As we find ourselves halfway through week three of the semester, we find ourselves in week 1 of university intramurals. This semester, I find myself captain of a 5v5 basketball team on Tuesdays and a member of a high tier volleyball team on Thursdays. Both these teams offer their own challenges and aspects that I will be documenting, or blogging throughout the semester. I intend to use this platform to document my thoughts on how things are going, my own development within these sports and address challenges and issues as they come.

Basketball: This is the start of the season. I’ve played organised ball before, however this being my first time captain of a team. I opted not to rejoin the team I was part of last year due to issues and disagreements with some other players on that team. We wont dive into that as its no longer relevant. Over the past month, I’ve asked, called, searched, and recruited what I think is the best team I could find, well, the only team I could get really. Half the team consists of my friends from varsity swimming, and the other half are “random” people from the intramural portal. Being able to play with my friends is going to be fun, however some of them don’t really play basketball. So it’s going to be interesting to see how they play and adapt to organized play tonight. The other consists of people I invited over the intramural portal. I made good effort into doing a quick google search into them to assess their abilities and set my own expectations ahead of time. What it came down to is, “if they signed up, I assume they can play”. I’m nervous to see how we all play together, since for many this is the first time I will formally meet them.

“basketball hoop” by acidpix is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Volleyball: This time around, I am formally registered for a team. Last year, I just showed up and hoped the refs let me play. My captain is my coworker from summer camps. She has assembled a team of formal volleyball players and personally, I’m scared to disappoint. I have good knowledge of the sport, my sister played power throughout her adolescence and coaches as an adult. I am fortunate enough to also be playing power. I know what the position entails, what expected of me and where I should be. What I am nervous about are the rotations. I’m am used to a simple roundabout style where everyone plays everything. This time, we are playing a 5-1 rotation. 5 hitters, 1 setter. I’ve spent many evenings researching this rotation and studying how I should play this as a power. That being said, I look forward to some high jumps and some hard spikes.