The first day of preseason, the first day of community

By Ryan Maloney, assistant women's volleyball coach

Fredonia Volleyball athletes during the first meeting of preseason 2016

I'm usually ecstatic just to see all the athletes again on the first day of preseason. After anxiously waiting for three months, seeing everyone together has always been thrilling. It's probably what most people feel when leaving for a glamorous vacation.

This year, however, those feelings are more mellow. Just like the excitement for a vacation eventually fades, so it does for preseason, too. Perhaps this comes with age -- a more steady-state stream of emotion that keeps a coach grounded -- but I suspect it's more than that.

In the past year I've had a growing interest in how athletics fits into the framework of higher education. As coaches, how are we creating more meaningful experiences for our athletes, so much so that they're inspired to continue searching for meaning when they graduate?

I think the passion I used to feel for the first day of preseason has been spread over the course of the entire year, encapsulated in that single question.

One answer I keep coming back to is community. Rather than teamwork, an overused term that has become somewhat meaningless, community is a rich and vibrant description of what we're striving for. I love the description of community by the renegade psychologist, James Hillman:

"I think it's absolutely necessary for our life today to have community where we actually live. Of course, we have dear friends from thirty years ago who are living in Burma or Brazil now. And they're there for you when you're busted -- in an emergency. But is that sufficient? For the maintenance of the world? It's definitely not. I think for the maintenance of the world that other kind of local community requires regular servicing. And that's a very unpleasant, hard thing to stay with, to realize how much service one needs to perform -- not for an old, distant friend, but for the people (next door)."

Athletes don't choose their teammates, just like they won't choose their neighbors as adults. In both cases, being able to approach and help the people you'd prefer to avoid is an essential part of a meaningful life.

Every year we ask our players to write a reflection before preseason. Each class gets a different question, each one relating to the idea of community:

• Freshmen - Why do you deserve to be a part of Fredonia Volleyball?

• Sophomores - How will you help this year's freshmen class have an even better first-year experience than you had?

• Juniors - How will you become the leader this team needs now that you are upperclassmen?

• Seniors - What will you do for Fredonia Volleyball that will last after you're gone?

This year we've asked that the players write their reflections for the blog, because writing for an audience is an act of community. Writing an essay for a class, though necessary, is just for yourself.

An entry will be posted twice-a-week for the next several weeks. It may seem strange, but the entries are written in the third person in order to encourage self-reflection. "Ryan will hold his teammates accountable," tends to carry more weight than, "I will hold my teammates accountable."

As always, thank you for allowing us to coach your daughters, granddaughters, nieces, sisters, and friends. It's our privilege to do so.

Welcome to the 2016 season.