Final Tour Thoughts - Jackie Simpson Kirr (Head Coach)
During a recruiting trip last summer, I was having dinner with Ryan Owens, who played for the Men’s National Team and now lives in Split, Croatia. It was during this dinner that he shared with me his dream and vision of creating a tour experience that had deeper meaning beyond just playing some matches and seeing some sites. We have a shared belief about how powerful athletics can be for personal growth in people’s lives. I am happy to say that vision became reality for our program this summer.
So, our journey in this moment truly began over a year ago as Ryan and I developed a wholistic itinerary designed for personal and team development on and off the court. Volleyball opportunities included youth clinics to work with and inspire younger players, a friendly tournament with teams from the Balkan region and time with current and former professional volleyball players. Off the court, we had high intensity excursions that required trust and communication like ATVs to see wild horses and white water rafting. We had two different boating days to swim and explore various islands. There was also times that were needed for the team to relax at the beach, recover at the spa and shop in the various city centers.
Built into the cadence of the trip designed to balance the high intensity and relaxation was two days in the Plitvice National Park. A moment to disconnect from phones while hiking in one of the most world renowned parks, followed by a mindfulness yoga session with a former Team Germany Middle and current psychologist and yoga teacher, Berit Kauffeldt, allowed for our team to have multiple moments specifically carved out for reflection and sharing. This was truly unlike any other tour I have experienced.
This team is full of so many personalities. I laughed a lot on this trip. They are funny, kind, fearless, empathetic, driven and passionate. There were so many big adventures, but it’s the moments in-between where the bonds were truly formed. The bus ride laughter, the dinner conversations, the walks to the gym, the treasure hunting on the beach or searching for the best gelato were all so special. I’m also grateful that the team was able to spend time with our staff away from the court to have conversations just as humans. There is an openness and trust that was built that we will be able to lean into during times of stress and adversity in the fall because of the moments we had on this trip.
When looking back on the trip, I was most surprised by the openness to new experiences, especially with how young our team is and how many have never traveled out of the country. Many of the excursions were optional and almost everyone said yes to the opportunity, including a full group participation on the ATVs!
My favorite moments from the trip happened both on and off the court. When it comes to the volleyball side, I loved watching our team connect with the athletes from the other teams. It was fun hearing them talk about what they learned from their different experiences. From an excursion standpoint, my favorite part was the ATVs. There was a group of us that had a competition to see who could get the muddiest. I was between Mac (Mia McGrath) and Azyah (Dailey). Over the course of the four hours, we somehow organically developed our own communication system to signal the large mud puddles and keep our spacing.
I can say I was very impressed with the intentionality each athlete had to spend time with each other. Every time we broke up into small groups or sat down at dinner, the small groups included different people. In my 15 years of college coaching, I have never seen a team so committed to building meaningful relationships with everyone. It’s something our returners talked about wanting to focus on this spring, and they really brought it to life on this trip. Many teams talk about it, few actually do it.
When people leave their comfort zones is often when the biggest areas of growth happen. Taking a group on a foreign tour was a big step outside of our traditional comfort areas. One of the success principles of Own Today is “small things, big difference.” I feel our biggest growth as individuals amongst both the student-athletes and the staff and then as a full team was in mindfulness. From learning how to navigate new places with language barriers and different cultural expectations to setting an intention for a drill, our group operated with purpose and stayed present during our experience.
The opportunity to take this tour with our program was beyond anything what I could have imagined. Starting from training camp, the time we had to introduce our program expectations, success principles and technical and tactical packages will allow us to train at a higher level come August. Multiple teams we competed against commented that it seemed we had been together for years, not just three weeks. With so many new players on the roster, to be able to have some competition this early on together is huge. We still have so much to learn about one another, but we got a huge head start on this trip. As our team and staff moves forward, I hope we can all look back and be inspired by the professional players they had time to learn from. I also hope they realize how blessed we are for the resources provided by Clemson and IPTAY.