I LOVE
VOLLEYBALL!

[pic of an italian
setter] Setters

Rule.

(Even

Brazillians)

;)
Mauricio Lima - 1992 Gold Medal Winner


Here's Beach Volleyball's First $2 Million Man - Karch Kiraly [picture of Karch, in fine form]

Karch is the best passer (maybe player) of all time. He has now won Three Gold Medals: at the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Olympics.


[picture of sinjin]

Sinjin Smith...winningest beach player of ALL TIME and top player in the FIVB.

I met him!! June 97 at URI. he was giving a talk to the volleyball players at the world scholar athlete games. One point he made which I am going to focus on next season was about defense: always expect the dink.
And I asked him if two short players might be better off not blocking, and he agreed with me! How exciting!!

His real name is Christopher St. John Smith. "Sinjin" is the Old English pronounciation of St. John.


So Who am I????????

My name's Dylan, and I'm a 5'7" guy from Rhode Island. "So how the hell did you start playing volleyball?" Well if you're a volleyball player, you know that it's - e v e r y w h e r e - and you probably also know that you don't have to be six feet tall to be a competetive player (as long as you don't play professionally, or in D1!)

So I started playing my junior year in high school, when we started up a club boys' vball team. I was a setter. I could've been a hitter, but I preferred to play with guys in my grade, and they were mostly bigger than the sophs and frosh that I was with originally, so to play with the big boys, I needed to be a setter. And set I did. I was actually our starting setter when the team became varsity my senior year, and it was my first ever varsity letter. I had tried out for the basketball team from 8th-11th grade, never making the team! I had also ran track - sprints and weights - all through high school. But no letters. So I had this pent-up energy that wanted to play on a varsity team. and I did it with volleyball. (I actually got a letter in track that year, as well as another pin for being volleyball captain. So I really scored my senior year!)

Then I went to Swarthmore College, where they had a volleyball team! Club-level. I joined the team. they didn't really have a setter, and I had the hands to set, so I got to start as the setter for like 2/3 of the games, I think. The next year, since I had more experience playing than most of the other guys on the team, I became a captain! And since we were so bad my freshman year that our coach quit, I had to coach the team, too! ooof! I was now also the only thing close to a setter we had, and I started all over the place. Not only that, I decided which seniors would get playing time. That's a heavy load for a sophomore!

I was captain again junior year, and this time we had a coach! By this point, I had started a web page for the team, which I maintained religiously. I'd love it if you'd check it out, since I put a TON of work into it. I even designed our team logo - check it out! And I kept putting work into the volleyball team, though the busy schedules of my teammates kept us from winning all that much. oh well. I don't worry about winning very much at all. I care more about playing well and having fun. Or the other way around. Yeah, I guess I don't mind stinkin' up the joint if I'm having fun doing it.

that attitude tended to piss my teammates off, especially the younger ones, who wanted to WIN WIN WIN WIN but I had just played too many sports and was dealing with too many issues to put up with that nonsense. I didn't start my senior year at all, since we had a kick-ass setter come in to town - he was just as short as me, but he had played a LOT more volleyball - a better setter, better blocker, and much better on defense. It was weird, since that was the first time I hadn't been the #1 setter on my team. I guess I should get used to getting beat by younger guys...damn, here I am 21 already... ;)

so here I am, gone from Swat, leaving behind my many web pages (including the one for the volleyball team which if you haven't checked out yet, you should now! :) I left the maintainence of the team's pages in the capable and eccentric hands of a boy that called himself MaD dUCK. I hope you give his version of the Swat VBall Page a gander, as well. My logo's still on there! Or at least it used to be.

Hey, if you play volleyball, too, that's great. but this page is as of now dead, since I no longer have access to this account and can't edit any of my pages here. Maybe I'll try and sneak a link in here to my new homepage, once I get one. Anyways, thanks for stopping by, and always, always put the first serve in.


L      I      N      K      S      !

The Swarthmore Mens Volleyball Page
which I created and maintained for about 2.5 years.

volleyball.org has just about everything about all of the places to play ball around the world!

I have a few more Volleyball Pictures if you want some.

 

Dylan's Main page