Genesis Synthesis

What a difference a week makes.

After displaying ineptitude at levels rarely seen on a volleyball court in game one, Daughter 1 and her varsity squad did the nearly unthinkable tonight in their second game - they beat the despised wealthy school to the southwest on their own floor.  Heading into the game we hoped for improvement, hoped to compete, but win?  Even the most optimistic Mustanger had few thoughts of heading home with a victory after last week's debacle.

Set one was brutal early.....again.....but our girls showed a few signs of life before the 25th point was scored by the opposition.  Set two found our crew in unfamiliar territory near the 20th point - leading!  The lead and the set slipped away, however, and when the scoreboard read 23-24 in the third set it appeared an 0-2 start to the season was inevitable.  But before the Fat Lady could belt out her first notes.....

.....a group of young women surrendered their individual identities and allowed a greater, more powerful force to emerge - the team.  The early stages of this young volleyball season have been marred with squabbles over everything from picture poses to team captain choices to warm-up songs.  Facing a second consecutive three-set loss this group of individuals looked defeat square in the eye and as a team told it to step aside.  For the first time in two seasons there was a unified desire to help each other succeed - high fives and pats on the back became crisper and quicker, a few "my fault"s replaced the accusatory looks that followed mistakes, and a genuine excitement for a teammate's quality play was shown by every player wearing a blue jersey.

The concept of "team" has great value to me; watching the birth of a team sent chills down my spine.  Well, most of my spine...the bottom third was numb from sitting on bleachers for several hours.  We see teams all over TV and highlights of victories are never hard to find.  We celebrate our athletes far too often and far too loudly and have championships for every kind of team imaginable.  But it's in high school athletics where we most often get to witness the metamorphosis from individuals to team.  It can't be shown in a highlight or on a poster and many times it happens behind the doors of the practice facility.  Tonight it happened in the last three points of a third set right before my eyes.

The beauty of high school sports shone brightly tonight in that foreign gymnasium with the goofy dog and horrendous warm-up music.  A team walked off the court where hours earlier a group of individuals had first set foot.  That team carried with it a hard fought and well earned five-set victory, and a feeling of accomplishment that, I hope, none of them will ever forget.  I'm so happy for Daughter 1 and every one of her teammates, happy that they seized an opportunity to grow together into something that will be special to them for the rest of their lives.  I'm proud of the resiliency they showed by bouncing back from that awful game last week and crawling out of the deficit they faced tonight.  And I'm thankful they got to experience the unbridled joy that comes from accomplishing something they had only ever dreamed about.  A most excellent showing, ladies!

Now get back to work.