April 13: Is this Weird?

I never covered the football or basketball teams for The Towerlight. Never gave it much consideration. I could have easily had one or both beats, but it was never a major priority for me. I enjoyed going to games. I enjoyed talking to players and coaches. I enjoyed dissecting each win or loss. But I was never all that concerned with having my name precede each of their stories in the paper.

But if someone–even for just second–considered taking away my Towson Women’s Volleyball beat? Hell would be raised.

I think most sportswriters would tell you that it is easy to get attached to a team, even after covering them for a single season. Try three. I was assigned to Volleyball the Fall semester of my sophomore year, and this past Fall was my third and final year with the team, and my final official beat with The Towerlight. It was pretty hard to see the season end.

That last sentence was a gross understatement. I suffered vicious withdrawal symptoms for about four and a half months. Endured unbearable headaches. Rarely ate anything more than saltines and water. Checked their 2006 schedule every 7-or-so minutes to see if any games had been added. The few times I could sleep, it was with a volleyball (stolen from the athletic department) and often interrupted by nightmares of me shanking a serve to lose the conference championship match. I was in a bad place.

So I was understandably ecstatic when I ran into head coach Paul Koncir on Tuesday and he told me about an upcoming tournament at nearby Loyola College. I will be in attendance.

Maybe it was the fact that this was my final year on the beat, but I focused more of my energy on the team this year than any prior. I was always an advocate for the team, part beat writer, part marketing director. I wanted everyone to share the dedication I had developed to this team. In planning out each issue of the paper I made sure Volleyball got just due. My goal was to get them on the back cover each Monday and Thursday. With plenty of space for my extensive game recaps, and pictures to run alongside. In my mind they were always the lead story.

I traveled to matches. Went to Delaware (1 hour) and George Mason (1-2 hours+ Washington D.C. traffic) with their Sports Information Director, Eric Rhew. When the CAA Tournament rolled around (6 hours away at Hofstra University), I managed to get a spot on the team bus and a room in the team hotel. I sat back in disbelief when their season came to an end at the hands of rival VCU in their first match of the tournament (I swear I was more nervous than most of the team prior to the match). It was difficult enough to see their season end. On top of that I knew I would never be able to follow this team quite the same way ever again.

I sat through a subdued team dinner after the game. Was a fly on the wall of their postgame team meeting at the hotel afterwards. And sat in Koncir’s room for nearly two hours afterwards talking about the team. The players. The season. The opponents. The future. I talked coaching strategy. There was one point where I was absolutely sure he was going to offer me his available assistant coaching position. To this day I am 100% sure I would have accepted without a moment’s hesitation and drastically chanced the course of my life.

Mom, Dad. I’m going to coach Women’s Volleyball for the rest of my life.

But he never asked. Oh well.

Since the season ended it has been a running joke amongst the staff of the paper and the team itself that I will put off getting a job and remain their beat writer for another year. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still considering it.

Somehow I have gotten this far without mentioning the above picture. I’m sure you have already figured out that the two and a half people shown above are all on the team. Ally Perko, Maddie Haseltine, and Lindsey Neighbors (from L to R). I wrote two feature stories on the team during the season. One was on Koncir, who was in his first year as a head coach. The other was on Perko and Haseltine.

Aside from being really good at volleyball (both will have a shot at breaking the program’s career kills record) the two are virtually inseparable. No surprise when I run into one, I run into both. That happened today, and I hung out with them and a few other members of the team for close to an hour as they gave away lemonade as part of an athletic department fundraiser.

I would have posted this picture instead, unfortunately the nine other members of the Wu-Tang clan weren’t around.