For my future grandkids who may be reading this and wondering how 2020 actually went down, this is interesting information. In the midst of the debate about in-person vs. online school, volleyball (and the rest of school sports) were also heavily debated. Could they play? Should they play? Would it make it safer if they wear masks while playing? How can they social distance? How can they disinfect the balls? How could they go forward with things that are so good for kids, but still keep everyone healthy? And as we are all well-aware, the world is scrambling to figure out all these answers any way they can, but I’m thankful they found a common ground for sports around here…at least for now.

Claire and our high school volleyball program practiced as hard as they could amidst the safety measures constantly changing leading up to school, and finally the answers came in that this was a “go” and they could make some teams up.

So, in the midst of the corona debate, Claire made the varsity volleyball team.

And that is pretty exciting, not only because she gets to work her tail off at her most beloved sport, but she is surrounded by a coaching staff that teaches her so much, and she gets to be with girls like these ones all the time:

And they are pretty great, I tell you!

They are condensing the season since they didn’t get started until late, and we had the first three real-deal games last week.

They are still trying to figure out spectators and how to deal with that, but Dave and I got to go to all those games, all masked up, of course, and carefully choosing the marked-off-with-blue-tape parts of the bleachers to sit on to keep socially distanced.

It is so strange how it has suddenly become so normal to have all the girls on the bench all masked up, and there is no high-fives or hand shakes anymore, just some smiley waves to the other team:

First game was away…Claire was nervous but she did a great job.

All the girls did, and they came out with a huge win.

Then it was our first home game…kind of nervous on that home court.

Claire gets to be one of the starters and it’s so fun to watch her out there in that same spot where Max stood for all those years:

They got beat pretty bad by a pretty incredible opposing team, but sure got their jitters out and learned a lot.

Fun to have Nana and Papa and Annie and her boys join us. As of right now we can go up to 25% capacity for spectators.

On Thursday we came away with another big win from a school I don’t think we’ve ever beat.

So that was kind of exciting for these girls.

(Sorry for the pictures-taken-from-videos-footage here…)

So grateful for school sports and for all those who have worked hard to make them a safe option in the middle of all that’s going on in the world.

This girl is pretty happy about it all!

Go Claire!

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4 Comments

  1. Our little guy (6) plays baseball and at the end of the games they take their hats off to the other team. It’s actually super cute and I kinda hope they keep doing it once COVID is over!

    1. I, too, love the hat tip to the other team. My son’s team does that, as well. Outdoor sports are so much easier to figure out. The indoor ones (like volleyball, basketball, hockey, and even the winter indoor seasons for soccer or other summer sports, etc.) are really hard for our area to determine best practices.

  2. Oh I love this. My girls are both on the volleyball team. Grace is a starter on the Sr team and we got the ok to go back but our district is still sorting things out… my guess is it’ll be in place for basketball season. We can only play games within our tiny school district but at least it will be something. These kids need their sports !

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