Ending Moments

My first pro season is in the books. And what a year it was!!

It was full of big ups and big downs, dominating victories and tough defeats, peak performances and debilitating injuries. Such is life and sport.

Even though we did not reach our goal, (we finished a close 5th to the top 4 who will continue on) we went out on the best note possible, again beating Champions League contender Lugano at home to send two of the best teammates and players anyone could ask for- Jan Schnider and Marco Heimgartner- into retirement. I learned a lot from all my teammates, but Jan and Heimi’s veteran guidance, as well as the way they carried themselves, taught me so much. Their skills on the court will be missed almost as much as the people they are off it.  

While my season was cut short by an ankle injury, the learning never stopped. I know I will be back smarter, stronger, and better than ever before. I learned lessons that only real experience can bring and am taking all this momentum into my summer and moving forward with my career. Below are my first moments passing a ball in months- a few days ago-felt amazing:
  
First a huge thank you to Volley Schönenwerd for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to live my dream of competing overseas. Bü, Roland, along with the rest of the organization, I can’t thank you enough for the chance to play, your support throughout tough times, and especially for supporting me through a frustrating injury and recovery. It truly shows how much you care and the kind of people you are. I couldn’t have asked for a better community, and family to be welcomed into. Thank you to all the Schöni fans, supporters, administrators, club members, bus drivers, and volunteers for sticking with us even when things were not going well. Vielen, vielen, vielen dank, für alles!!

Thank you to all my teammates. I learned something from all of you and enjoyed my time off the court with you just as much as on. I consider you all my brothers and even though we will not be together in the same combination again – I was proud to battle alongside you all.
   
 Thank you to my coach, Nik Buser, for being constantly devoted to the process of making us all better and for grinding it out day in and day out with us. Your consistency, work ethic, and passion were unmatched. Thank you also for fielding any and every question I could possibly come up with at our many Schmiedstube lunches and especially for going out of your way to help me through my first days in Switzerland and throughout all the stages of my injury- from the many doctor’s visits to teaching me DataVolley and helping me find ways to add value and improve even when I couldn’t help directly on the court.  
  
Speaking of Schmiedstube, thank you to the entire staff: Corina, Chantal, Mia, Andrin, Daniel, and anyone I missed who served me practically every weekday for lunch and had to put up with all kinds of shenanigans. Corina also thank you for going out of your way to help me with improving my German. Some of it has stuck I promise. Ich lerne, langsam, aber ich lerne.

A huge thank you to my host family, the Guggers, who made me feel at home away from home throughout these seven months. Your kindness and generosity continue to amaze me!

Thank you to my fellow assistant coaches for a time- Dominik and Walter- it was great hanging with you courtside and I will miss your company.

Thank you to the Hirslanden trainers- Patrizia and Madeline, for countless ultrasounds and rehab support- along with Doctor Walser- for the best treatment and care I could ask for. 

Seba thanks for stepping in at the last moment and helping us get that epic final win.

Dana and Silvia, thank you for being so understanding and dealing with my “American” style of coaching the young ones. Thank you also for translating often and covering for me when I couldn’t make it and through the injury.
  

Thank you to Grace for literally coming across the world to support me and share Swiss life with me in the first months.

Thank you to all the visitors I had- Mac, Gavin, Dad, Junior, as well as Ali for sharing some great times. Thanks Georgie and Grandpa and Grandma Richards for some great trips too! 

  
   
   
Thank you Nina, Kira, Simon, Alex, and Sabrina for your friendship. It has been so fun getting to know you all and I truly value the time we have gotten to spend together! Even when the Nerve beats me in Dog…

Thank you to Jordan Richards for sharing so much of this journey with me- from all the weight-room sessions, morning practices, meals, and recovery of the athletes we are to the downtime, adventures, and times in between of the friends were are that made up this pro life this year. I couldn’t have asked for a better mate to go through it all with.
  
Above all, my biggest takeaway from the season is the fact that when it really comes down to it: There are no big moments, there are no small moments, there is just this moment. Enjoy it, thrive in it, and love all the moments you get.

Finally thank you to all those out there reading for sharing this adventure, these moments, with me.

For now, a little bit of travel for me, then back home for a beach-volleyball filled summer and more importantly- some quality moments with family and friends.

Bummer Overcomer

Before reading this blog post, you should check out Gavin’s GoPro video edit of his and Mac’s adventures here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zjoev6vydgw8mba/SwissTripEdit.mp4?dl=0

Want to come visit now? 🙂 I’m pretty sure you could make daily chores look amazing with a good GoPro edit and good soundtrack- but they really did have so much fun and saw so many incredible things!

The bad news now: In January I sprained my ankle on a weird transition play. In training before our first match back from the holiday break my toe was hurting after every landing- but I wasn’t going to let it stop me from playing- so I started using a more padded insert for my shoe and that stopped the pain. I practiced with the insert for a couple days with no problem- but in the match I made a hard cut on an inside out approach and my guess is that the pad threw my proprioception off enough- combined with me favoring and adjusting for the pain in my toe without thinking about it- and my ankle gave out for a fraction of a second. I finished the rally- jumped for a block and then even jumped to kill a low overdig but rolled back onto my back afterwards- my body knew it was hurt. I walked off the court (I haven’t sprained my ankle in 8 years) and didn’t think it was bad at all. Maybe out a few weeks at most is what it felt like.

Unfortunately this is what it looked like after I took off the compression a couple days later.

Luckily I’m at a great club in a great country with quality healthcare and quickly got an MRI that showed one torn ligament, one strained ligament, and worst of all- a bone bruise on my talus (main ankle joint bone). Bone bruise is kind of a misnomer- it’s a significant compression injury to the inside of the bone and healing time varies. Typically 2-3 months but can be more. Because of all the high-impact landing involved in our sport (and for me from very high up) the Doc said done for the season- and now, 8 weeks later, the joint still doesn’t feel quite right. So waiting for another MRI scan in the coming weeks to show that the bone is healed enough to start coming back to the game that I miss playing so much!!

It’s been a tough couple months- my worst injury in terms of time away from volleyball ever- and it’s pretty frustrating because I can’t rehab “harder” and help the bone along exactly. Just good diet, rest, some ultrasound, and rehabbing the best way I know for the ligaments. I plan on having a long volleyball career so even though it’s killing me now I know it’s best to not rush back because I could do way more damage to the joint if I do. And in the grand scheme of things this is nothing. Accidents happen all the time- just two that recently hit very close to home help give me perspective on this baby of an injury.

1. Princeton ’16 hockey player Denna Laing faces a much more intense and steep recovery after suffering a spinal injury in her pro game http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3393371/Hockey-teams-form-number-14-ice-honor-Boston-Pride-player-injured-spinal-cord-NHL-Winter-Classic.html
2. Cara McCollum Princeton ’15. Our Miss New Jersey beauty queen died in a car accident. There are no words- just a reminder of the randomness of life and to hold your loved ones closer:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/former-miss-nj-dies_us_56cb1627e4b0ec6725e32382

So for me this is basically nothing- only a test in patience. Not what one would wish for their rookie season, but I’d be damned if I didn’t make the best out of the situation.

I’ve stayed on with the club and have found a lot of ways to add value to the team and keep learning- we are in the midst of the 10-game playoffs right now and sit 5th out of 6 teams but can still make the 1st place final series (or the 3rd place series). I come and code DataVolley for all our practices and basically have just become an assistant coach and scout man. Still keeps me pretty busy going to every practice, doing film, and working out the rest of my body everyday plus rehab- I also read a lot, work on my mental game, spend time improving  my flexibility and expanding my cooking repertoire. The German is still coming along rather slowly…

Karch and the USAV women talk a lot about expecting and then embracing adversity as it is bound to come:

http://www.teamusa.org/usa-volleyball/usa-teams/karch-kiralys-blog/stuff-happens-learn-to-love-it

Also see: http://www.jamthegym.com/jamming-in-five-questions/2014/11/18/cultivating-the-ultimate-trust

“Tori Dixon, the youngest player on Team USA eluded to this as well.  “When something doesn’t go our way, we embrace it.  Karch calls it ’embracing adversity’.  This can come in small notions, such as not getting upset when a referee makes a bad call, or bigger things, like food poisoning”   Karch explains it so well in his blog.  “One of my goals is to prepare the team for as many speed bumps as possible, both in volleyball and in life. I’m going to call it “Adversity School.” Its mission will be to condition ourselves – players and coaches alike – to handle adversity so it doesn’t detract from what we’re trying to accomplish on the court.”  From the youngest to the guy in charge, this team gets it.” Good stuff.

This injury is just a great opportunity for me to work on so many other things.

And thank you Internet!! I’m sure this kind of strange injury would have been much harder to deal with without being able to learn from and be inspired by so many stories of other elite athletes who have gone through much worse and come back way stronger. Stephen Curry’s recovery from his own ankle problems along with Peyton’s comeback are my favorites right now that help drive me.

Steph’s “glass ankles”: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14750602/how-golden-state-warriors-stephen-curry-got-best-worst-ankles-sports

Speaking of Peyton, though, here also are some quick highlights from the past months:

I got to go to the U.S. Ambassador’s house in Bern to watch the Super Bowl with Ali!!  I was the only die-hard Bronco fan there it seemed but it did not lessen my joy in the slightest. We got to hang with another 100 or so Americans staying up until 5am to watch the game. Was such a cool house and we met some other hockey pros playing over here, too. I can’t even put into words how ecstatic I was about the win- and the experience.

This is us with the Ambassador

And this is the beautiful Broncos defense TAKING OVER

Technically I was back on U.S. soil for just a little bit, and we got spoiled with snacks too!

We had a week off completely from matches leading up to the playoffs and I was then able to actually go back “home” to New York to visit Grace!! It’s a big walking city so I was a bit limited on crutches- but it’s also a big über city so Grace and I- through a bunch of different activities- reunited with countless friends and family members. It was so good seeing you all again!! Some activities included a Broadway play, shuffleboard, and rainbow bagels just to name a few. It was so good to mentally recharge and as well as get some other opinions from doctors.

I also snuck down to Princeton for the day and got to reconnect with my coaches, professors and team that I missed dearly. Was so good seeing them all!

Recently before our match against Lausanne I got to go to the Olympic museum there. I highly recommend it. It reminded me of how much of an Olympic upbringing I have had (born across the street from the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs-home of the USOC- a Dad who raised us in the spirit of Citius, Altius, Fortius, and physically took us to the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City , and SO many more memories I can’t even begin to summarize) so much of the museum was second nature to me and brought back childhood memories more than anything.

I should have taken more pictures because it was such an inspirational and extensive display!

Our team had quite the eventful trip to Lugano through a flash snowstorm that even the Swiss infrastructure was not prepared for. One of my teammates said it was the worst snow in the area since the 70s. We did eventually make the match a few hours late and got outplayed big time unfortunately. We might have to throw less snowballs next time.

Our team held a tryout with a player and I was showing him around for awhile. Upon meeting Jordan and I he decided we looked like Logan Paul and Edward Cullen, respectively. I thought it was too funny to not share:

Finally, it is still great getting to coach this little squad of U13 ballers along with about 20 more that aren’t pictured every Friday.

Until next time!