Volleyball through my eyes

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My First Blog Post

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

My volleyball journey first started in fifth grade. I rocked my brand-new volleyball shoes and bright white turtle knee pads just like every other girl, itching to finally learn what volleyball is all about. Little did I know that it would soon be my primary sport and take up most of my life. I only played grade school volleyball that first year, but I dreaded my last game because that meant the season would be over and I would have to wait a whole year to play another game.

By the start of my second season I was begging my parents to let me play club. It took lots of “puppy dog eyes” and weeks of being on my best behavior, but my parents cracked and let me go to tryouts. I was ecstatic when I made the team with some of my closest friends and could not wait to be able to play volleyball for more than three-months out of the year.

Club was more serious than school volleyball so I was given a set position by my coach. I was told that I would be a right-side hitter but was quickly given the setter position instead. At first I was upset about this. It was going to be a lot more work and I did not have the confidence at that age to do it. My teammates were able to pick me up and I gave setting my biggest effort. It turns out that I wasn’t too bad at it! I continued to be a setter the rest of my grade school career.

Once I hit high school, I was thrown into the right-side hitter position. I worked hard at it and was able to find success. Eventually I was able to earn the chance to be both a hitter and setter. I once again gave everything I had into both positions and landed a scholarship to play college volleyball. I played at Kaskaskia College for two years as both a hitter and setter. I was given quite a few awards while at that school and that recognition landed me another college scholarship to go on and play at Missouri Baptist University.

It was my success and love for the game that brought me to want to help other fall in love with volleyball too. I now coach two different teams and get to watch girls grow in their abilities every day. It is both a challenging and rewarding position and I can’t wait to tell you all about it in my next post!

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
What topics do you think you’ll write about?
Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.