Alabama European Tour Wrap-Up: Assistant Coach Chris Redding
6/16/2006 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
The Alabama volleyball team is on a 10-day, three country tour of Europe. The Tide is traveling to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia and will play five matches while visiting. To keep the fans informed, the Alabama players are writing daily journals about their trip of a lifetime. Due to limited internet access in Europe, some of the journals may be a couple of days late being posted.
Our trip to Europe could not have been any better. Our team got more out of the 12 days traveling and playing in Eastern Europe then we did in the entire spring season. Our team came together both on and off the court!
One of the main goals for this trip was to make a young team tougher and more competitive on the road. The players handled the excruciating travel, “strange” surrounds, and different cultures without a blink of an eye. But the more impressive accomplishment was that our team’s level of play kept rising with each match. Every single player improved their game on this trip without exception.
The other crucial goal for our trip was to develop our “Team Personality” as Coach Green calls it. All spring long our team struggled with it’s “personality”, and that reflected on the court throughout the spring with inconsistent play. Well, it is developed! This team came together in 12 days. At the end of the tour, we played some of the most exciting and enjoyable volleyball I have ever seen. This level of play only happens when a team pulls together and are faces the challenge as one.
There were at ton of special moments, fun times, and things I will never forget. But the best thing I will take from this trip is my excitement for the 2006 season to get underway and to see this team compete!
ROLL TIDE!
Chris Redding (A.K.A. Finn)
