Quicksets With Kenzie: Funny Moments

"Humor is mankind's greatest blessing." --Mark Twain

Over the years playing volleyball, I have seen quite a few things that are funny or just plain-out weird.

Six-Pack Yourself?? Once I was warming up my arms with a friend, and we were throwing the ball down on the ground with two hands. It was one of his first times playing, so he didn't exactly understand that throwing the ball in front of you was necessary. He threw the ball directly down and it came up and hit him in the face.

Six-Pack Yourself-- Again?? One of my hitters tipped the ball to the setter on the other side, who dug it up perfectly to the net. The left-handed opposite on the other side jumped to hit the ball but completely missed it and it hit her in the face. To her credit, it was late in the day and so she might have been tired… I hope.

Uh… what was that? In a recent tournament, my side was serving and all of the front line people had their hands up ready to block. One of the taller girls on my team, a middle, had her hand near the top of the tape. Our server served and the ball hit the middle's hand, rolled over the net, and we got an ace because the referee didn't see the ball hit the middle's hand. Moral of the story: keep your hands up, front row!

It's not hazing… This is a great trick to pull on freshmen when your coach isn't around. Have all of the freshmen line up along the net. Then tell them to race their hands up the net, weaving their arms in and out of the squares. After a few seconds, they will all be hopelessly tangled and you can pants all of them. But I didn't tell you that.

It's peanut butter-jelly time? When you're standing at the net with some other players, lean down and smell the net. Then remark that it smells faintly like peanut butter. With a little luck, the other players will lean down and when they do you can push the net at them and it will hit them in the face. I can't tell you how many times I've done this to underclassmen. But I didn't tell you that.

Low nets are super fun! At a party, there was a volleyball net set up but the net was sagging in the middle so it was extremely low. A lot of volleyball players were at the party so we decided to mess around a little bit. I set the 6'5 outside hitter from the boy's team a two (where the net was lowest). The other side had the boy's middle blocker, who obviously tried to block, but because the net was so low his whole face was over the net. My hitter hit the blocker in the face and then the ball bounced off his face into the neighbor's yard, onto the roof. The blocker had a volleyball imprint on his face for the rest of the night.

And remember, hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.

Kenzie Aries