Three to Get Ready #2: The Third Games

This is the second in a series of posts that provides one dad's reflections on the last three months of his daughter's club volleyball career. They will appear every Friday until the JVDA Championships in Louisville, Kentucky.

A missed serve. An awkward swing that manages to drop untouched in the middle of the court. A questionable call. There are any number of unexpected, and often frustrating, ways a third game is decided. And while the temptation is to find it unfair to settle things with an over-before-you-know-it game to 15, one truth is undeniable: These edge-of-your-seat thrillers are always unforgettable.

Which means I'm going to miss them. A lot.

I'll miss the one when my daughter's team was playing girls who were clearly more skilled, but her team still managed to eke out a win in game two and an even more improbable game three victory. I'll miss the one that never seemed to end as it creeped first into the high teens and then into the low twenties (her team lost and, yes, it still stings). And in some odd way, I'll even miss the many matches her team was supposed to win in two, but ended up suffering heartbreaking third-game defeats.

And I think the main reason I'll even miss those tough losses is because of what every third game teaches: In life, anything can happen and everything matters.

Anything can happen. Eating right and exercising don't guarantee perfect health any more than staying low and having a good platform assure a perfect pass. And working three straight months of overtime won't automatically turn into a raise any more than taking a perfect approach will always become an undiggable kill.

Everything matters. On the other hand, eating right and exercising is more likely to keep you healthy in the same way staying low and having a great platform will help you get a better ball to the setter. And working three straight months of overtime will put you in a better position to get a raise in the same way that taking a perfect approach can lead to a third-game-winning kill.

Years from now, when this crazy-wonderful club volleyball experience is nothing more than a remember-when memory, nothing will have changed for me or my daughter. Even then, anything could still happen and everything will still matter.

Next Week: The Silly Cheers