Personal Narrative: My Experience At Oregon Volleyball Academy

I have always done lots of sports, but I had never done volleyball and decided to do Oregon Volleyball Academy (OVA). With all of the good volleyball players that were there, I knew that I might not make a good team, but I didn't think it would be as hard as it was. I have learned that if you don't give up, even if you don't get where you want to be you can still get better.

I was terrified the day tryouts came. When we got into the loud, hot gym, it was crammed with players who I knew had played volleyball for a long time and were really good at it. We started serving and setting and scrimmaging and I did ok at it but definitely wasn't as good as everyone else. Tryouts lasted for a month, and even though I improved a lot I was afraid I wouldn't make a team.
They re-taught us all of the basics and by the time the first tournament came, I had improved a lot. My team ended up not doing very well in the tournament, which was about three weeks later because most of us were struggling with serving. The week after the tournament at practice, I worked really hard to get my serve over but every time it would end up in the net. I kept trying though, until each week I could step back a little bit and get it over from there. I also had to work on my control, which I adventually could do better as well.

At our last tournament, all of us had improved so much that my team actually won a couple of our games, and I finally got a serve over. We were all ecstatic, and our coaches were all really proud of us. After that tournament, the season ended, right as I had started to become a better player. Even though all of my Saturday mornings were taken up by volleyball, I am so glad I decided to do academy because now I am much better at volleyball than I was at tryouts, and I might be able to make a better team next