In my continued efforts to keep myself healthy and also have fun (something I enjoy very much), I saw a great opportunity when the ID students started talking about starting intramural teams here at Georgia Tech. One person suggested an ultimate frisbee team. Sounded fun, so I signed up. Another suggested a sand volleyball team. Even better! Here, I thought, was my chance to participate in the sport that brought such glory and adoration to my friends on Team Sandstorm. I signed up for that one, too. The girl who started the frisbee team sent us details and linked us to the schedule, but the one who proposed the volleyball team was silent. So I sent her an email poke to find out what was going on. Turns out she hadn't actually attended the original sign up meeting, so now we needed to do an alternate sign up, but she and all the other team members had a class conflict so could I please go sign them up? Perhaps that should have been my first warning.
I accepted (because, hey, I like volleyball and I still had hopes of being just like Team Sandstorm). It turns out she really had no idea what the sign up involved. I ended up captain by default. The girl who started the thing had no interest in actually being captain, so I kept it, but it's an odd way to end up the head of the team. Also, I got to name the team. Since we're design students, I named us after one of our modeling tools and we became The Sandblasters (our frisbee team was named Xacto).
Unfortunately, we were a team in name only. I had a list of about 9 people who were interested, given to me by the girl who started the whole thing, but on closer inspection 3 of them had never actually volunteered. I sent the details to the rest of them, recruited two more, asked some questions about playing experience and then prepared for our first game. No one actually answered my questions, so I had no clue what to expect regarding the quality of our team (actually, that in itself was a clue, I just didn't recognize it).
Three people showed for that first game. It's supposed to be 4-on-4. I made the fourth, but came down with a nasty chest cold two days before and decided it was in everyone's best interests if I didn't actually play. So I cheered (such as it was) and we lost. The next week was a bye, so I held a practice. Surprisingly the practice got the best attendance of any event for the whole season. For two of our teammates (including the girl who suggested volleyball in the first place), it was the only event they would actually attend. It was fun, and I felt good about our next game. We actually had 5 people for that one, but still lost.
Two complete losses (we weren't shut out, but we didn't score very much either) put us 29th in a field of 30. For the next game, though, we were scheduled to play the 30th team. I was pretty excited, we actually had a chance to win this one. I even called Bruce for tips and suggestions for that extra edge.
I showed up on the field with twenty minutes early, pumped but concerned that no one had actually confirmed they would be there. At five minutes to go, I was still the only Sandblaster, so I started making phone calls. We needed a minimum of 2 people to actually play. Finally, one more showed up. We had our minimum and it was all we were going to get. The other team had 6. Fortunately, they were pretty nice about it and set the game to 2 on 2. It ended up the best game Sandblasters ever had. We still lost both games, but by a much closer margin and I, for one, had a much better time than in any of the other games (we actually led the second game by 8 points early on, before our inability to sub out started to wear on us). We actually scored enough points to keep our 29th place (the 28th team had a bad week and skipped straight to 30).
I didn't know it at the time, but it was also Sandblaster's last game. I couldn't make the final week, but the others said they would be there. They ended up changing their minds. It's probably for the best. Our last game was supposed to be against the league's number 2 team. It would not have gone well. As it was we forfeited and finally earned that 30 spot we'd been drifting towards.
The whole thing was a huge disappointment. Not for the losses, but for the complete disinterest from the rest of my team. On the other hand, the one 2v2 game we played reinforced that I can indeed enjoy it. I just need to play with people who want to play. The same thing happened to the frisbee team, though, so it may not be desire but rather availability (something ID students are a bit short on). In any case, I didn't suggest anything for the new IM season that started this month. I'll just have to put my volleyball dreams on hold for now.
3 comments:
You need to start charging money. People become much more attentive when there is bling on the line.
Curiously enough, we DID charge money. The IM cost is $45 per team, and nine people eventually signed up. So each person is in $5 regardless of whether they showed or not. Two people paid for the privilege of attending one practice session, and one more paid to never show for anything.
Sorry to hear you didn't get much interest on volleyball Rob. You should see if there are any pick-up games during the fall/winter; you should find willing players there.
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