished playing our third game of the day, we all walked over to the CNN Center to grab a bite to eat. When we walked in, we were overwhelmed with the amazing smells of the food and could not wait to chow down. Two of my teammates and I headed over to the Chick-Fil-A to fuel up on protein and carbs after our games. Once we got our food, we sat down with the rest of the team to hang out and bond.
Dinner at Truest Park
After a long day of volleyball and team bonding, I headed back to the hotel to relax. There I showered, worked on homework and hung out before heading to dinner with my family. Around 6:30, we headed out to Truist Park to find a restaurant to eat at. We finally landed at a place called “Yard House” where I had some sliders and sweet potato fries. Once we had finished eating, my parents wanted to walk around and look at all the shops and new restaurants. As we headed home, we discussed how the games went and what we planned on changing for tomorrow’s games.
Entering the Zone
Bright and early on April 1, I headed into the convention center trying to find my team’s court. Unfortunately, we had to park on the other end of the concourse which meant I had to speed walk through over 200 courts to make it to mine in time. Once I was finally there, I rushed to throw on my shoes and get ready to do dynamics and warm up with the team. As we are peppering, our opposites arrived and began the same process as us until the national anthem was about to begin. Once that was over, we all knew it was game time.
Working Team
Every team at Big South was required to ref at least three games between the first and second day. When my team is required to ref, my coach divides the work evenly so that three people work at the table and two people line judge. On the second day, it was my turn to work at the table with two other teammates. I decided to keep track of the team’s libero and note down when she would go in and who she would serve for. This information is extremely important because if there is ever any question about if a team is out of rotation or if their libero illegally served, the notes on the sheet would confirm those suspicions. Fortunately, both teams knew what they were doing and did not have any illegal rotations.
A Bit About Big South
On March 31, the Georgia World Congress Center opened their doors to my team and 1,824 others. As we flooded through the doors, I recognized a couple girls that I have met at other tournaments and wished them luck for their first three games. The crowd slowly started to dissipate because parents and players were making their ways to the courts to start putting on gear and warming up. At 8:00 am sharp, there is an announcement for everyone to stop warmups and remove any hats for the singing of the national anthem. Once that anthem had concluded, over 100 whistles were being blown to signal the beginning of official timed warm ups.
Successful Day
After finishing the second day without losing a single set, the whole team was super excited. Since a couple of us want to play in college, we were all asking the parents what coaches they saw around the court and how long each of them stayed. Once we all found out that a ton of coaches were stopping on our court to watch us play and take notes on us, we all agreed that the second day was extremely successful in the fact that we won all our games that were seen by the coaches.
Late Dinner at Lazy Dog
After another long day of playing volleyball, my parents and I sat down at a restaurant called “Lazy Dog”. There we were able to relax for the first time that day and talk about what college recruiters my parents saw watching me play. While I was there, I ate an amazing hamburger with sweet potato tater tots and a massive sweet tea. Once dinner was over and all of us were stuffed, we drove back to the hotel. As soon as we got into our room, I got all of my gear and jerseys out ready for the next morning because we had another early start.
Final Day at Big South
While walking down to the court on Sunday morning, a teammate and I realized that this was the last time we would ever be playing volleyball at this convention center. As that feeling sunk in, we knew that we needed to give these last few games everything we had and leave it all out on the court. Because it was the last day of the tournament, college coaches were everywhere and in order to advance, our team had to win. While all of us were feeling the pressure, we were able to put it aside and perform our absolute best.
That’s a Wrap
When we finished our last game of the day, many of the courts were already being broken down and put away. At that point, we had been in the convention center for a total of eight hours and everyone was exhausted. Many teams had made it home or were on their flights back to their home states while we were packing up our gear and making the long walk back to the car. Fortunately for my team, no one had a flight to catch so we were all able to catch up on sleep and homework on the way home. In my case, I did homework the whole way home to catch up with the two days of school I missed at the end of last week. Finally, I made it home around 10:30 p.m. and was able to shower and go to bed before having to get up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning and go to school.
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