I played volleyball for High school and College in India (at a competitive level). I was playing volleyball for clubs in Chennai after passing out of college. After coming to Scranton in December 2005, I played in the summer of 2007 in my apartment complex. I was looking at getting a team into YMCA Power League Volleyball for sometime, but wasn’t lucky though. YMCA Power League volleyball co-ordinator gave me another contact for playing in Dunmore Community Center, in which I am playing for past 3 weekends. Players who played there in Dunmore Community center saw me and my friend playing and invited us to play at 2 more places one on Thursday evening and another one on Sunday evening. I was seriously amazed at the amount of volleyball going around in Scranton and the kind of facilities what they have, all are properly furnished heated indoor sports floor courts.
I was bit early for the Saturday night game in Dunmore community center and got an opportunity to see Dunmore girl’s high school team (probably the girls were around 10-14 years old) was practicing (playing a game within themselves) with a head coach and 2 other assistant coaches watching them. They were observing there game and correcting them after the game on what mistakes they did and where they should improve. When I started playing volleyball at 7th standard, there was none to teach us the basics of the game. The mistakes what we started doing at that age with respect to basics is still with me in the game, my physical education teacher (sweety jeya mary) for 2 years 11th -12th standard coached us really well but still the mistakes what we learned to do during the first few years are still with me. It is very very difficult to correct those basic mistakes you do in the game for e.g. while receiving the pass, the receiver should stand with the dominant foot slightly forward rather than just standing with the legs apart, it helps you to go for the ball which can drop in front of you and I still receive the pass with me standing with legs apart :(.
I always had a feeling that the amount of importance what we give to cricket kills peoples interest in other games. Don’t mistake me I am an avid cricket fan and I follow up and watch every match India plays(when I get time). I started playing volleyball only after my dad insisted (though there were other petty reasons too), the conditions what he laid in front of me for taking up a game are very simple
1) Game should keep you fit and active.
2) Should not take lot of time away from my studies.
3) Should not have physical contact between players
For the facilities what I had in school and what suited for my dad’s requirements was volleyball. My school Shri Anand Jain Vidyalaya had a volleyball court (that is the only play area we had in school) in the center with the school building covering the court in a “U” shape. We have groups/houses in school, since it was a jain school the houses were in the name of Ruby, Emerald, Diamond and Sapphire and me being in Sapphire for last 4 years of my school life. Playing volleyball in front of the whole cheering school for the house matches was really interesting and are real good memories.
I have never played volleyball in an indoor court before coming to Scranton (though my college had an indoor court which they used for basket ball), the amount of facilities here and the kind of organized coaching the provide bound to produce atleast 1 good player in 1000. Comparing the talent pool what I see here to what I saw in India, India is way way up in the amount and the quality of talent. With proper facilities and a good coaching at young age will definitely produce players far better than what we have seen. . Infact India were the runners up in 2003 edition of world youth volleyball and Kamraj( comes from Loyola college in Chennai) was awarded the best setter award for the 2003 youth edition. Facilities and quality of coaching are definitely improving, but we still have a long way to go.
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