
The “jump up and block the ball” move is just one of many possible types of “volleys” at a volleyball player’s disposal
This column used to exist regularly, we swear. You can find the archives here. This year, it spontaneously rises from the dead, like Neo amidst a hailstorm of bullets from Mr. Smith. Welcome back to Sixth Man.
Here is the problem with going to a Brown sports event: you feel like you don’t fit in. At last night’s volleyball game, the surprisingly large crowd was composed of the following members: me, the weird guy sitting behind me definitely reading my notes over my shoulder the whole fucking game, 50 or so athletes, a bored-looking 9-year-old with an iPod, and a smattering of players’ parents bickering over how to pronounce various other players’ names. This was not the ideal atmosphere to take in my first-ever Brown volleyball game, alone, but I suppose that’s what you get when you don’t have many friends and agree to cover Brown sports.
I showed up five minutes late, which, to my dismay, was just in time for the national anthem. This isn’t an ultra-relevant concern, but why do we bother with the national anthem before sports games if it’s a generic taped CD version? I say it’s live or bust. You could even bring out one of those classically trained 11-year-olds to stumble through a botched rendition who makes it even more uncomfortable for the crowd than for her. That’s what we go to sports games for, right?
Anyway, I digress. Let’s talk volleyball. Brown was off to an 0-4 start going into Tuesday’s game, which sounded a whole lot worse until I found out that Tuesday’s opponent, Providence College, was 0-7 with straight-set losses to possibly fictional colleges Gardner-Webb and Southern Utah. They were not better than expected, either. I’ll save you the suspense–Bruno picked up its first win of the year in consecutive sets, 25-21, 25-22, 25-18.!”But what do all these numbers mean???” I hear you probably (not) asking. Good question. Volleyball matches are played in intervals of 25-point sets; win three sets, and you win the match. (I think there’s something special about the fifth set, if it comes to that, but this one didn’t go that long, so who cares.)
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