"Not Just a Game: How Volleyball Inspired Growth and Connection

From Ten hag to Ferguson

I have always loved sports and imagined winning medals. In secondary school, during tryouts for inter-house sports, I attempted to participate in various sports, but I never seemed to be fast enough; I never seemed to be able to jump high enough or jump long enough; I was not the best at throwing, nor was I the best at kicking.

During NYSC orientation camp, the first event my platoon would win would be the volleyball competition, and that had brought the sport to my attention; the defining factor would be the July-August camp in which an excellent friend of mine was posted to Niger. His team had also won the inter-platoon competition, but the difference was that he happened to be the team's coach (with a little push from me), and they had won all their matches in 2 straight sets, only ever entering a third round once. Luckily for us, he stayed back for a week to train us on the basics of volleyball, and very importantly, he provided us with a ball.

Volleyballs are expensive, and the nets are even more costly. Despite having a court until then, nobody ever played volleyball in that space.

Armed with a ball, although not my intention, a minuscule community started getting united over volleyball; our small community that rarely had visitors began having many visitors, mostly to play volleyball, leading me and other corps members here to make new friends. This leads to the first lesson of today: the uniting power of sports. It is not only football that unites but sports in general that unite.

BECOMING A COACH

I hadn’t planned on becoming a volleyball coach. My knowledge was basic, but when the role fell to me due to the game master’s absence, I just had to do it. I began training our team with borrowed tips from sports anime like Haikyuu, plenty of trial and error and just finessing it.

THE COMPETITION

Our first match was against Best Legacy Secondary School and in true protagonist fashion, we won the game in 2 straight sets, winning the first set 25-22 and the second set 25-24 (the game entered deuce). We won based on absentia for our second match as our opponents withdrew from the competition, qualifying us for the semi-finals.

The third match would determine whether we played against the second-ranked team in Group A or against the highest-ranked team in Group A depending on our win or loss.

DRAMA TAKES CENTER STAGE

For the first match, our principal gave us money (his money) for drinks during the game, which we diverted to transport our players to the venue. This was different for the third match, and my players had to trek to the venue.

Before that, one of the best players in our regular volleyball practice and games had told me he was transferring to our school for SS1, and when my players were trekking to the venue, he was among them.

Upon getting to the venue, in typical drama-betrayal fashion, he went over to our opponents, where he had finished his junior secondary school, a very deadly blow. Nevertheless, we won the first set, but the second and third sets were lost. The major thorn was the player who was supposed to play for us. He had this deadly serve that was particularly hard to receive. The match was lost 2-1. We qualified for the semi-finals but finished second in the group stage

Match Day 1

THE SEMIFINAL SHOWDOWN

The semi-final was against Baptist. Before the match, I had gathered some intel about our opponents; from the intel, the major obstacle we would face was Seyi’s spiking.

Who is Seyi? Seyi is a player in our daily volleyball matches who likes spiking and other moves we usually call fouls.

`We won the first set, and it looked like it was going to be an easy win; we were leading 6 points into the second game, and a player made a mistake. Suddenly, there was friction among the team members and they were not playing well. I tried using a timeout to break the momentum of the opposing team (I learnt it from Haikyuu), but that did not work. This continued into the third match until the friction in the team, by which we were down by 10 points. We were able to close the gap; although we ended up losing the match, a recurring theme was at play as Seyi saved his spikes till the third round, and they caught us by surprise. Another person who used to attend our school and lives near our school was a thorn in our hands.

REDEMPTION

Having to settle for a third-place match, I tried to ensure we did not make the mistakes we made previously, like training with soccer balls, arriving at matches late, and trekking to the field. Having resolved this issue, our victory was in 2 straight sets. Just like the former matches, the third-place match had its drama; 4 out of our opponents' players lived in the staff quarters in my school, resulting in a typical dramatic game.

During the second set, I thought they would have a Cinderella-type comeback; their best player had fallen sick, and the second and third-best players came seriously late.

At a point in the second round, they started gaining momentum, leading us by 6 points. All it took for us to return to winning ways was one of my players spiking a ball, and that confidence came back.

We won the 2 sets, collected the award for third position and the captain of our team took home the award for player of the tournament

Award for the third position

Player of the tournament

LESSONS

• Preparation and strategy are the keys to success: after we lost the match that should have sent us to the finals to “Baptist,” Nurudeen Secondary School, which was to face Baptist, took all the information from our game and used it to plan a perfect match. They abandoned receiving and focused entirely on spiking and it worked out.

• Asking for help: If I had asked for help earlier and we had gotten a ball to practice with and enough money for transportation to the venue to prevent my students (players) from tiring, our chances of winning the competition could have increased by 70 percent.

I also want to thank 2 people who contributed to us coming third; they both donated 10,000 each, which was used to buy our ball, which we still use to this day, and money for transportation to the venue. They want to remain anonymous but their names are so common you probably can't guess them. Thank you, Abdulrahman. Thank you, Abdulrahman. Thank you, AbdulFatai.

I promised myself I was going to release this article in January, and I have been on it since October. I am not happy about that and have excuses but there isn't any excuse. I will try and do better.

Below is a picture I liked from the finals.

My players (in blue) locked in

Language obolo

Erere—how are you?

Ija naa—everything is fine.

O mo si owa—where are you going?

In ka kinu—I am coming

Na—come

Jeey—go