Family Circle

On August 1st, I went to see the USA Women’s volleyball team play scrimmage practice.

Little could be heard over the blaring music and the many chatting people. The many, many people there. The stadium, the Haas Pavilion at Berkeley, was nearly jam-packed with the fans of the US Womens’ Volleyball team playing scrimmage half-on-half. The team was led by the Chinese legend “Jenny” Lang Ping, otherwise known as the Iron Hammer. She had led the Chinese to many World Championships and even some Olympic medals. It was said that when she spiked, it was so powerful and so fast that there was very little chance that the opponent could capture it. Therefore, her fist would come down like a hammer, hence the name.

It was soon 5:00. It was scheduled to start. But instead of playing immediately, they started with a set of running around, stretching, practice hitting, etc. With just that, it took up thirty minutes of the time. Then, finally, they started to play. The ball flew from left to right, here to there. Their scores were very close. There were two men up there too, teachers, to help the team that was losing.

During time-outs, they would throw some mini-volleyballs around for the fans to catch. It seemed that they were ignoring us, for they only threw a couple at our side and a lot at their side.

The US volleyball team would go to Beijing the next day, so This was their last scrimmage. There were some mistakes and some awesome hits, and they are truly very great. The players were:Ogonna Nnamani, Danielle Scott-Arruda, Tayyiba Haneef-Park, Lindsey Berg, Stacy Sykora, Nicole Davis, Heather Bown, Jennifer Joines, Kim Glass, Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, Kim Willoughby, Logan Tome, Cassie Busse, and Tracy Stalls. They are averaged about 6ft0in, an they are all very good. Some, like Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, have already gone to the Olympics on the team many times. Likewise, some are coming for the first time.

In my opinion, I thought that the tallest, Tayyiba Haneef-Park, was the best. She served well, spiked fast, blocked steady, and one time she, when the ball was about to go out-of-bounds, she kicked it at the last moment with a flying gymnastics-soccer kick that made the ball fly back to safety. Everybody was cheering after that.

It was truly a great time. I got signatures in the end, and Mom even got Lang Ping’s. Quite a line and quite a squeeze, I must admit, but it was worth it. I had a fantastic time and a great memory to last, hopefully, forever.

Here is a pic of some of the members of the team(click for larger version):