My Biggest Fear

We as human beings fear a lot of things. Sometimes it's spiders, sometimes it's a big math test that's coming up at the end of the term. We are all afraid of many things and for many different reasons, but I'm guessing that most of you aren't afraid of your volleyball coach. This may sound really funny to you, but for the most part it is true that I am scared of her.

I have played club volleyball for quite a while, and I have had a range of different coaches. Some of my coaches were too serious, and they never focused on the positive. Another coach of mine had troubles with getting upset and telling us what we were doing wrong. My coach now is very different than anything I have ever experienced.

I have practice twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday night. I carpool with some girls on my team, and we talk about our coach on the way. We have all agreed that we get this sick feeling before volleyball. I don't know what it is but it's this little voice nagging at you all day saying, "You have volleyball tonight." Once I get there it's completely fine and normal, but the whole day makes me nervous.

Although she yells at me, and scares the living daylights out of me, she is by far the most amazing coach I have ever had. I have already improved a ton so far, and I am in way better shape now. She is so motivating, and she makes we want to be better at everything, not just volleyball. On the court, she is nobody's friend. I repeat, nobody's friend. She works us so hard until we can hardly breathe. She keeps on reminding us that, "No one has ever died from playing volleyball, so you can do this!" But the second you step off that court, we don't talk about volleyball, and I can tell that she cares so much about me.

This probably sounds like a really weird situation, and I'm guessing that she sounds a bit bipolar. But she definitely knows the game of volleyball and loves to play. She wants all of her girls to improve, and so she is willing to put them through the hardest practices ever to make them better players. I really do come home from every practice just feeling exhausted. My body just feels like it needs to lie down for a while and wake up in few days.

We had our very first tournament this weekend, and we did really well! All the hard work now feels like it has paid off, and that we get to show how much work we put in. She always reminds us that, "when our team is practicing, we're getting better, and other teams aren't as hard as we are." This definitely rang true this weekend when we showed what we put into practice. She tells us that we work hard at practice, so matches will seem easy. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I get to be on this great volleyball team with such an amazing coach. Even though she scares me to death with her penetrating eyes and when she yells at me, she is making me a better person, on and off the court.