A Grand Experience Shared
Volleyball team tightens bonds on European trip
As Tom Hilbert helps fundraise for his program, he does so with a very specific target he can take advantage of every four years, and that’s an out-of-season trip to overseas.
While his main goal as the coach of the Colorado State volleyball team is to bring home conference championships – which the Rams do with great regularity – he has always been very in tune with providing the best college experience for his players. No other way he’s found can accomplish the goal while also serving as the ultimate team builder.
“Every team has benefitted from these trips. It’s something Im happy to give to them, to be honest,” he said after his team spent 12 days traveling and playing in Turkey, Slovenia and Italy at the end of May. “It’s a duality, between the bonding and the volleyball. Because the other part is so important. This is an experience I want them to get a full dish of everything they’re doing here, meet players from different teams and see a different culture, eat food they’re not familiar with.”
The Rams played seven matches during the trip, which Hilbert actually felt was actually one too many. Before a couple of the matches, the team has spent the entire day exploring a town and what it had to offer, putting in 15,000 steps before they ever stepped foot on the court.
It puts them out of the comfort zone, but in a fun setting, aside from his pranks and dad jokes.
He was proud of them. Especially the time while waiting for a bus he was eating some chicken bites. Instead, he told the players it was turtle, which disgusted them. In Turkey, he had just sat down, and the guide told them it was time to leave, so when he stood up, Ruby Kayser joked he’d just done a burpee. Which made him quip, a Turkey Burpee.
“He was on a roll. He told us in Slovenia there were jumping ticks and if we played in the grass you’d get a tick,” Naeemah Weathers said. “There were so many, I lost count. He was always trying to play tricks on us.”
He’s made many of these trips throughout the years with different teams, with a variety of itineraries and multiple countries visited. It’s afforded all the players in his program a chance to see a part of the world they might have never seen.
Those are the things I won’t forget. I’m sure I won’t remember the volleyball in 20 years, but I’ll remember all the memories with all of them.Ruby Kayser
Especially this one. A trip to Italy might be on most people’s bucket list, but both Kayser and Weathers said they’d never really considered the other two countries. Yet, after returning home, they’re both glad they experienced what they did, saw and learned.
Most of all, who was with them.
“All of the memories with my teammates. It sounds corny, but that trip is really cool because we get to do all these amazing things – go play volleyball and go see places you might not ever see again – but it was fun because it was with your 13 best friends and you get to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience with them,” Kayser said. “Those are the things I won’t forget. I’m sure I won’t remember the volleyball in 20 years, but I’ll remember all the memories with all of them.”
Her favorite stop, one she felt most of her teammates would agree with, was Lake Bled in Slovenia. It was a cooler day, but a beautiful, clear lake, and they all decided they had to jump in to the chilly waters. It was worth it, as the scenery was beautiful, which they experienced more of as they took a boat ride to an island in the middle and visited a picturesque church.
In Turkey, they toured the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, both of which were stunning, but it was the bazaar which Weathers liked the most.
“I think going into the bazaar was one of the biggest cultural things we could experience as a team, because there were so many different colors, different foods and people and languages,” she said. “We probably wouldn’t have gotten that experience anywhere else.”
But shopping there, that was a bit too far out of her box.
“I was scared to buy anything,” she said, laughing. “I was intimidated.”
Naturally, the food was a bit of a stretch at times, too. But the group was adventurous with what they were served, and at times, Hilbert felt it was better not to ask what it was they were eating. Some of the players felt the same way, but it was all so good.
At times, they were able to venture out on their own and when they did, they decided to expand their palates.
“When we were in Turkey, normally we had our meals ordered for us, but sometimes they’d give us a couple of lira or euro and let us go out on our own and eat. We’d normally go out in groups, and when we were in Italy, we got to eat on our own a lot,” Weathers said. “We’d look through the menu and try new things. They’d normally give you so much you’d share, pick off other people’s plates and try new food.
“Our first night in Turkey, we had a huge family-style meal of meats and breads. Some of the meat was on the bone, some of it off the bone. We didn’t know what it was, but we ate it.”
What Hilbert always hopes will grab the attention of his players is the history of the places they visit. It is something he always does.
While he felt this group did to some degree, this squad was the first he’s traveled with which took full advantage of something still rather new and big in their lives – social media.
“This was the first time I really saw the priority for them … Every time we landed in a new spot, if it was a city or a tourist attraction, it was social media. First thing that was important to then was let’s start taking pictures, taking selfies,” he said. “They’re documenting the trip to all their friends, and at first when it was happening, I was like come on. Then you realize that’s what their life is right now. I wanted them to get more into the history and really contemplate this city was built in the 12th century. No. It was, how’s this going to look on Instagram?”
But even he admitted, this being available nowadays, he too stepped up his selfie game. Those pictures, he realizes the players will have them forever and it will take them back.
But they also played some volleyball, and while it’s a passion for all of them, the Rams also had to adapt to the European rules they had in most of the matches. It made six-rotations players out of some who are not and took players off the service line the Rams count upon, and that too has a growth moment for the team.
“I think it was really neat, because there were a lot of players who had to play out of position and play back row and serve and stay in rotation who don’t normally do that stuff,” Weathers said. “As a middle who had to go back and serve and probably hasn’t served since she was probably 16, that was a big comfort area I had to step out of grow in. I’d stay back and play defense, and to have my teammates trust me enough to take care of my section was a big growing opportunity for me.”
What also was different was getting to meet and spend time with the opposing team and wanting two. Before one particular match in Turkey, they spent the entire day with the club team they played that night. They ate lunch together, went for ice cream as a group and chatted like anyone in their age group would about the topics one would expect. And naturally, they exchanged social media accounts and now follow each other.
They found those girls chose between going to school or playing volleyball and pursing dreams of playing for the national team, learning many of them would like to come to the States and have the opportunity to do both.
After the match, they gathered again, and many times, the players exchanged jerseys, a valued gift from the trip.
“I came back with three or four jerseys,” Kayser said. “Some of them are a little oversized for me, and probably a little undersized for them. I felt bad giving them my super sweaty jersey. There was no air conditioning in any arena we played. I was like, I’m so sorry.”
To some degree, some of the new people they met were those with whom they were traveling. On a roster of 15 girls, they all get to know each other to some degree, but as is the case in any other setting there are those on the team, they are closer.
They become roommates for much of their college careers, and while there are team functions, they all organize, the norm is to do things in smaller groups. During the trip, they constantly switched roommates, which gave them all something new to explore in greater depth.
“We all got to know each other a lot better, which seems like it would have been impossible to do since we spend every day together anyway,” Kayser said. “I think it brought us really close together, and people you may not have been close with on the team, a lot of people got close to different people. We switched roommates a lot, and I think it was great for Malaya Jones and Kate Yoshimoto, because they didn’t get to travel with us last year. Everyone got a lot of time with everyone.”
They have the pictures to prove it, too. Some of them perfectly framed with the historic sites Hilbert wanted them to see. He’s in some of them too. A lot of them are of the entire team all together, having fun, a vision he hopes will translate to the court this fall.