Being the Role Model.

Playing university sports can sometimes be a difficult venture.  As athletes they are constantly on display.  Imagine for a moment every Friday and Saturday everything you do that week is judge on one outcome.  Then put that evaluation on TV, radio and in the paper. It can be a challenging.

We also ask our athletes to be role models for young up and coming volleyball players.  After our matches the athletes will always take time to mingle with the young girls that come to our match.  It is a great reminder of the situation they are in.  Often we get so involved with living our daily lives that we forget how much of a hero they have become to the younger girls in Manitoba.

When we have our U15 club tournament in March I remind the first year athletes to be nice, one or two of these players will be their teammates when they are in their fifth year.  The interaction they have with them can have an affect later.

This past weekend we had split with Thomson Rivers University out of Kamloops.  They are a team we traditionally beat.  But a good recruiting year and a change in coaching staff have the Wolf Pack upsetting teams all first semester.  We won in 3 on Friday and felt good about our chance on Saturday.  But found ourselves chasing all the time.  The last couple of weeks we have found ways to overcome this and push to a 5 set victory.  But this Saturday we just couldn’t. We lost in straight sets.  As you can imagine we were very upset as a group. This was not what we had planned.

We had some teams come to watch our Saturday match.  During the match one of the young girls found out one of her Grandparents had passed away and had to leave.  Her teammates had bought shirts.  They came down after the match and explained to one of the players what had happened.  The team then brought the shirt over and had all the players signed it for the girl.  The Bobcats were extremely disappointed in our play that night, but still took time to engage with the young group. They went out of their way to make sure the player felt ok.

 I didn’t know this had gone on.  When our coaching group finally arrived in the team room the signing of the shirt was finished.  We finished our debriefing and then left as usual.  It wasn’t until I received a thank you email from the coach that I discovered what the team did.

This is the kind of role models we always hope our teams will be.  After all volleyball can seem all encompassing when our season is on, but it is such a small part of whom we really are.  I can say today I am really proud to be a Bobcat.  It is easy to be a good person when your happy and winning it takes real character to put someone else first after a difficult loss.