Why I love volleyball

Now, first let me say that volleyball is by no means my favorite sport. Far from it in fact. Hell, most aspects of the game I couldn’t really give two shits about. But spiking???? SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I’m still trying to figure out just why the act of spiking fills me with such joy and I shall try to extrapolate the answers below.

My thinking at present goes something like this: I like to win. At anything. I believe the word is “competitive”. And I always want to win and win big at that. Close, hard fought games are fun to watch, but I imagine most (if not all) competitors want to win convincingly, to definitively show that they are far and away better than their opponents. For me, I’m not talking just winning big, I’m talking embarrassingly big. I want to embarrass whoever I’m up against. Does that mean I have no honor? Probably, but that’s a strange, somewhat antiquated concept anyways.

Now outside of winning by some huge lopsided margin like 60-0 for football or 5-0 for soccer, etc, etc, how can one go about embarrassing their adversary? How can you do it in game, rather than just on the final stat sheet? Every sport has them. Soccer has the nutmeg, basketball has crossing somebody up, and football has where you run somebody over. Volleyball has spiking it at someone.

Why is that so embarrassing to the opponent? Cuz you are basically saying to the other team, “I’m going to hit this right at you because I have so little respect for your ability and you still won’t be able to return it”. Demeaning in itself, but add to that the physical pain suffered by having a rapidly moving volleyball hit you in the head, face, junk, and other soft tissue areas and then you have a deadly combo. The other sports are lacking in this physical pain aspect. The nutmeg? No physical pain unless you can manage to bounce the ball off the players groin before hitting through the legs. If so, then you are a god among men. Crossing somebody up? Unless you literally broke their ankles, no physical pain. And running somebody over in football? Probably leads to a fair bit of pain for yourself, as colliding bodies always hurts. With spiking, its all give and no take in regards to pain. What can I say? I’ve got a big heart. I love giving.

Another advantage is the frequency in which you get to attempt this maneuver. The nutmeg is humiliating, but it can be very easily defended and rarely works after the first time, as the other team will be expecting it. Not to mention that you can give the ball away really easily this way. Times per game: 2 or 3. With crossing someone up, it is entirely dependent on your defender. If they are decent, they won’t follow the ball and thus won’t be faked out, even the first time. Even a bad defender could wise up and just play further away from you, thus rendering the move useless. Times per game: 3-5 (bad defender) or 0 (good defender). With football, you are naturally going to want to avoid contact rather than inviting it. That’s basic rules of the game as you are not going to break tackles every time you are hit by somebody. Plus getting hit by somebody hurts. Times per game: a couple. But volleyball? Ideally, the spike is your goal every single point. As the primary spike guy, the idea is for me to smash the ball at the other team every single point of every single game. That’s a lot of points. We play 3 sets, with 21 pts per game. So realistically, we are looking around 10 smashes per game, maybe more, maybe less. 30 > 3. Sure my arm is tired by the end, but its so worth it.

But can’t they return the ball if you hit it at them, you say. True they can, but hopefully they get a little “deer in the headlights” syndrome and freeze up just enough to mess up the return. Plus, actually controlling a spike is hard enough when its not aimed at your head. Then once you’ve got them flinching every time you wind up, you can pretty much hit it anywhere and they won’t be able to return it.

Now we just need to actually play the real game and quit having it postponed. My teammates are tired of my bloodlust.

And that was my treatise on why spiking is wonderful. My name is Eric, and yes, I’m a bad person.