“Thank you for being a friend, traveled down the road and back again, your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant.” From the song “Thank You for Being a Friend” by Andrew Gold. In club Volleyball, it seems like everyone knows everyone – or at least knows someone who knows that someone!
The club Volleyball community, especially in St. Louis, is very close knit as a whole, but is particularly so in the boy’s arena. I can’t recall the number of times I have unexpectedly met another club Volleyball person in public when I least expected it. I once came across Matt Hohenberger, an All-American at MIT who played with one of my sons, in a restaurant away from St. Louis. I once ran into Bryan Pieschel, one of directors for St. Louis High Performance Volleyball Club and a coach in the USAV Junior National program, in John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, 2,000 miles away from home. While visiting Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, I looked up at the wall and there was a large, life-like, photographic poster of one Alex Kelsheimer, older brother of David Kelsheimer, who played club Volleyball with one of my sons. And, to think there were only four Kelsheimer brothers who played club Volleyball.
While renting a car once I literally stumbled into Jordan Pinto, former Missouri Baptist University star, and another young man named Sam, who played Volleyball at Trinity Catholic High School in St. Louis, for Keith Touzinsky, a friend and fellow referee who once told me he taught his brother how to play Volleyball. Incidentally (and while we’re on that subject), one of Keith’s brothers is Scott Touzinsky, who won a gold medal with the US Men’s Olympic team at Beijing in 2008. And, just like Sonny Bono said, the beat goes on … and on and on. It’s a small world after all – isn’t that a Disney theme, by the way?
So, everyone knows everyone in Volleyball, as friends, or at least as acquaintances. Over the course of the years in club Volleyball, you will repeatedly cross paths with the same players, the same parents, and the same other people as you watch your sons mature and grow into adulthood. You agonize for them, you pray for them, you do all sorts of things to help these young men succeed. In the end, you hope they learn from each experience and grow up to be good people.
I think it is way past time to acknowledge and to recognize all these unknown parents behind the scenes who struggle – logistically, emotionally, and often financially – to help their children play club Volleyball. These same parents who are sometimes a royal pain in the neck for the coach, who sometimes yell at the referees about bad calls but have no clue about the rules, and who sometimes complain about practice times and locations. Yet, these parents also inspire their sons to play volleyball and sow the seeds for a lifetime of enjoyment playing the greatest sport on earth.
So, all you club parents, I humbly thank you for all you have done to promote and to encourage this wonderful sport. In spite of all the obstacles and hassles you may have encountered, Thanks for being a Volleyball Friend, and I hope it lasts forever!
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