Directors Note: NCVA No Dinx Qualifier in Reno

Over the past year and a half you all have received many emails from Matt and I. Most of them have come from a place of navigating new territory as we tried to keep Bay to Bay Volleyball Club from completely blowing up through the difficulty that has been this pandemic. I am really pleased to say that this emails theme is a little different.  

I know I can speak for our whole coaching staff when saying that we are all so excited for this weekend and we are all thrilled to be back in competition mode. As a parent, I am also overwhelmed by thinking about how eager the Bay to Bay parents are to see their kids compete again. If I think too long about it, it makes me cry.  

Over the past year and a half I have been consistently hit with the same two thoughts. 

• First thought: I can’t imagine if I was going through this pandemic as a kid. How would it have affected my volleyball career? How would it have affected my life? 
• Second thought: I can’t imagine if my kids were old enough to be affected in their careers by this. 

Those two thoughts were a driving force in our mentality through this past year. Both Matt and I have worked endlessly to try and keep this club a “normal” as possible for these kids while knowing that life isn’t the easiest. We have continued to try and keep volleyball alive because that is what we would want someone to do for us and that is what we would want someone to do for our kids. When I attended my Dad’s Hall of Fame induction a few years ago, one of the things that he had said was that “being a coach made him a better parent and being a parent made him a better coach”. That is a quote that I hope to live up to and a quote I think about often. 

So here we are. Tomorrow we will be packing out bags and making the trek over to Reno, Nevada for our first event in quite some time. The main reason for this blog post is I want to give you all some insight on what to expect and more importantly, what we expect. Going into these events I am going to do my absolute best to give grace. I am going to expect long lines. I am going to expect difficulty getting food. I expect for people to have heightened anxiety and frustration. Most importantly, I  expect things to not go perfectly. People have gone through a lot over the course of this past year. I am going to do my absolute best to be grateful to the event staff, spectators, and everyone around me for putting on an event for our kids. I hope the parents and players in Bay to Bay Volleyball Club will do the same. 

I think the thing I am looking forward to the most is that it is Mother’s Day on Sunday. While I wont be able to spend the day with my 2 daughters, I am going to be in a convention center with 184 of the young men who compete for Bay to Bay. That is a gift that I have been waiting a long time for. Thank you to everyone for being a part of it. It’s going to be a fun summer 🤗