BIP/USA Development Team (u22) in Brazil with JNT & YNT
Head Coach's Closing Comments
June 22, 2010
By Ray Gooden, Northern Illinois
I sit in the hotel on the last day of our tour, spending a moment to reflect about the entire experience. We can discuss competing against very good players and teams. We can talk about the group; the amazing sights and cultures of Brazil. But what I hope to do is describe how valuable a BIP/USA tour is for not only the players, but a coach like myself as well.
The first thing that comes to mind is how well our group needed to gel in order to have a positive experience. I was working with Denise Shelton from California, and we needed to form a bond and understating and that took time, just like the players need time with each other and with us a staff. We were literally thrown into action. We discussed a few concepts, established offensive and defensive systems, trained for 1.5 hours, and then we had to be ready to get after it!
The players used every volleyball game as an opportunity for experience, both on and off the court. The girls did great things while being forced to step out of comfort zones time and time again. I feel confident that our group formed a solid bond while playing quality volleyball in the process.
We were able to train and reside on the volleyball "Holy Land": the CBV National Training Center for volleyball in Saquarema, Brazil. We played matches against the future of world class volleyball, and did a nice job. We were able to experience Brazil at one of its most uplifting times as they are the future hosts of both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Watching a 2010 World Cup game in Brazil was a lesson in passion and national pride.
I would like to give a shout out to the man of many titles, Josh Grau, and the most wonderful travel coordinator, Camila Olaio, for making the experience a great one. I would like to thank Denise for all that she was able to do to help our group and myself become better. And I would like to thank Tim Kelly and BIP for allowing me to be a part of the experience, and to the team for amazing 10 days.
Assistant Coach's Closing Comments
June 22, 2010
By Denise Sheldon
My name is Denise Sheldon, and I am a volleyball coach and club director from Northern California, and was the assistant coach of the 2010 USA/BIP Development team that competed in Brazil this June. These past 11 days I have had the privilege to coach a talented group of young women and travel and share laughs with a fantastic staff. I worked in partnership with head coach Ray Gooden, who is the head volleyball coach at Northern Illinois and against whom I had coached in the 2008 Global Challenge in Pula, Croatia (another amazing BIP experience). In addition to the coaching staff, we were fortunate enough to have not only Camila Oliao as our Brazilian guide and cultural liaison (and invaluable translator!), but also Tim Kelly. In addition, former volleyball coach Josh Grau rounded out our staff. His official title morphed daily, but without him the trip would certainly not have been as entertaining or worthwhile.
The players were fortunate to have such a warm and knowledgeable group of people running their tour, but the staff was equally fortunate to have an incredible collection of accomplished volleyball players with whom to work and travel. Besides not having a single negative moment of incident throughout the 11 days in Brazil, the players were flexible and without complaint, the conversation was vibrant and intelligent, and every experience on and off the court was shared by players and staff as peers and friends. On the volleyball side of things, this team worked together almost immediately and found success quickly from that cooperation. For a tour of this nature, where the team does not have the opportunity to train together until the day before the first match, the team was successful doing things with which American teams characteristically struggle when playing abroad; like blocking and serving aggressively. The level of volleyball was high from the start, and whether we won or lost each match, we had nine days of intense volleyball; including eight matches in a row. To be able to play consistently for eight consecutive days with players who have mostly never met each other and for coaches with whom they have never worked is something with which Ray and I were thrilled. In addition, we watched every player progress during the week to gain new skills, improve on familiar skills, and generally raise the level of play. All of the girls also got the feel for what it is like to play professional volleyball in another country. I am confident that these girls will go back to their college teams as better players and more confident leaders, which is everything a coach hopes for in a trip of this nature.
As I sit at the airport in Rio de Janeiro waiting for my flight back to the United States, I finally have the opportunity to read the journal postings written by the players on this trip. As a whole, the entries are frightfully short and cannot begin to do justice to the experience we have had here in Brazil. However, the brevity of the entries is a direct reflection of the nature of our experience here; our days have been packed, our nights have been long, and we have scarcely had a moment to stop to rest. Every aspect of this trip was planned flawlessly down to the finest details, including a number of special efforts made by Camila to make the experience unique and to make us feel like we really belonged in this country that initially seemed so foreign. We had the opportunity to attend a Brazilian rodeo, dance in a nightclub in Camila¹s hometown, cheer for Brazil in the World Cup alongside proud Brazilian soccer fanatics, sing and dance with a Brazilian band in Rio de Janeiro, and walk as friends along Ipanema Beach under only the moonlight. We had the chance to experience everything that Brazil has to offer in our short time in this beautiful country and I know I speak for the rest of the staff and players when I express a profound level of appreciation for the effort Camila took to make us feel so at home in her country.
For me personally, the most special part of the trip was our time at the Brazilian National Training Center. Their training center is in a beautiful little beach town called Saquarema, located a stone'¹s throw away from the beach and situated on lush, beautifully landscaped grounds complete with lagoons home to fish that jump out of the water as if to greet you. Unlike anything that we currently have in the United States for USA Volleyball, their center is dedicated solely to Brazilian Indoor and Beach National Team players (of all levels) and caters to the athletes' every need, including four indoor courts housed in separate interconnected rooms; four beach courts just steps from the ocean; a comprehensive strength and conditioning center; two pools; a cafeteria with meals prepared by a nutritionist; a game room; and housing that was quaint and comfortable in ways that dorm style living typically cannot hope to be. The Brazilian coaches were friendly and welcoming, graciously allowing us to share their volleyball sanctuary with them for a short time and treating us as brothers and sisters of the American branch of the international volleyball family.
The volleyball matches were very competitive with the Brazilians narrowly winning two matches and USA winning one. However, perhaps more importantly, there was a sense of what our USA National Team coach, Hugh McCutcheon would call "co-opetition" between the two teams. Every member of each team, including the coaches, understood the purpose for battling in these matches in Brazil. Each team had to work together to be as efficient and successful as possible in an effort to not only make their own team better, but also give the other team the opportunity to improve. Members of each team were complimentary of their opposition and coaches discussed statistics and strategy with a sense of appreciation and respect for each other. While it may seem counter-intuitive to offer another country assistance with training their teams for competition against which they will face the United States, the opportunity to have a hand in improving the world of volleyball on the shores of another country is incredibly unique. After all, one can take little pride in winning any championship that does not feature the best competition possible. Everyone wins when we can work together, and the relationships made and experiences enjoyed together along the way are icing on the cake.
As fortunate as we all felt to be able to train and compete at their training center, I don't think that most of us realized the significance of our experience there until we actually reached the airport in Rio. Replicas of the shirts that the Junior National Team players traded with our players and coaches were selling at the airport gift shops for $80 dollars; Brazilian National Team warm-up suits were also on sale in the stores right next to the soccer jerseys! People pay good money for what was traded happily with our USA Volleyball group for an old t-shirt. I feel honored to have had the opportunity to be involved with something so obviously extraordinary.
There is no question that a culturally significant piece of our time in Brazil was the omnipresent World Cup matches being televised and played on every TV in the country each day that we were in Brazil. The Brazilians take their soccer very seriously and Brazil fared well in the two matches we watched in Sao Paulo and Rio verses Korea and Cote d¹Ivoire. We also attended the FIFA FanFest on the beach in Rio de Janeiro and toured the stadium in Rio where the next World Cup will be held in 2014 (Maracaná). Watching World Cup matches most every day and being a part of the "football madness" was a huge part of the trip because it allowed us to live as Brazilians and get swept up in the fun. However, more significantly, I felt a lot of similarities between the Brazilians and our US delegation that I feel compelled to share.
One of the most amazing things about participating in a tour like this is the pride each player and staff member feels putting on apparel bearing "USA". To have the opportunity to compete representing one's country is at once exciting and humbling. While our players swooped up anything with "Brazil" printed on it, the desire to wear Brazil apparel in the United States comes in part from the desire to let people know that they represented our country internationally. This is no different than the World Cup players, who can teach us so much about sacrifice and hard work but more to the point, about how much pride one can have in their country. Almost everyone we came across on the days that Brazil competed donned either Brazil jerseys or were wearing some combination of yellow, green, and blue. The amount of Brazilian national pride was palpable throughout the trip in much the same way that our players expressed their pride with every "USA" cheer. I know that that the excitement and pride our delegation experienced competing as Americans in Brazil will never be forgotten by any of us.
My sincerest thanks to Tim, Camila, and Bring it Promotions for a spectacular trip; to Ray for being a great coaching partner, and to Josh for making every day a little more interesting. Thank you to the gracious players and coaches of each club and professional team we played in each city and to the Brazilian Youth National team, coaches, and staff for opening their volleyball sanctuary to us and treating us like family. Most importantly, thank you to the 12 players who played their hearts out and represented themselves in the most positive light possible every moment, both on and off the court. I hope to work with all of you sometime in the future. Obrigada a todos, nós amamos Brasil!
Some "Team Kept" stats for some of the matches:
Taboao da Serra
Kristy 10 kills, hitting .381
Yvonne 8 kills hitting .238
Lexi 6 kills off setter attack
