Goodbye Volleyball

I’m not sure if it has all sunk in yet…3 years of College, 2 years of University, 1 year at the National Team Centre, and 3 years overseas. That’s good chunk of time playing Volley. I just turned 27 and as I write this, it’s just sunk in that I’ve invested a third of my life playing this sport. It’s been one heck of a journey, which started all the way back in high school as a kid who just wanted to be great at a sport.

I’m at the end of that journey.

The 2018-2019 season with the SWD Powervolleys Duren was my last one as an athlete. My Volleyball career has been full of tough decision points, but this one came easy. I’m able to close off my journey with zero regrets, a full bank of great memories and experiences and the feeling that I maxed out every opportunity that I had. Before I go…I’m going to take this opportunity to drop a few notes/stories from my journey with Volleyball:

Let’s take it back to December 2009, my grade 12 year: Unrecruited, rejected from a few Universities and not too confident about my future with volleyball moving forward. An article from The Province came out: a list of the 15 top volleyball recruits in ranked order.I was ranked 15th.

For a split second, I was grateful to have made the list. A second later, I felt as though I was overlooked once again. Kept a copy of the list and kept the link on my phone a year later. More fuel to the fire. I still have a screenshot of that list on my phone.

September 2015: applied to our national team’s Full-Time Training Centre, waited all summer for the acceptance email that never came. 1 week before the training season started, I got an email at 2am telling me that I was accepted into the centre.

Once again, I was last on the list.

It didn’t matter, I was grateful it came through and the choice was made to fly life across the country within a week’s notice to keep the Volley career going.

December 2017: following a successful summer season with the Senior B Team, I failed to find a contract overseas. 9 months of being active on the market led to zero teams overseas interested in signing me. 3 months into the professional season, Chris Voth sends me a facebook message saying that his team was looking for a Libero. I played my first professional match a week later.

In this case…I wasn’t even on the list for every team in Europe.

Being at the bottom of the list gave me everything I could have ever asked for:

• the push to keep going until the end
• 3 seasons in the CCAA, 2 in CIS
• Bronze with the Senior B Team
• 3 Seasons in Finland, France and Germany

and that’s just covering the Volleyball side of things. I’ll definitely miss the game, and the countless other things that come with being a Volleyball player, but I couldn’t be more proud of the career I’ve put together. If you’re in it for the right reasons, you’ll know when the right time to move on is.

Thanks for sticking around! Hope you’re at the bottom of the list at some point (I mean this in the most positive way possible!), and good luck with whatever you’re gunning for!

Wait!

I originally intended for this piece to be a goodbye/thank you letter to Volleyball, and it wouldn’t be right to end it without giving thanks to the following people:

• my Wife, whom I wouldn’t have met without Volleyball
• My parents who gave me every opportunity to become a Volleyball player growing up
• All the coaches I’ve ever had, who always took the time to help me grow as a player and mort importantly…human being.
• All the teammates I’ve had along this journey. Some are my closest friends to this day, but I also hope I cross paths with every single one of them at some point in the future

and

• Volleyball. Thanks for the last 9 years. It’s been a great run, you’ve given me more than I could ever ask for, but now it’s time to move on!

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Thanks again for taking the time to read this!
See you on the court a long time from now,
Jordan