Under The Radar: A Redshirt Diary

A Moment of Panic

November 6, 2021

The last twenty-four hours have been nothing but stressful for JMU's volleyball team. Late yesterday afternoon, the General Assembly's Intercollegiate Athletics Review Commission approved Jeff Bourne's plan to move the school's football team into the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and therein their leaving the Colonial Athletic Association for the Sun Belt Conference. That evening, the Dukes took the court and laid out an underwhelming performance, being forced to extra points in both the second and third sets before seeing off Elon, 25-18, 27-25, 31-29. Prior to the team leaving its hotel for their 3 1/2 hour trip to Williamsburg, the official announcement of James Madison's joining the Sun Belt was made, which put the final nail in the coffin of the squad playing in the CAA Tournament and now forced them to rest their hopes on securing an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament.

The seating arrangements on the bus were more spread-out than on Thursday's trip, as some of the players wanted to lounge a bit after the 2 hour 10 minute battle against the Phoenix the previous evening. Not in the mood to be with the rest of the sisterhood, Savannah went to the back of the bus and took the seat next to the left-side window of the last row. She plugged her earbuds into her phone to listen to some music, hoping it would snap her out of her funk by the time they arrived at their destination. It didn't really do the job of taking her mind off everything happening around her recently and the swirling thoughts began to take over her headspace.

Savannah (internal monologue): Life. How can so many things be piling up right now?! Last night's battle being as close as it was. We have very little room for error and yet the underlings don't seem to understand the task ahead of us now that we won't get to play for the conference's auto-bid. Lauren gets it. *I* get it. Liv and Becca get it. Why can't they?!?! If that's not enough, I'm almost petrified to play tomorrow in front of what I assume will be a hostile crowd, one that would probably think nothing of assaulting my eardrums with put-downs and quips. Then there's my parents. We haven't talked since the run-off/stand-off on Sunday and I'm sure they will have tons of questions and Mom will heap on the guilt about how I'm not doing Petur any favors by stretching out my timeline, not knowing about our splitting up or about Becca and I.

As the thoughts circulated through her head, Savannah began hyperventilating and gently sobbing, curling up in a ball with her head resting between the back of her seat and the window. Several rows up, Liv heard the muffled crying and looked over the back of her seat to see who was in distress. Noticing that it was her roommate and JMU ride-or-die, she got up and quickly shuffled back to her.

Liv: Savvy, Savvy, it's me, Liv. Can you turn and face me?

Once she straightened herself out and had gotten her body into a normal sitting position, Savannah looked at Liv through the tears which had bubbled over from her eyes.

Liv: Breathe, honey. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In. Out. In. Out.

Savannah's respiration was slowly leveling off, even though she wasn't able to take as large of breaths as she would have liked and was feeling exhausted from her bursts of exhalation.

Liv: What's wrong, buddy?

Savannah: Life! The team doesn't seem to be taking this morning's announcement seriously nor do they look at all upset over how we did last night, a result which might have thrown away any chance we had at getting a seed, or perhaps making the tournament at all.

Liv: What else?

Savannah: Feeling like we made a horrible mistake in announcing our returns with matches still left on the schedule. It's like the younger players have given up on trying to finish out this season with the same fervor we had before that.