Put Me In Coach: Etzler avoids any catastrophies during UMO men's volleyball practice

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on March 8, 2015 1:52 AM

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For the first time in my life, I walked into a gym completely and utterly clueless.

Volleyball is a foreign sport to me. As far as my knowledge of sports goes, volleyball is somewhere between NASCAR and cricket.

You want to know what I know about NASCAR? Turn left.

You want to know what I know about cricket? I know it is called cricket.

So I know slightly more about volleyball than cricket. I know there is two main goals in volleyball. Spike the ball to the floor or spike it off someone's noggin. Otherwise, if not for people getting hit in the face, what are we really for, you know?

So upon walking into Kornegay Arena, I marveled at the University of Mount Olive men's volleyball team.

They are all so tall.

They are all so good.

They are all ... going to destroy me.

I thought men's volleyball with the Trojans might be my demise. I had one request -- Casey get my final moments on camera just as the ball knocks me into oblivion for all of your viewing pleasure.

Because I'm not selfish.

My fear of these tree-sized humans with mutant-like jumping ability didn't last long, though.

They are all very nice. Each one personally introduced himself to me. They struck up conversations with me. They attempted to teach me how to play volleyball.

The most interesting thing about my column has been the amount of stories I've gotten the chance to hear just by showing up to a practice. And I'll be honest, the Trojans volleyball team has some of the best.

They have kids from all over the world. They have a kid who used to play basketball, and in the middle of his college career decided to drop basketball and play volleyball for the first time.

Plus, they have a darn good team.

UMO head coach David Heller was pretty much willing to throw me right into the fire. I warmed up and sort of but not really learned how to set the ball (which I was bad at) and how to pass with a 'bump' (which I was also bad at).

Then my warm-up partner threw out the idea of my learning how to spike.

Seeing how I'm 5-foot-8 with precisely the same vertical leap as a gerbil, I didn't find it offensive that I laugh in his face at the notion of me needing to know how to spike.

After the first ball was hit my way, the only thing I was interested in learning was how not to die.

In the first drill, I played back right and tried to start a rally of passes that would eventually end with the outside hitters completing a spike. Coach Heller hit some pretty routine passes my way and I managed not to screw anything up too bad.

If I kept it inside the concourse of the gym I was pleased.

Every now and then the ball hits my arms in the right way and somehow goes close to a teammate for a set and a spike.

Any time that happens it feels like everyone congratulates me.

Little victories.

Coach Heller moves me to the libero position and I think I'm supposed to focus on setting up to return spikes, but let's be realistic. That's not going to happen.

One of the liberos, Keaton Marin, is particularly helpful to me. He tells me how to set up to give myself the best chance to return passes. He was like my tutor for most of the day. I found it fitting because we were kind of similar, in that we're both kind of short compared to the rest of the team. Our main difference was that he actually has a clue how to play this game.

We also both played baseball, which kind of helped me not die I guess. As he is setting me up in position to return the spike he offers me some last-second advice.

"That ball is coming at about 50 mph off his hand," he tells me. "Don't be afraid to get hit in the face. It happens to me all the time. It's not embarrassing."

Embarrassing? I don't care about embarrassing. I care about pain. That's going to hurt.

I don't want to play anymore.

But I've reached my quota on the number of things I can quit in the middle of so I tried to stick it out. Surprisingly, I think my reflexes from baseball helped me out, because in the flow of the game the ball didn't look like it was coming at me as fast.

I was able to react in time to get to most of the balls hit in my direction. Sure, every time I actually made contact I sent the ball sailing into Narnia, but I still have my teeth.

As the team breaks for water, I walk up to Coach Heller and ask what's next.

"Out of system attacks," he says.

He mentions working on how the team reacts to a bad pass.

"This is my kind of drill," I respond. "If you need bad passes I'm your guy."

I spend the next 20 minutes or so feeding my teammates horrific passes and largely smiling the entire time. They keep telling me I'm doing good. I'm the best bad passer ever, essentially.

I think I've finally found my calling.

Allen Etzler should be the certified University of Mount Olive Trojans bad volleyball passer. Instead, he is a News-Argus sportswriter, which he tends to enjoy also. He can be reached at aetzler@newsargus.com or @newsargusal on Twitter.