Being a volleyball coach, it has been a struggle getting back into volleyball with COVID-19 still going around. Having all these girls in a close space and not being able to wear a mask while they play or even coaching since nobody can hear a thing you are saying. This definitely causes a huge struggle since we all want to stay safe but still need to be able to speak to all the girls throughout practice.

Trying to stay safe but also wanting to continue volleyball and getting all the girls back to where they need to be is a priority. Now that the season is coming up it is going to be weird because not as many spectators will be able to be there and trying to be socially distanced with the team is hard. We try to keep the girls farther apart during drills or when we are talking to them but it gets hard to keep them apart while they are on the court playing. 

Something that has been different in volleyball is not high fiving your teammate after each play, everyone goes for the high five and then slowly backs up because we are all trying to stay safe. Going into the season none of us know what is going to be like and we are all trying to keep a positive attitude through it all and be grateful the girls are able to be out on the court and the coaches are back to coaching . Hopefully this brings a little bit of normal back into the lives of all sports players, coaches, in parents while struggling in this pandemic.

Hand Sanitizer is always being used before, during, and after practice but with all the girls touching the same balls just is something we can’t stop them from doing. It isn’t practical to sanitize the ball before the next person touches it. None of us thought this is what volleyball would look like now but we do what we can to keep the girls playing. 

All these girls have been separated for six months without any practice so when we finally got the okay to get started we jumped right back into all the practices and started preparing for the games. This goes for a lot of sports starting up that will have multiple changes in how everything will run. Many sports are just starting up and having many boys or girls together can cause social distancing orders to not be able to be placed which can put many people at risk. It’s hard to continue something you love while staying safe to protect everyone you are around.

High School sports are even starting up with all the freshman, JV, and Varsity teams gathering for practices and not having masks while in the practice since it would be too hard to practice with that. It does raise some concerns with many people on how social distancing will work this all to keep everyone safe. Games have limited spectators, girls on the sidelines wear masks and have their chairs farther apart than usual, and they even are filming games and putting into Instagram accounts. It’s hard to have to wear a mask through all of that. It is strange to think about masks being a new fashion trend. 

One of the many crazy things to happen with COVID is the masks. Who would’ve known shopping for masks would be the new normal. All the new designs to choose from have become something we all shop for. Masks are now becoming a big part of my search history and a lot of other people as well. Masks become a huge part of what we have to wear, some people are trying to make the best of it and get “trendy” ones but under most people’s search history they are shopping for plain masks. Looking back on just a few months when masks were hard to find along with hand sanitizer and now there are so many different masks and a bunch of hand sanitizer everywhere it is very important while in volleyball to be putting hand sanitizer since everyone touches the same ball and then they touch their faces, water bottles, and all their teammates.