Melissa Day's SEC Tournament Diary: Day One
4/19/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
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While everyone on the team is going about doing their thing I thought I’d do a recap on this beautiful Monday in April that starts off SEC tournament week. Behind the scenes there has been a lot going on well before I’ve even risen from bed most mornings, but today when I got up at 9 and spoke to Coach Mainz on the phone it was as though I’d already missed half the days action. Flowers, plants, food, banquets, more flowers and more food... it’s all happening. By the way, I’m sure you will pick up on this by the end of the week, but food is a central part of our team. Ever since we’ve had a few dehydration difficulties throughout the season, our trips and preparation for matches revolve around eating, drinking, playing tennis, more eating and more drinking, more tennis and sleeping. Anyway, getting back on track, by the time practice rocked around this afternoon, the courts were still a hive of activity. Between maintenance guys (doing an awesome job cutting grass in amongst the beans, rolls, pudding and stuff left over from our food fight before the Auburn match) and everyone else, I was having a hard time finding my team, but there they were, putting in special requests with Martha for dips, double something or other eggs and goodness knows what else. Martha did ask though, and there are superstitions attached to her famous pimento cheese dip (without olives of course)...
Anyway, moving on from food, in the background, always quietly achieving, is Emily Baker - one of the most wonderful ladies you could ever meet. Emily does so much for us and I dare say she spent most of her day today getting all the "little things" organized that help make everything so special. Looking on from the corner of the team room is our owl "Scoots" with his nose broken off - just don't ask about that. Once the special requests were in, and Coach Mainz had gone over a couple of quick things, it was time to get to the hard work - this team is built on hard work and details, and our theme for this year is "championships are won in practice". Assistant coach Keith Swindoll busted out his huge straw hat for the occasion and E.C. arrived just in time to see some of the action. We wrapped up practice with some conditioning drills and target practice – Odie (assistant coach Allison Ojeda) was the target. Before you knew it was time for hands in and you guessed it, dinner. Tonight Wings was the place to be. Coach Jenny Mainz was going to speak on "Hey Coach". There wasn't any big talk for our first match against the Ole Miss though, we're just going to keep taking it as it comes. This year the SEC season has been a season of upsets, who knows what the end of the week can bring for us? We'll just take it one day at a time, focus on the little things and controlling the controllables, just like we always do.
Roll Tide!!!
~md
