G E O R G E

Eight: Chest Pain

S A T U R D A Y | J U L Y
George:

THE WAY to the gym was lodged into my brain and I hope I never forget it.

Volleyball has been a part of my life since grade school and ever since I made the boy's team in grade five I've loved the sport. I got into rep volleyball when I was in grade nine and now it's just a part of me.

I had a good feeling about today, I was eager to get there and just play. My parents were granted a day off today, and so I was able to eat breakfast with them before I left. My mom was exhausted, granted not as much as Mary has been, but I'm glad she got the day to rest.

My father, even though he got the day off, went to work. He said he wanted to finish some work from yesterday and he'd be back.

I turned around the roundabout and down the street into the parking lot of Coaches gym. He had his own building and everything and it was so great to see because four years ago it was a complete different building.

I parked, hopping out of the car, sipping my strawberry smoothie my mom made me this morning for breakfast. I grabbed my bag that had all my stuff in it and walked towards the entrance. Pushing the doors open, I was greeted by some fellow teammates.

"Hey! You ready for practice?" Brendon asked reaching up and clamping a hand on my shoulder. "Coach has some new drills planned, apparently."

I was one of the shortest on my team, Brendon being the shortest at five foot eleven. Max, a left side, he was the second shortest at six foot and a half. Then me, then Peter and Drake at six foot two, and Austin almost six foot three.

We head to the locker rooms and changed into our gear and then headed out to start doing laps. Coach was still telling me to go easy, and even though I didn't want to, I went easy. I could even see coach keeping his eyes on me, for precautions, in case I have an accident.

Soon enough, we were half way trough our practice, and coach had taken only ten minutes explaining all four of the drills we were going to do. It was funny how easily I became accustom to his coaching after so long. He was pretty hard, but he was really nice, and knew when too much was actually too much. He made an effort to know everyone on our team, know their strengths, weaknesses.

We were in the middle of our second drill and it wasn't a complicated one. All we were doing was passing and we had to pass to the setter ten times in each position. I was a left side, so I had to go in every position, and setters switched around too.

Coach suddenly stopped us and told us to get into serve receive. He walked around and to the other side of the court, wheeling a ball bag with him.

"I'm going to serve, and I want everyone to talk, and get at least three passes to the setter, hold off on hitting for now." He explained as he bounced the ball. Everyone nodded and got ready for his serve. Coach used to be a professional, so he had a really hard serve when he wanted to so we didn't really know what to expect.

The first couple serves went to other teammates, and I could tell he was purposely not serving to me. He didn't want me to get hurt and I appreciate it, but I want to play. Finally he served towards me, but it wasn't as hard as the others. I passed it right to the setter perfectly.

We've been doing this drill for about twenty minutes, and coach is starting to serve harder at me. I was working up a sweat again, and as gross as this sounds, I'm happy about it. It shows I'm working hard, and of course burning off six months of my lazy ass, and eggo waffles.