DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: The joy of diving into a new sport

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2024 (183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When interviewing volleyball coaches for the first time this season, I needed to give them a warning — “I am going to be a menace this year.”

It didn’t have anything to do with changes in my personality or philosophy of sports reporting, or changes in the teams I was covering, it was all about how my own knowledge base had expanded last summer when it comes to volleyball.

Watching Eric Loeppky play in the Italian Superlega finals was an absolute treat, and gave me a much greater appreciation for volleyball as a whole, thanks to an outstanding English broadcast which was able to share insights.

Of course, I’m a long way away from calling myself a volleyball expert, but the process of gaining a new understanding of a sport was such a rewarding experience.

Watching volleyball in the past for me was all about the big outside hitter, trying to nab the perfect photo of a block or kill attempt.

Now I’m able to appreciate a great setter, the mindgames and mentality of a team grinding out points and even a little bit about substitution patterns and line-up decisions.

How I know my volleyball knowledge actually took a leap forward and it’s not just my imagination came during the Providence Pilots’ home opener this year.

After a joust above the net forced the ball to hit the antenna, umpires ruled the Providence player was the last to touch the ball. The next opportunity, the Pilots’ setter went right back to the player on the wrong end of the bad call, who made no mistake on the ensuing kill attempt.

It was a detail I would have had no chance of noticing before watching those high-level games this spring/summer.

Learning a new sport, even one I felt I knew a surface level amount about, was a special journey, and I hope to have that feeling about new sports once per year moving forward.