A Magical Sports Season

A few thoughts that came to me on the bus ride back from Louisville.

It is difficult to believe that this magical fall sports season has come to an end. It's been a great ride. We saw the emergence of our men's golf team as a real factor in the PSUAC and on the national stage. Zach Rockwell missed being a national All-American by a single roll of the golf ball. He can take consolation in the fact that he won two PSUAC matches this year, the first time that has ever happened. Overall, the team posted its best-ever finishes, including a second place finish.

We hosted our first Cross Country meet on campus this fall and Jenn Naymick finished third on her home course. Jenn was in the top 10 in the PSUAC championships and placed 16th in the nation at the USCAA National Cross Country Championships in Concord, N.H.

And of course, a volleyball dynasty was born as our ladies brought the PSUAC championship trophy back home to Fayette for the third time in a row and fifth time in six years. Leah Ambrosini was named a First Team USCAA All-American for the second time. She was PSUAC Player of the Year and joined teammates Marney Hillen and Katie Sleasman as first-team All-PSUAC selections. Alex Rossi was named second team All-PSUAC. And for the second year, Nancy Wheeler was named PSUAC Coach of the Year.

And the entire journey was capped off with our thrilling sixth place finish at the USCAA National Volleyball Championship. One of the goals the team had set was to get out of pool play. They did much more than that, going 2-2 and finishing tied for second in our pool.

The most memorable match was our final one in pool play. We needed to beat Lindenwood-Belleville to reach the knock-out round.

It was a pretty exciting match, but one that gave me several new gray hairs.

At this point you need a little insight. I'm a lousy spectator. I live and die on each point. I seem to keep the volleyball parents entertained with my constant pacing. I'm also very superstitious about where I stand. For example, in the first game against LB, I was in the corner pacing. We won. For the second game, I stood behind the bleachers with our fans. We lost.  So the parents banished me to the corner again for game three. We won. Go figure? I wasn't the only one whose nerves were on edge? I was not allowed to pace for the final five points of game three because my 9-year-old daughter was so nervous that she insisted I hold her hand – which she squeezed to the point of cutting off circulation by the time the game ended. Like father, like daughter, I guess.

In the end, our kids did what they set out to do. They made it out of pool play and proved that a PSUAC team can compete with the big programs. That is something to build upon for next year.

The only damper on the entire weekend occurred during one of our pool play matches. We did not play very well during this particular match and were really struggling against a team that we had competed against twice during the season. As the game progressed, the parents of this school began insulting our team, making terrible and uncalled for comments that caused my blood to boil. I will not share with you those comments because they are not dignified enough to repeat. I also will not reveal the identity school.

Notice I said parents as in older adults. You might expect such comments from younger people who do not as of yet know how to operate the proverbial comment filter. No, these were older adults who should have known better.

Several of the parents from our team were appalled. Rather than engage in a debate that might have escalated, our people either moved away or simply chose to ignore the comments. The path of one of my paces (see above) took me near this school's parents, and I also heard these remarks. Nobody talks like that about my team. You mess with them, you get me. And trust me, you NEVER want to see me angry.

You know the old saying, "I bit my lip?" Well I can tell you that on this occasion I literally bit through it (I have a cut to prove it). Somehow I managed to suppress my rage. I did not want to do anything that would embarrass our school and certainly did not want to take the spotlight away from our kids. It's about them, not me, not the parents, not our coaches. It's about their experience.  So we chose the high road.

Needless to say, anyone who heard these comments now has a very low impression of that school. This is very sad, because over the past few years, I have become friends with the school's former athletic director and current men's basketball coach. His son has taken over as AD. They are both upstanding moral men who run a respectable program. I know they will be appalled when they hear about these comments.

I find it truly sad how the actions of a few insensitive people can ruin a reputation that so many worked for so long to build.  As far as our volleyball people are concerned that reputation came crashing to the ground in one thunderous roar.

It was about this time that we got word from Concord that Jenn Naymick had placed 16th in the USCAA National Cross Country Championships. That gave us an opportunity to focus on something positive. I'm really happy for Jenn. She has put a lot of hard work into her running and she improved every single meet.

And so, our amazing fall sports season now drifts into the history books. But what a fall it was. All three sports were represented at USCAA National Championships.  Let's hope that the positive karma continues over into the winter sports.

-- Vince