"Serbians" At Stanford

Today was the last day of James' volleyball camp at Stanford. He had managed to survive living my himself. I think this was the longest time he was alone, by himself, away from us, without any teacher or guardian looking after him. All he had was his roommate, and I guess that relationship worked out just well for the past few days. As a dad, I am proud of him for that. Same way I was when he managed to take the bus and BART to meet with me in Oakland a few weeks back.

The wife and I heard mass at 9, so we could have brunch and get to Stanford by 1:30pm. He had planned Hobee's, but ended up at Mayfield Bakery & Cafe. I guess Hobee's moved to a different location. In looking at the map, Hobee's was just nearby, along El Camino Real, but we decided against trying to find it. Besides, we were already hungry and the Mayfield looked enticing.
on going to

The last 2 hours of the camp involved the participants playing a series of games. At the camp, participants were grouped by age and skill level, Each group was assigned a name using the countries of the men's volleyball teams who participated in the last summer Olympics and how they performed. James was in a group of the youngest and lesser experienced/less skilled players in the camp. Their team name was Serbia, in reference to the Serbian team who placed last in the men's volleyball standings in the last Olympics.

The grouping really didn't mean anything other than these players were much, much younger and had lesser experience than the others. Without being biased, James was way more skillful than the others in his team. Actually, there were more players in this category of youngest and lesser experienced/less skilled. They had to break the group in 2 so both teams would have an equal number of players. James was a little bit frustrated because the composition of both teams were not equitable. His team had all the shorter players. Obviously, this affected the results of their matches. Later, I explained to him that the groupings really didn't have any bearing, and that he shouldn't be too concerned about it.

What I found interesting though was that his coach made him play opposite and his rotation was always in front. And when we rotated to the back, he subbed out. He was probably the shortest player on the team, and playing opposite was something I did not understand. In the application, we mentioned that he plays libero, so I would think this would be his position during the game. James did mention that his coach told them that it was important for them to know all the positions and be able to play them if the need arose. And James also said that he thought that the coach probably knew that he already knew how to play that libero position (and may be good at it), so he wanted James to try something else.

As an opposite, this player helps out in blocking the hitter from the opposite team. This player also hits,
passes, and sets, when needed. In other words, an opposite should have great all-around volleyball skills. If that was the reason why he was made to play opposite by his coach, I shouldn't complain. And so does James. During the games he played, he was able to hit the balls pretty well, as an opposite, and for his size. Obviously, they're not killer hits, but I think they were great down ball hits. The only other thing that he was unable to do was to block. And that was pretty obvious.

I knew he had a great time. He said he did, and loved the experience. He said he thought he had gotten better because he was playing with players with good, if not better, skills. The level of play was much higher, even compared to his club team. As a souvenir, each camper received a nice Stanford shirt and duffle bag. I also got him a couple of Stanford men's volleyball jerseys -- a steal at $10 each.

His feet was sour and his hands hurt. Time for a much needed rest.