Weekly Awards

During the second half of the season we started handing out two weekly awards.

#1 - Tough as Nails - Each week this award will be given to the player who demonstrates toughness and consistency. Down the stretch these are two things very critical to our success and so far we have had players step up each week and be deserving of this award.

Week 1 - Nicole Chase
Week 2 - Kelse Moon
Week 3 - Jenn Brunink

#2 - Team Spirit or the Raa Award - For this award we look for the player who goes above and beyond to motivate their teammates and celebrate their success. The award doesn't necessarily have to be won by a starter either.

Week 1 - Kassie Graves
Week 2 - Lexie Spetoskey
Week 3 - Brittany Bott

We have 5 matches this week starting tonight at Lourdes University. We are excited to see who is going to step up and lead the team!

Highlight Video

Check out some highlights of our last few matches!

Midnight Madness Conspiracy

Well last week Thursday we had our annual Midnight Madness here at DU to kick of the start of the basketball teams. This year they had a contest for best dressed team. So the day before we all thought that we would COLLABORATE (we're constantly applying John Maxwell's attributes of a team player) and make sweet outfits. The theme this year was "Lights Out" so we wanted to glow. in. the. dark. So what do we do?? We buy neon tights, yes tights, glow in the dark paint, neon ribbon, and black shirts...perfection at its finest, we are ALWAYS coordinated. Oh and glow in the dark sticks....seriously, we're the best. We took it upon ourselves to take a self-poll of the best dressed teams and we def won....like big def. I mean we totally had student body confirmation. Aaaaand just to give you a little taste of just how fricken awesome we were, here's a picture. Yes, you're welcome.

P.S. For future reference, when you lose your phone, check the last place you put it....and don't forgot to check your bra if you're a girl
P.S.S. Kelse Moon got female athlete of the week...again. Well deserved Chelse, well deserved. :)
P.S.S.S. We have a game tomorrow at Aquinas and we're pretty pumped...
P.S.S.S.S. There is volleytots tonight and they're so stinkin' cute!!! (future Panthers in the making)
P.S.S.S.S.S. And as for our team puzzle/playing in the sand/creating craters in beach volleyball courts trying to find imaginary bags of puzzle pieces....to be continued....

Last Week's Fun

Last week was our last "light" week for quite a while and we tried to take advantage of it. Before our first home conference match vs. Concordia (which we won!), we played some Pictionary. Here's a short clip...

On Thursday we took a day off of practice in the gym and headed to our favorite place to volunteer...Women at Risk, Intl. We spent about 3 hours there tagging jewelry to sell, along with other projects they needed to be completed. The highligh

t of the day was seeing their President again. She is such a vibrant woman and is so inspiring! It was a great afternoon!

Picture Telephone

We played a modern version of telephone with the team on Wednesday. Each player wrote a phrase on a piece of paper then passed it to the next player. That player had to draw a picture of the phrase. Before they passed it on they turned down the written phrase. The next player had to write a phrase for the picture they received and so on. The girls loved it and many giggles were shared after we saw the final results. Here are a few examples:

Ethan Fisher Video

Here's some video clips from Ethan Fisher's presentation to all of the DU student-athletes yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXwrCKDxxIU&feature=player_embedded

DU All Athlete Meeting/Ethan Fisher's Seminar

Yello!!!!!!!!!!! So yesterday was our super-duper-fantastic All Athlete Meeting here at DU that all the athletes look forward to going to....ha. :) Ya know they talk about what we shouldn't do or else we'll get into trouble, all of our media stuff that you can keep up with on like 29,145 million different social networking sites, and they also hand out prizes if you answer some trivia questions. (ugh, fyi: our soccer coach is from England...not from Scotland...oopsies). Anywho, towards the end of the seminar, yeah that time when we thought it was over and we could get out of there, there was a man that grabbed the mic and started talking. We weren't really sure what he was going to talk about and then he said something like "over the next half hour" and we all went ugh! But he started talking about his past as a basketball player. Right out of high school he had all these amazing opportunities to go play for some small community schools in preparation for possibly going D1. He got to college and started to party, heavily and then he started not going to class. It all started going down hill fast with the partying and then eventually, drugs. He flunked out of so many schools and was on this roller coaster for years. The drinking got so bad that eventually moved back home to try and straighten up. He got things under control, somewhat, and then one night his friends wanted him to come over and drink and hang out. Sadly, he ended up getting so wasted that he blacked out, got into a car, and hit someone. He woke up at the hospital in the morning having no recollection of what had happened the night before. He ended up taking someones life. Ethan ended up doing time for what he had done. Even after he got out, Ethan wanted to still try and play basketball. He eventually found somewhere that would give him a chance but he couldn't go on the road with them when they had to leave for games because of the terms of his parole. He said that not being with his team and having the chance to "go to war with them" was the worst feeling ever. I'm so glad for the opportunity to listen to him and his story. As a student-athlete, many of us are aware of the consequences of our actions right from the get go. We know that if you don't get your work done, you don't play. And sometimes, it comes to that. You might miss a test or study table and become ineligible for a game or you got caught drinking once when you weren't supposed to. Well that's a chance when we didn't get to go to war with our teammates. It made me think maybe sometimes we take for granted the opportunities to play the game that we love so much.

“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
-Charles Dickens

Pre-Game Activities

We've been trying something new this year for our home matches to help the girls get loose and fired up. Here's our schedule . . .

4 p.m. - Team Activities (We have some pre-game snacks like veggie pizza or yogurt parfaits and then play games)
5 p.m. - Training Room prep & hair braiding (the girls are very into trying out different braids each match, I think almost all of them have some sort of braid for every match)
5:45 p.m. - Inspiration (each player is assigned to a different match and shares something to fire up the team for that game)
5:55 p.m. - Warm-up Begins
7 p.m. - Game Time

So far it has been going very well. The girls really enjoy the extra time together and its good for them to laugh and joke around before taking the floor. We try to encourage them to set aside all other stressors and just enjoy getting ready for the match.

Here's a clip from the team playing Taboo before our match with Rochester.

The iPod Game

So Jenn is one of our regular bloggers because of her wittiness, but little did we know of her singing abilities. On our longest van ride of the Montana trip I taught the girls the "iPod game." Basically you put your iPod on random and put your headphones in so only you can hear the music. Then you belt out the song and see who can guess what you're singing first. We had an absolute blast playing. Here is one of Jenn's performances . . . you should be able to view it in QuickTime. Enjoy!

Bbott's Montana Recap

HERROW!!! DUVB back in the mitten, the greatest state with lots of lakes! ;)

Where to start? Well, I'm pretty sure we are the MOST tech savvy team. We all need new memory cards for our cameras because we took A LOT of pictures. A LOT is an understatement, though...WOWWWY! We also love charging phone, iPods/iPads, laptops, electric toothbrushes, and straighteners...cords were everywhere.

The swaggin' wagon stayed away from the competitive 'car ride' games, we're just too competitive. ;) Thankfully Asst. Coach Krista came in clutch with her iPad for our long van ride from Helena to Billings. We watch "Something Borrowed," a good movie with even greater sub-titles. Coach seemed to have the 20 questions game poppin' in her vehicle along with some breakouts of American Idol. Sami's car also had some major jam sessions. Supposedly, Jenn & Belma have some beeautifulll vocal cord abilities. Hopefully those videos will be posted soon because we seriously have more talents beside volleyball. BELIEVE YOU, ME!

After our first few days/nights in the WWW (wild, wild, west--try to keep up with the acronyms; a DUVB glossary will be coming soon!), we found ourselves in the beautiful city of Billings, Montana. The Bestest Western Hotel is where we resided and boy did it live up to its name.

On to the good stuff. We played 6 matches and finished 3-3. The teams out there DO NOT LET THE BALL HIT THE FLOOR...EVER! The refs have to step in a lot and just make up a call to stop play. ;) We came to realize we have explosive cheers, awesome braids, and moves like McJagger because that warm-up song is the BEANSSSS!

Team pictures this year are pretty spectacular. Mountain, waterfalls, grass, and grosshoppers are the landscape. Don't worry we made sure to take vehicle pictures and some pretty sweet class pictures. The freshmen might win because they found a BIG rock. It was HUGE and they have some pretty sweet Tyra model experience to go with it. Who knew a team could take pictures outside of an Applebee's...??? But we did!

Our last night in MOUNTana we went out for a spectacular team dinner. We got all 'dolled' up, dropped the spandex and the kneepads and strapped on some dresses (we clean up pretty well). Our meals were DEELISH, coach even let us get WHATEVER we wanted, it was liberating! The upperclassmen even lucked out with picking out some dessert. It was MERVELOUS (we did share with the youngins). After dinner we attempted to sneak-in to see a Little Big Town concert, but we were too chicken so we just continued walking the city and taking more pictures.

~Brittany Bott

Thoughts on Montana from a Freshman

Well, we just got back from our team trip to Montana and it was a blast! Our team went 3-3 and fought through every game really hard. We played great competition, which is only going to make us better later down the road. Away from volleyball we went whitewater rafting, hiking, and took a day trip to Yellowstone! The nights in the hotel were also a blast! We were spending time with all of our teammates and becoming really close. The DUVB team even made the Billing's Gazette! (*see below*) It was a great trip filled with many memories!

~Hannah Stone

**A man made a suicide attempt at a nearby hotel while we were in Billings. The girls happened to be out shopping during their free time and their reactions were caught by the local paper. Here is the story. Scroll through the pictures to see the team.

Montana Poem

Today was day 2 of our Montana trip,
Went white water rafting and took a nice, cool dip.
Yellowstone had lots of animals roaming around,
and geysers that spit hot water from the ground.
Montana has many trees and mountains galore,
sadly, Kassie slammed Heather's hand in the door. :(
Krista was lucky when she left her phone on the back of the car,
Surprisingly enough we didn't lose it and we drove pretty far.
Tomorrow is a big day with our first game of the year,
We're gonna kick butt so you wish you were here.

15 hours and 3 flights laterrr....

Howdy from the wild wild west!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We love Montana so far and we're having so much fun, getting here on the other hand, not so much. We left GR at 4 am, had 3 flights, and 3 hours of driving. 15 hours later, we all arrived in one piece....can't say the same for Sami's luggage. Let's just say the duct tape looks reeealll nice. :) Upon arrival, we named so of our rental vehicles, right now we have Black Eyed Nelly, Silver Pistol aka Boo, and the Swaggin' Wagon. Right meow, we're going to Yellowstone National Park and then white water rafting...cross your fingers no one gets eaten by a bear or thrown overboard.

PS: we are doing a running count of how many U-turns Coach can do....so far she's at 5 and climbing.....

Preseason Olympics

On Wednesday we had the 1st Annual Volleyball/Men's Soccer Olympics. Coach Carl and I came up with 7 events and hosted the games at Brewer Park. Teams were divided into two teams - underclassmen & upperclassmen. Players participated in various events including a Slip N Slide, egg toss, flag football, relay races, and Iced T. The upperclassmen won the event. I hope you enjoy some pictures from this very fun afternoon. You can see all the photos on Facebook.

Our Daily Nourishments...FOOOOOOOODDDDDDD

Ello. Its Kelse and Jenn on the blog today and we are going to talk about our favorite thing: FOOD! We first wanna give a shout out to our coaches Sami and Krista for doing an amazing job keeping us fed! Seriously, you guys are awesome. We get really good stuff, like for breakfast we get fruit and yogurt parfaits which is good stuff, like the best stuff on earth!! Kelse loves graham crackers because we no longer have triscuts. And everyone else loves them too...buuuuuut Kelse keeps them hostage in her locker. Lunches are usually nummy samiches, fruit, and pasta salad. Kelse also loves the watermelon...unfortunately, that won't keep in her locker. And because we don't have cheese for the samiches, we string out string cheese for them....OMM NOM NOM. For din din its usually a hot dish like spaghetti and meatballs or fajitas. Today was good, probably would have been better if we ate EVERYTHING that came with the meal (we forgot the sauce). Hmmmm...dried chicken! To top every meal off, we are sure to keep the cows busy-busy by drinking like 2 gallons of chocolate milk every day. We. Love. It.

Ok, bye now...we're gonna go grab a bite to eat, again. NOM!

Turkey Times...

Hollerrrrrrrr its Jenn and the freshies (Hannah, Lexi, Becca, and Belma) and we're here to discuss the highlights of day 4 preseason: 1.) Because of Kassie, we all now know how to man-handle a turkey 2.) we discovered Kelse Moon LOVES to say the word "cous cous" 3.) side note: Jenn got hurt today :(...castaway down 4.) and we all have a new found love for ice baths (photo coming soon)

We also wanted to say thanks to W.A.R. for letting us come and help! We helped organize their warehouse and sorted ornaments last night. :)

Time to hit the ice baths......cheers!

WOM/EXILE ISLAND

Heyyooooooo its Jenn and Kassie here...so today was day 2 of 92374 million days left of preseason, not really, but it feels that way. But we would like to make a list of things we've accomplished today and few things from yesterday: 1.) we managed to get bruises in our armpits 2.) we named the serving machine WOM 3.) among the other equiptment that we named are two yellow volleyballs (Hamilton and George), a blue volleyball (Rick), the red one (RJ), the white one (Alba), and the two balls with stuff inside (Fluffy and Bob) 4.) we had individual pictures today so we all remembered what is was like to put on makeup and do our hair 5.) the middles were shipped back to exile island for the first time in a long time and we brought a new castaway....her name is Hannah 6.) oh and we survived testing. Tomorrow we're headed to help our sistaaaaas out at Women At Risk....holla!!!! whoop whoop, lock it up.

One more thing, you should check out our BOSU ball routine on youtube. It is just a little collaboration of ours....stay tuned for more!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDn1x2L0GPA

Side note: as for the 17s we have yet to do, we just say 'yesterday ended last night'. So we can faggedaboutem.

Inspiration

In these last few days of preparation for preseason I love finding quotes to use for motivation and inspiration. Here are just a few I have found so far . . .

“For things to change, you've got to change. Otherwise, nothing much will change.”

~Jim Rohn

“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, "’Always do what you are afraid to do.’"
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore,
is not an act but a habit.”
~Aristotle

“The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.”
~Arthur C. Clarke

I am getting so excited to get started with practices! The spring & summer is not a lot of gym time with my players, mostly behind the scenes organizational stuff (which I still love). I have just been craving to be back in the gym teaching and mentoring my players. I am so excited to see all the hard work and how it's going to pay off. Monday will be here before I know it!

Last Few Days of Summer

Every summer I cannot believe how fast it flies by. For most regular people summer will continue on well into August until Labor Day, but for those involved with fall sports summer ends way too short. I am certainly not complaining, though. Our preparation for our 2011 season began way back in February and our team has been working hard on their strength & conditioning, as well as their on-court skills ever since. We are more than ready to get back in the gym and start our season. Our team returns this Sunday for a family dinner and a team meeting. Then practice begins bright and early on Monday morning.

Our focus for the season is "A Relentless Pursuit." We unveiled this at our spring team building event and explained that we want to go beyond just building a SOLID foundation, but take things to a new level by pursuing excellence in absolutely everything we are involved in. This is no simple task, but we are ready for the challenge and are looking forward to another exciting season for DUVB.