Bowling Green State University Athletics
Coach Van De Walle and Team USA Bring Home Bronze
May 03, 2008 | Volleyball
May 3, 2008
Photo Gallery from Egypt
ISMAILIA, Egypt - BGSU volleyball Head Coach Denise Van De Walle journaled her final days in Egypt as the USA Natioanl Sittting Team won the bronze medal at the WOVD Intercontinental Cup.
Coach Van De Walle is in her fifth year as the assistant coach of the USA National Sitting Team. Van De Walle and the USA National Sitting Team brought home the bronze in the first ever World Organization Volleyball for the Disabled Intercontinental Cup. The WOVD Intercontinental Cup is a pre-paralympic event bringing both men and women of nine nations together, Netherlands, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, Iran and host Egypt.
The USA National Sitting Team has already qualified for their second appearance in the Paralympics after finishing fifth at the 2006 Sitting Volleyball World Championship.
Day 4 (Friday)
Today we played Lithuania in our first match of the tournament and looked great. We beat them in three, 25-13, 25-16, 25-19. It was a good feeling to beat them the way we did. We executed the game plan and hit the ball very well. It will be interesting to see how we do the rest of the week. We feel strongly that we can win this tournament if all goes well. We play Iran tomorrow and we should beat them easily in three.
It's exciting to be here. Some of the interesting things we've noticed so far are: all the men smoke and they smoke everywhere. It's not uncommon for them to walk into the gym and start smoking. That is hard for me to handle. I just can't stand it. Our meals are the same every day. We have a piece of pound cake and rolls and jelly for breakfast with a type of orange drink that is not juice. We have pita bread with tahini, cut up vegetables for lunch. We have chicken, rice or spaghetti, and French fries for every evening meal. If we want pop, we have to buy it. They provide bottled water. The bed is incredibly hard to sleep on, as it is really a thin mat on a board. That's it. So when you lay down there is no give or cushion. Oh, the comforts of home we miss! There are soldiers everywhere we look and it's amazing we can't go outside the village to look around.
Thought for the day: I really like to travel overseas. I am amazed at how small the world feels at times when I realize I know people from all over. However, each night I go to bed thankful to live in the USA.
Day 5 (Saturday)
Today was our match with Iran at 11:00 a.m. We've had it planned to beat them in three and head to Cairo to see the Pyramids. The bus was coming at 12:30 p.m. so we needed to do it fast. The trip from where we are to the Pyramids is a two hour drive and the Pyramids close at 4:00 p.m. When I got down to breakfast I was told that Mike (Head Coach) was sick with stomach trouble and had been vomiting all night. I stopped to see him and he said he was staying in the room and not coming. Therefore, I would be by myself with the team. We got there and warmed up and the next thing I know the match is pushed back to 11:30 a.m. Not good. We beat Iran in four but dropped the first set 23-25. That wasn't supposed to happen. We won the second and third sets with very little problem. Here's another thing that went wrong, at match point, two of our players go for the ball and collide and hit skulls. One gets up the other stays down. The rule in international volleyball is that you have to remove the injured player right away. Gina was face down and not able to move. So, I took a time out to keep her down and our trainer got her to move off to the side of the court. It was really chaotic at that moment as we had a Russian referee and one from Libya that were trying to talk English to tell us to get her off!
The prognosis: concussion. No pyramids for her or Mike or the trainer, Adam. The scores were 3-1 (23-25, 25-11, 25-17, 25-14). We hustled to our rooms to get a quick change of clothes and got onto the bus. It was 1:45 p.m. and we'd be cutting it close. We got to Cairo and were delayed in a traffic jam. Cairo is a huge city with lots of traffic. We could see the pyramids in the distance but we just weren't moving. We finally did get to them and after all that we were able to take a few pictures and then we were forced to leave: they were closed! What a bummer. We were told we could hurry and see the Sphinx since it didn't close til 5:00 p.m. We boarded the bus and hurried to our next stop. We got out and were immediately bombarded by little kids selling everything. By the time we got down to the bottom of the area we needed to be: a few pictures again and CLOSED! I couldn't believe it. That was the extent of the pyramids and Sphinx. Next on the agenda was going to see the Nile River. We stopped on the bridge and all of us got out of the bus to take pictures of it. It was neat to think of the history of it. I kept thinking about Moses being left in a basket and sailing down the river. After our time on the river, we all wanted to go shopping so we went to the Market where all the tourists go for sure. It was similar to other markets I've been to internationally and it was packed. We stayed for about an hour and a half and bought all kinds of neat things. It was told to us that it only rains about 6-7 times a year here and guess what? It poured on the way back from the Pyramids. In fact, we got a great lightning show with it. It was pretty cool to see the lightning fill up the whole black sky. We couldn't believe we were experiencing rain in the desert! Wow!
Thought for the day: It's unbelievable to see the Pyramids. I don't know much about them but I know they were built by hand. All I can say is "Awesome."
Day 6 (Sunday USA vs. Slovenia)
Today was another beautiful day. The weather is awesome. I thought it was going to be so hot here we wouldn't be able to move, but it is really pleasant. Well, Gina and Brenda are out due to their concussions. Bummer. We played Slovenia today and lost in three and that was definitely not supposed to happen. That's who we beat in 2004 for the Bronze medal in Greece. We are definitely the better team. Just not today. We looked really out of it. We just never got going. Yes, the line up is different with three starters not in but we felt really confident that no matter who played we could play well enough to win, not the case. Anyway, team meeting after the match, more film, and back at it tomorrow to play Russia. We have never played them before, nor have we ever seen them until this tournament. (I still feel like I'm in a movie. It seems surreal here at times.)
Thought for the day: Tough times reveal a lot about our character. We'll see how all this affects us tomorrow. No matter what, I'm still excited to be here.
Day 7 (Monday)
Today was another rough day. This time for me. I woke up, was sick, and spent most of my day with a bad stomach ache and in the bathroom. We had a match at 9:00 a.m. with Russia and it was good. We knew we were in a must win situation to get towards the medal round. We beat them in four (25-21, 23-25, 25-18, 25-20). Brenda played so we got closer to the line up we used at the beginning of the week. Beating Russia set us up for a semi-final match with the Netherlands. We played at 3:00 p.m. and I wish I could write that we won, but we didn't. The tough thing to watch were the leads we let slip away. In the first set, we were ahead by four near the end of the game and lost 26-24. We didn't recover in the second set and they won rather easily, 25-15. The third set was all team USA as were ahead again by four near the end, but a couple costly reception errors hurt our chances to win the third set-28-26. It was very disappointing to come up short since we played them five times last month in Chicago, and won four of those five times. It just wasn't meant to be. We had a team meeting and let the players go for some down time. The weather was beautiful today so it was fun for them to just hang out for a while. Tonight our team leader ordered pizza, which was a great addition to the day. Everyone has been tired of eating the chicken, spaghetti and French fries, so Pizza Hut was great for them. I on the other hand, haven't eaten today.
Thought for the day: Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. I need to make the choice to respond positively when things don't go well.
Day 8 (Tuesday)
We won the Bronze. It's not the medal that we wanted but it is indeed a medal. We played Ukraine for the Medal and won very easily in three sets: 25-18, 25-15, 14. We stayed for the Gold Medal match between Slovenia and the Netherlands and the Dutch won in three, with the second set being a close one (27-25). After that match we watched the men's Gold Medal match between Iran and Egypt. Iran is incredible. They won in three and looked awesome doing it. When the final point went down, they immediately kiss the floor and bow down. It's interesting to watch.
After the matches were finished, we lined up to receive our individual bronze medals. It's such a great feeling to see your country's flag raised up on the hoist and to go through the line and have a medal put around your neck by the committee. We won a medal! Another positive note was that our youngest player (14 yrs. old!) was voted best blocker of the tournament, quite an impressive feat. After all the medals were passed out, we hung around the gym to get pictures with each other and other countries. I have a good picture of me with a men's player from Iraq. He was very friendly and wanted a picture with me as well. Again, sport transcends all political views. We left the gym for dinner and then it was time to pack as the bus for the airport was coming at midnight with a departure time of 12:45 a.m. and a flight time of 5:30 a.m. Leaving was sad for me. It was a great experience and I found myself wishing that I had another day with the people there. I would have liked some time with nothing else on my mind to learn more about them and maybe go outside the compound and see more than we did on our trip to the Pyramids. I cried a lot when I said good-bye to Noonah. We thought that she was allowed to go to the airport with us and she came up to me with tears in her eyes telling me she was not allowed to go. It broke my heart to see her tears. She was such a nice girl and she tried so hard to make our trip here a good one. We hugged good-bye and she and her friend hurried to their bus to leave for good.
We packed our bus and headed to the airport with both Mike and myself still not feeling 100%. We were both afraid that during our two hour drive to the airport we would need the bathroom, yet there was nothing in between our village and the airport. We made it and checked in at Lufthansa. Since Mike was in a wheelchair, an airport helper took him away and got him through before the rest of us. Once my bag was checked, I walked toward passport control and an Egyptian man came out of an office, stopped me, and asked me what we were and I told him a team from the USA. He asked me to follow him (here's where I always feel like I'm in a movie) and takes me to his office and in his little English asks me to sit down and takes my passport. Now I'm in there by myself and Egyptian men in uniform are coming in and out (all smoking, of course) and talking in Arabic while I sit there and wait. He asks me a few more questions about the team, the trip, etc. and writes everything down. In a few minutes I'm told I can go and I'm led to the passport control desk where a "kid" in uniform is smoking and fooling around with his cell phone. He looks at me and continues to play around with his phone. He calls me to the booth, I hand him my passport and he doesn't even open it and waves me through. Very interesting. We boarded our plane and headed to Frankfurt. It was an easy four hour flight except Mike got sick and threw up on the flight right when we landed and I didn't sleep. Got to Frankfurt and boarded our 747 to the wonderful USA! I switched seats so Mike and I could sit together in case he got sick again. This time no problem. We landed players. We're home! All of them started talking about what their first meal was going to be when they got home. (For me I wanted something fresh...salad and fruit!) We went through customs and said our good-byes since we all had different flights to catch.
Thought for the day: We all love coming home! Cherish it!
