I'm not much of a sports fan and I never have been. And that's quite a shame considering my hometown of Pittsburgh is one of the best places in the world to be for a sports fan. We have not one but several world-class sports clubs: The Pittsburgh Steelers have won more Super Bowls than anyone else (or they're at least tied), The Pittsburgh Penguins are a legendary Hockey team, and we're a stones throw away from Penn State where the Nittany Lions reign as one of the top college football franchises.
I do ocasionally enjoy watching a bit of Penguins hockey, but there's only one sport that consistently can keep my interest. That's volleyball. NCAA Women's Volleyball to be exact. This was my first season as a fan and it sure was a specacular one. Completely out of left field, my two favorite teams ended up in the championship match! And it sure was a wonderful game. Loved every minute of it. And all this love has gotten me into the mood for explaining a bit about why professional volleyball is the most entertaining sport that exists.
But first I want to give a little shoutout to my two amazing volleyball powerhouses!
Lady Lions, congrats on your record-tieing 6th championship. Penn State has the best volleyball franchise in the world, and soon I'm sure you'll break Stanford's record and make it official. Incredible season and great job sending your accomplished seniors off with a second win!
Wisconsin Badgers, amazing job proving that you're one of the top teams there are. And great job hitting your best game against Penn State by far! You really went out on a high note and if any other team but Penn State had made it to that last match, I know you'd have crushed 'em. Carlini's only bound to get better and next year you'll have an even more powerful team.
But now here's a bit about why volleyball is fuckin' awesome.
Scoring!
One reason I like hockey more than football, is there's a lot more action and a lot more scoring. Football seems to slow to a crawl every half-minute, while hockey keeps pretty steady. But volleyball, sheesh, it has thrice the action of any other major sport. You literally score a point every five or ten seconds of play. And god, when you do get those volleys that last 30, 40 seconds... so nerve wracking! Volleyball is, by a decent margin, the most immediate and exciting sport.
It's Very Dramatic; Flamboyant
I'm quite sure that all the running around, kicking, jumping, etc. that they do in football, hockey, soccer, and basketball is extremely complex and nuanced and requires the most astronomically well-crafted athletes to perform. But I don't really know much about that stuff. Most of what I see in any of those four sports is people going up and down the field, up and down the field, up and down the field. It's atheltic but it doesn't appear to be especially acrobatic. What *is*, however, apparent to a laymen like me, is the extreme amount of athletic prowess these girls in volleyball exhibit. Every other volley you see someone doing somersaults, or contorting into a bizarre pose in order to smack the ball at an extreme angle, or wilfully faceplanting into the arena floor just to stop that ball from hitting the ground. It's an incredibly visual sport compared to a lot of the others.
It's Uniquely Confrontational
Now, there's no substitute for a good hockey fight or a dozen behemoths jumping on you in football. That's one kind of confrontation. But volleyball has a different kind of fight that I find a lot more interesting. Volleyball is like professional Dragon Ball Z, they're throwing these attacks out and the other side has to bat them right back and it's just such a cool kind of battle.
It's Not as Unattainable
Certainly the amount of celebrity surrounding the top athletes among the more popular sports can be fun in and of itself. But I feel like the volleyball players I watch are equally elite in skill, and yet much closer to us little people. For example, I haven't had a chance to try this yet (yet!), but I imagine it'd be a lot easier to go up to Lauren Carlini and get an autograph, than it would be from, say, Ben Roethlisberger. And obviously, as a volleyball fan, Carlini's autograph would mean just as much to me as Ben's would to a Steelers fanatic.
So yeah, I'm not athletic or knowledgeable about sports or that kind of stuff. But if you're looking for an exciting sport, volleyball is hard to beat.
It's not only fun to watch, but fun to play, too! I don't consider myself to be a very athletic type, but I'm finding that I'm really getting into playing volleyball.
ReplyDeleteThat comparison to DBZ is pretty funny, but I can totally see what you mean. And that comment about the longer volleys, too. It's moments like that during the AA level finals when you can just feel the whole crowd holding its collective breath. You def gotta check out the VB Superbowl.