Michigan State University Athletics
The Dagenais Diaries
5/28/2002 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Michigan State assistant volleyball coach Todd Dagenais is serving on the coaching staff of the US National Team which is participating in a Challenge Cup series against the Japanese National Team in Japan. The teams are playing seven matches in seven different Japanese cities. Dagenais has been keeping a journal documenting his experiences, and this entry covers the first few days of the trip. More journal entries will be coming in the near future.
May 15-16
Up at 4 am this morning for the 6:30 flight thru Denver, San Francisco, and finally Osaka. There is a general buzz of excitement because 90% of the team has never been overseas, much less in an international competition.
The flight to Osaka was quite an experience in itself. We left Colorado Springs in the daylight, 28 hours later we landed in the daylight, and never experienced nighttime during the entire trip! I tried to sleep when possible, but my body kept telling me that it was the middle of the afternoon. It was definitely strange to cross the international date line into the next day. It took several educated minds to ponder and comprehend exactly what was happening in the time-space continuim! How in the world could we take off at 6:30 am, fly for a total of 15 hours, and land at 4:30 pm THE NEXT DAY??? It seems to us that as we go west, the clock should say an earlier time, not a later time.
Having arrived in Osaka, we were greeted by our hostess, Mayumi. She is in the upper administration of the Japanese Volleyball Association. The JVA is the Japanese equivilent to USA Volleyball. Mayumi will serve as our host, guide, and interpreter through the entire trip.
We bussed from Osaka to Gifu City, about a 4-hour trip. By this point everyone's body has succummed to jet lag and the entire bus fell silent. I had a brief chance to enjoy the rugged tree-covered mountains before I lost my battle with father time.
Upon arrival, we checked into the Hotel 300. It was a very nice hotel that reminds me of a Radisson or Sheraton type of hotel. Then we sat down to dinner. The food was a big concern to our team before we arrived in Japan. They were very relived to see that the meals would consist of a pasta, a chicken dish, and maybe a pork or fish dish. All in all the meal was wonderful and we quickly adjusted to the various ways the Japanese prepare meals. Breakfast consists mostly of hash browns, breads, bacon, mini-hot dogs (not smoky links), and corn flakes. It only took our hosts one breakfast to realize that it's a great idea to put out two large serving bowls of corn flakes instead of one.
The rooms were definitely not built for those over 6' tall. Actually we have 11 of our 13 players over 6' tall, several of which range 6'3"- 6'7". These ladies are having a very difficult time in the small bathrooms with low ceilings.
I'm getting used to television, even though there isn't a single channel in English. The 14 channels seem to have the same basic programming. News, weather, and sports mixed in with some variety programming. There was some show that seemed to be like "Make Me Laugh". I was rolling with laughter which goes to show that humor is universal, even if you don't understand the language.
Unfortunately, I can't get into the various sit-coms on TV. I've definitely seen better acting in high school plays! Sports consist of sumo wrestling, kick boxing, and Ichiro highlights! That's right, the nightly news report is never complete without showing every at-bat of the Japanese native and Seattle Mariner star. They also show every play he makes in the field. They are so proud of their home-grown son, he could run for the highest office in the land and easily win.
I was really excited last night because I got to watch game one of the NBA western conference finals. The best part is that we get to see it with NO commercials, and time outs and quarter intermissions edited out. That is the only way to see a ball game. There was also a bit of NHL hockey, but it doesn't seem to be very big here. They had a 4-hour special showing highlights of the NHL playoffs. I couldn't stay awake because they showed every goal of every game, starting from the first round. I only made it through game 4 of the Red Wings-Canucks series in round #1.
May 17
We are still in Gifu City. Today was a training day for us, and a chance to get out and get some physical activity. Since this team is made up of high performance athletes, they get awfully cranky when they don't have their daily dose of exercise. We made sure they met their quota!
Practice was fairly tough as far as being physically active. We spent a great deal of time training our serve receive formations since that has been an achilles heel for our team. There is no doubt we are one of the most physically gifted teams in the world, but we don't always pass the ball well enough in serve receive to show exactly what we are capable of.
One thing that really stood out in my mind about practice was with the crew assigned to work our practice. About 20 young Japanese women (maybe high school aged) were assigned to assist us with our practice. Their effort and attentiveness was AMAZING! They stood at attention in pairs surrounding the court. We practiced for three and a half hours, and during that time, not a sinle ball that was served, passed, spiked, or shanked hit a wall of the gym. As soon as the ball passed the boundry line of the court, these young ladies sprinted to retrieve the ball before it could bounce back into the court and injure someone.
One young lady (maybe a freshman in high school) must have been assigned to hand me balls as I was serving to the team. Every time she handed me a ball she said "dozo". During a water break I asked her what "dozo" means. She said in nearly perfect English, it meant "Here you go". We shared a chuckle...of course that made sense! From there on out she said, "Here you go" everytime she handed me one of 500 more balls I served. I didn't have the heart to tell her she didn't have to say here you go each time she handed me a ball. She was so proud that she was communicating with me in English.
Tonight we had a formal meeting to cover the schedule that would govern the match. It is customary in an international match for the coaching saffs of the two countries to sit down for a dinner or meeting along with the referees and event organizers. We discussed all last minute details of the official match warm-up, protocol for the match itself, and the mandatory propoganda (promotional) event that would take place after the match tomorrow. In this case, we are required to attend a formal autograph signing for the fans sponsored by one of the event organizers.
Following the meeting, we attended a welcome party hosted by the Gifu Volleyball Association. The event is mandatory for the entire team and coaching staffs from both countries. Four players from Japan and four players from the USA sat together with various dignitaries from Gifu City, as well as various sponsors from the event. I was the only English speaking member of my table. Fortunately the gentleman sitting next to me spoke a bit of English. That was all our table needed to get the party going! Despite the language barrier, we had an excellent time sharing stories and telling jokes.
I wish I would have brought more business cards. It is a Japanese custom to exchange a business card when you meet someone new. I had brought about 100 cards and it looks like I will run out by the next city. I guess that I will make a lot of new friends in the Japanese Volleyball Association and the smaller city associations as we tour Japan.
I continue to be amazed by the respect and attention we are receiving from the Japanese people. They are treating us as if we were NBA or MLB superstars. They are very knowledgeable about the sport of volleyball and the players who play. We received frequent questions about Logan Tom, Danielle Scott, and Sara Noriega, each of which were significant players for team USA in the Olympics. They have a great deal of respect for our team, but they are very aware that our "best" team isn't on this tour.
May 18
Today is a match day. We were up at 8:30 for breakfast and a 10:15 departure for a training session prior to the match. Today's match is at 3:00 pm. This creates so many difficulties in match day logistics. We need to have a practice and a pre-game meal before the match. Take into account that we start warming up at 1:00 and that doesn't leave much time to accomplish everything with the detail necessary to insure a sharp performance.
Our pregame meal consisted of a pasta salad and sandwich. This is excellent "training" for the team to be forced to function outside their comfort zone. In this case, many of our athletes are accustomed to a large meal of steak or chicken nearly 3-4 hours prior to the match.
As our warm-up progressed there was no doubt we were very nervous heading into the first competition of the USA-Japan Challenge Cup. Our passing and attacking was far from sharp.
Ironically, we stabilized faster than Japan in the first game and won 25-20. One of the largest differences between collegiate volleyball and the international game is the speed by which losing teams adjust to what the winning team is doing. In this case, Japan changed the angles at which their attackers hit the ball. They began to hit the ball hard cross court around our huge block. We were unable to adjust to their adjustment and we lost the next three games 23-25, 23-25, 20-25.
Another difference between volleyball in America and international volleyball is that both teams typically practice after the match as well. This is a chance to immediately adress and fix the deficiencies that cost, or could have cost the team a win. We worked on serve receive for almost an hour after the match. Japan worked on defense and then they did several wind sprints.
After we finished practice, I was amazed by the number of Japanese fans that were waiting for us outside the venue. The bus was surrounded by a small sea of fans behind a roped off area. We signed autographs for nearly a half hour before departing for the hotel.
May 19
Another game day. Back-to-back game days are always a challenge, especially when the match time for day two is even earlier than day one. Today's match is at 2:00 pm, so we closely followed yesterday's itinerary except for the fact that we backed everything up one hour.
Today we had more fans at our practice than many college teams get at a MATCH! I would guess that nearly 200 people watched us practice. This is almost always an unwelcome distration to the coaching staff and team. Again though, this is more mental training for our team to adapt to less than ideal surroundings.
The match started and we got behind very early down two games to zero. The Japanese were using the same exact attacking philosophy and we are still having great difficulty blocking the hard cross court shot. Even when we are getting a "good touch" with our block (a touch that causes the attacked ball to be slowed, therefore it can be passed easily), we are unable to convert our posession into a point. That is another big diference in the international game. When the serving team is lucky enough to slow the opponents serve receive attack, it's should almost certainly result in a conversion point for the serving team. We are having some difficulty with this and it's costing us too many points. In today's match this was a huge factor, especially when added to the fact that the Japanese did not make a single (NOT ONE!) attacking error in serve receive today. The key to dominating any match is serve receiving at a high rate of success. Today the Japanese did excatly that and won the match 3 games to 1.
The post-match practice had us working on our ball control and the Japanese working on defense again. I think we did put a scare in them because the game we beat them was a game where we dominated offensively. The do not have the size or the power to match up with us player to player. They have to read the situation and gang block the player they feel may get the ball. If they are left one on one with our attacker, then they really have to depend on their digging as a last line of defense. Traditionally the Asian teams are the best in the world at doing this.
Todd Dagenais
