Sept. 12, 2009
Saturday, Sept.12, 2009
It was the same as a football team giving away four turnovers and being down five touchdowns at halftime. It was the same as a basketball team being down 20 after the first half. We were only 22 minutes from jumping on a 10-hour bus ride after one of the most embarrassing performances our volleyball team has ever put together.
I wish I could tell you that there was some magic moment, some motivational "win one for the Gipper" speech. The truth is that there was none of that. There was only a team that could hardly stand to look at themselves in the mirror because they were too disgusted by what they might see.
Our goal wasn't to win the match at that point, it was only to salvage enough pride and self respect to go back out there and compete like a two-game debacle really didn't just happen. That was all we could focus on...and we did.
We didn't come out in game three and set the world on fire. We did, however, dive for every impossible ball. We started to stand in there one-on-one against a wide-open attacker even if it meant that we might get "tattooed". We did start to celebrate and cheer even louder when our opponent's fans jeered and booed us. None of those actually scored a point, but did send a clear message to our opponent and their rowdy fans that we were in this match until the last point dropped.
Maybe we shouldn't have won, but I will never apologize for winning. Winning was never the goal though. I just wanted to see if we would be tough enough to show our faces in game three. I think the scoreboard clearly showed the answer. This is undoubtedly the greatest comeback I have ever been a part of.
I love this team.