One Way or the Other
“Never underestimate the power of passion,” is a strong quote said by Eve Sawyer. Through the greatest and worst times in life, there are always ups and downs. Life can usually turn way worse or better. This all depends on how a person decides to handle every situation.
Over the past couple of months my volleyball team and I have practiced for our club season. Our first tournament was this weekend at the Bondurant schools. Saturday night, I set my alarm to get up around 6:30 a.m. so I could leave my house around 7:15 a.m. Everyone arrived at the school by 7:30 a.m. and I could tell it was definitely not everyone’s favorite time of the day to be play in a match.
Warm-ups began without much intensity since it was so early. We only played two games against every team in our bracket for pool play. The first game in the match was about to start. First serve was up and over. We passed it up but could not quite finish the rally for the point. Next point, we sided out and it was now one to one. The serve flew over the net and the other team played it out back to us once again we could not finish it. After two games of playing without passion, our coaches were furious at our lack of effort. We sat out one match then we were back on the court to take on our next opponents.
This time warm-ups were looking good and everyone seemed ready to play. Line-ups took the court and it was game two of the day. This time we started totally opposite of how we had started the first match. We were slammed the ball down and went after the ball every time it flew back over the net. We played the spikes, free balls, serves, and the tricky tips. With a giant lead over our opponents, we finished that game with passion to win and that was exactly what we did. Game one against the second team was over and we were excited to get the second game started. It was our serve this time and we kept up our intensity throughout this whole game as well. We dug the balls again and slammed them down. There was one point in our game when we gave up about seven points in a row. We were not as pumped during the game after this but everyone still played their hardest. The second match was over with a split score one win and one loss with that team. During the huddle the coaches said they were very happy with how we played that game, gave us a few pointers, and told us to stayed pumped like that for the rest of the day.
Throughout the day we played harder and harder teams but just could not push through enough to win. I believe passion can truly change someone’s day for the best or worst. “Passion, a powerful force that cannot be stopped,” quoted from Moliere.