Episode #9 - Q & A #2

Our first ever episode where all three of us are in the same room!!!! Listen to our second "Question and Answer" episode where we answer the remainder of your pressing question.

2:08 If y’all could do something other than volleyball as a career what would you do? Oog it has to be something other than a rancher. 

3:48 Jesse, why did you decide to sign with de Sète?

5:44 What was the Elser boys least favorite subject in high school?

7:31 What are the biggest aspects of a GOOD setter?

9:38 What are your guys’ opinion on the challenge system?

13:06 Did you guys ever play any other organized sports growing up?

16:06 How did you guys get stronger and improve arm swing, jump etc? Was it gym or something else or just maturity?

19:42 What was your training schedule like comparing club to university to pro?

25:06 How do you guys deal with being “burnt out” or “tired of volleyball” especially when you’re loving it but part of yourself is getting bored of it or is unsatisfied with the lack of progress you’re making. How do you dig yourself out of those moments and get back on track and love the sport even more?

30:37 How were you put in touch with your agents?

33:39 What is your favourite memory from the Canuck Dino club
days, relating exclusively to off court memories?

37:06 What was the biggest thing you took from being coached
by Ben Josephson 

40:25 Do you guys have a volleyball bucket-list?

44:08 Jesse, how did you come back from your low back injury? Do you have residual effects (physical or mental)? 

49:59 For someone who wants to play USport what is the best way to go about achieving that goal?

Click here to begin your journey to more aces and pain free spiking: https://coach.everfit.io/package/UT100315

Transcript

Jesse 0:00

When certain things happen nowadays, those memories kind of get triggered. because it was such a hard time of my life

Mathias 0:08

Actually go and try it. And if it doesn't work, being super okay with just letting it go as a bad idea and moving on to the next one.

Oog 0:15

Yeah, guys, uh, I'm transferring.

0:19

hello and welcome to the Pit the Pro podcast. Jesse, Matthias, and Aaron Elson. This podcast is meant to guide young athletes on their journey to high performance. Join us as we share our first hand experiences in an effort to help you reach your own valuable goals.

Mathias 0:35

And we're live. Welcome back everyone to the Pit to Pro Podcast. This is episode number nine. today it's pretty special day. We're all together for the first time, recording in the same room. So, that's exciting. And today's going to be a question episode. Thank you guys for your questions. we'll just be working through those today. And Jesse, why don't you kick us off with the first one here?

Jesse 0:59

Well, this isn't actually on our list here, but I got a question that I know the listeners are going to want to know. Um, ooh, there was some big news on social media today. The green and white, the Huskies announced some big signings. You want to talk a little bit about that?

Oog 1:16

Yeah, guys, uh, I'm transferring. So, uh, yeah, I made the decision to, uh, go and follow my academic kind of goals and yeah, and then just kind of worked out that I was able to. Hop on with the Huskies. So, uh, yeah, I just really thankful for everything that happened at Trinity and thankful for that we were able to kind of win a national championship together and go after that and, but now, essentially. I'm just going into agribusiness, uh, which is just a study of farming, uh, and the business side of farming. So, yeah, I'm really excited, really happy that I can hop on with, uh, Sean McKay's crew and, uh, I'm excited to be a

Jesse 2:02

Husky. This is funny. This leads us into one of our questions. It said, If y'all could do something other than volleyball as a career, what would you do? Ooh, it has to be something other than a rancher. And that's from Devin sales Parnell. So thank you, Devin, for the question. Ooh, you got, you got an answer for that one?

Oog 2:25

Um, other than a rancher, I think my dream job. Would be I think like a backcountry like hunting guide. I think that would be pretty cool maybe not but I like it. I'll go with it

Mathias 2:49

for myself I've always been interested in Business, business ownership kind of stuff. So maybe start my own business. I have no idea what I would do, but, uh, just the idea of, uh, being part of a small team and building something from scratch is. Well,

Jesse 3:11

I got an education degree, but I don't think my dream, the question isn't my dream career, but I could pick anything. I don't think it would be teaching. I think it would be like, like, I wish I was just an incredible piano player. Like, like you could just tickle the ivories and wow, anybody in any room. I think that would be so cool.

Mathias 3:41

I guess Jesse, before we go any further, we should, uh, we should probably talk about your career move for next year as well. You're going to set, I believe there's a question on there about that. And uh, yeah. So why did you decide to sign there? What drew you to? The South of France and what are you looking forward to most?

Jesse 4:01

Yeah, I'm going to France. I'm going to set. Um, it was one of my goals. It's been one of my goals for the last three or four years. So that was super cool and that opportunity, uh, came knocking. Um, but yeah, why did I, that's the question, why did I sign? I was just, well, like I said, it was one of my goals. It seemed like the logical next step. Um, a little bit better of a league. Um, the contract was, was hard to turn down and it was on the beach with South of France. So I think I'm, I think I'm going to be living the life next year.

Mathias 4:38

What are you looking forward to the most?

Jesse 4:42

I think just playing, how many teams are in the league? It's 14. It's 14 teams in the league, so playing 28, or I guess 26, good, high, high quality games a year, excluding, like, preseason and playoffs, like, I'm just really looking forward to having to stay dialed and having to stay at the top of my game at every game, uh, for every weekend, I guess. Uh, I remember too, that's something you talked about. You were just saying like, it's just incredible level all the time.

Mathias 5:11

Yeah, absolutely. The French league is super even top to bottom on any given day. Any team can be any other team. Uh, oftentimes the teams that. Uh, still have win records against teams that finish at the top and, uh, the separation between teams is really small. So there's lots of movement in the, uh, leaderboard. One win can jump you, uh, multiple spots. So that's pretty cool about the French League. Um, you wanna move on to our next question here? This one is from Jacob Van Geel and he's wondering what the Elser boys least favorite subject in high school was? Start with Oog.

Oog 5:56

Yeah, uh, great question Jacob. Um, I would probably have to say English. English was not my strong suit, and I dreaded having to sit down and write essays back. That's what they used to call them in that time of our life. Essays about papers, yeah. Not a big fan. UTS?

Mathias 6:19

For me it would have been social studies. I Don't know why exactly, but I just was never excited to go to that class. I found it kind of boring. And again, same as Oog, with the essays, had to do a lot of writing in that class. But since moving to France for the last year, I really wish I had paid more attention in that class because there was some really important, uh, historic times that you could. That were super relevant around France, and there were some cool buildings that, uh, had I paid attention back in the day, I might have known what they were, and knowing some of the history would

Jesse 6:57

have been cool. That's funny. I think I've mentioned this on the pod before. I hated chem. I failed chem. Chem 20. Failed chem 20. Go to Mercy Pass. I finished with a 49. Mr, uh It's a guy that kind of looks like the Who, with the short, crazy, spiky hair. He sat on his desk, cross legged. Anyway, Laughter Anyways, Mr. Whatever, thanks for passing me on Chem 20. Um, T. S., what are the biggest aspects of a good setter?

Mathias 7:35

Good is capitalized. This is a good question. I think that the the Number one quality that all the best setters have at any level is simply location. I'm going to define location as where the ball ends up and also how fast it gets there. So I think just giving your spikers balls that they can attack every single time is, is what separates setters from each other at all levels. Um, because even if you make a good decision and your spiker's one on one, if the ball is not spikable, then it takes away from, from the decision making factor. And then on the flip side, if you set your best attacker a perfect ball every single time, no matter how many blockers they have, their odds are going to be, Pretty high in

Jesse 8:36

scoring. I would also say too, like I'm not a setter obviously, but my two thoughts for this question would be, what else can you add to the team other than setting? Like if you have a really good server, you're an incredible defender or blocker or something like that. And then the second part would be. Like, I think most, all great setters are really great leaders because they control the offense, they control the tempo, they control the, the emotion of the team, much like a quarterback in football. They almost, every quarterback in football has one of the C captain badges on, like football teams have like eight captains or whatever, but the quarterbacks are almost always one of them.

Mathias 9:12

Sure. This is a pretty, pretty complicated question. I would say that there's many, many factors to being a good setter. And I think it'd be awesome if we could get, A really high level setter on here within the next couple of episodes to speak about all these things that we're talking about. So stay tuned for that. And hopefully for now, uh, that answers your question a little bit. So we're going to move on here to the next question. What are your guys opinion, opinions on the challenge system? I

Oog 9:46

think it's fantastic. Have you ever played with it? Never, but just from a pure viewers point of view, it honestly makes the game Much more like enjoyable because it's like a timeout for the viewers, but it's like a high suspense timeout. So I don't know, I like it, but I've never played with it.

Mathias 10:07

Yeah. I think it's awesome because yeah, it takes the variability out of the game and the human decision making aspect from the ref and the linesman's point of view. And I think that Yeah, if the call is right every single time, I think that's what we're striving for with the challenge system. And I think that just makes games super clean and allows the better players to win points more often. Because sometimes you can hit a great shot off the top of the hands and if, uh, the linesman or the referee doesn't see it, then you lose the point even though it was maybe a good spiker or a good, uh, good decision.

Jesse 10:44

I agree. I think the, the, the system, like the challenge system in general is really good for the sport of volleyball. I will add. However, that Challenging, like being the one that wants to call a challenge, is great. Almost its own skill in itself and something that has to be practiced. I remember like when Ben was the head coach of the national team, he had never used the challenge system before and that was something he had to work through and deal with and learn how to and when to and when not to and it's pretty interesting. It adds a whole nother like level to the game

Mathias 11:15

here. There's also, I've seen some interesting tactics where a player goes up to block and someone spikes the ball over top of them. And they start shaking their hand as if, uh, as if they got hit with the ball and it hurt them. And that forces the other team to use one of their challenges, even though they know, the player knows they didn't touch it. So that's a crazy tactic that I've seen to let the other team burn a challenge.

Jesse 11:43

That's super interesting. Something happened this year. Uh, the ref came up to us. Before the game. And he said, if you guys touch the ball and the other team calls the challenge and you don't raise your hand first time's a warning. Second time's a card. Yeah. Crazy.

Mathias 12:00

That's kind of ridiculous. I think that's a little bit over the top, but I will say. That's another kind of gray area with the challenges is when is it obvious enough to just tell the ref that you did touch it? One time I remember we were playing in Japan in VNL and, uh, one of the spikers from the other team, I forget who we were playing, spiked the ball off of Eric Lepke. And. Uh, they thought it was a touch and Eric said, yep, touch. And then they went, they went through with the challenge anyways, and they didn't see it on the video. So now the video said that it was our point, but Eric said he touched it. So everyone was just really confused. That was one of the wildest things I've ever seen in the challenge system.

Jesse 12:43

Dude, our challenge system in Germany was not like the Hawkeye. Like, the Hawkeye is a very expensive system. We had that for Champions League and CV Cup. But the, the one we use in the Bundesliga is like iPhone cameras, man. Like, it's terrible! So we're like, never call your own touch. Like, even hit four fingers, sometimes they wouldn't see it. Anyways, yeah. another question for the group. Did you guys ever play other organized sports growing up or were you all straight let volleyball? I think that's supposed to say two volleyball. Um, Oog played like a million sports. We'll let him get to that. Myself, I did soccer for quite a while. And the older I got, and the taller I got, the further back in field I got. Started as a striker, then I got a little taller, went to midfield, a little taller defender, and I ended in net. Because I couldn't run. But I played most, if not all, high school and junior high sports, other than football, I think, basketball, badminton, track and field. I went to try out for the diving team one time, but missed the tryout. what about you, T?

Mathias 13:54

For me, I was similar. I started off in soccer, and then found volleyball, I think I was 12 years old when I started. Uh, but around that time as well, I started getting really into golf. I started golfing. Almost every day between the age of 12 and maybe 14. and then kind of dropped everything at that point for volleyball. I did play some school sports like badminton and basketball until grade 10, but nothing after that.

Oog 14:25

Yeah, I played a lot of different sports and a lot of weird sports too. Um, I was thinking about this earlier today. I probably started the same as you guys, soccer. Um, and then I hated soccer. So then I think I went and played club basketball in the spring. And then around the same time I started volleyball. But I also wanted to keep doing something else. So I played rugby for four years. Uh, I played flag football for a bit. I fenced for a bit, which was one of the weirdest, weirdest sports I've ever think I've ever done. Um, I played all the high school sports. I still think I hold the, the Woodman secondary school shop put record. I wrestled. Uh, yeah, I did. I did a lot more than you guys, but then somehow I found volleyball, which was.

Jesse 15:28

think I kind of forgot to mention the volleyball part of it. I started playing volleyball in grade, between grade 6 and grade 7. And I would go to like, Our neighbor coached a team and he invited me out. It was like a 16 or whatever, but I was shagging balls and playing when I could. But that's when I first got into volleyball and then volleyball quickly took over, but I still played all the school sports. But then we also like, we had a ping pong table. We always skied in the winters, did a bunch of water sports in the summers. We played like go out. So we had a rink in front of our house. We'd play some hockey out front, did a lot of stuff.

Mathias 16:04

Awesome. Okay. Next question here. This one is about the arm swing. How did you guys get stronger and improve your arm swing, jump, et cetera. Was it in the gym or something else or just maturity?

Oog 16:22

What do you think? Yeah. Um, So I have kind of two parts to this. One, I think when you start out in first year university or first year college, your growth in terms of arm, like speed of the ball coming off your arm and your jump is going to be larger in your first year. Because you are getting that like scheduled lift in and you're, I think you're around people that are going to push you harder than you would push yourself in club because I don't really know how it is nowadays, but back when we used to play club, it was like one lift a week for like 30 minutes. like for me, I think I put 10 kilometers on my serve in my first year, went from 98 to 108 and then. I found that the more, the more you do it, like the more you work out and the more you utilize people around you kind of, it just becomes more consistent. I actually found that and shout out to our last episode, but Nick Delbianco is the wizard at, at arm swing and jump stuff. And he helped me put another. Five kilometers on my serve this year and like consistently. So I would say maturity, but also just your environment. I don't know. What do you guys have to say to us?

Mathias 17:50

I would agree. I think when, as we grow up from youth players into university and probably all the way through university, I think our bodies are just changing as we're, as we're maturing. And a lot of times that can lead to more, more jump height, arm, arm speed, ball speed, those sorts of things. But. Yeah, having the consistent routine in the gym is extremely important. I think, especially at university, that's kind of the prime time to really invest in, in getting stronger and bigger and jumping higher and We're definitely not experts on this, um, in terms of prescribing exercises and what to do and that sort of thing, but definitely finding someone who, who does know what they're talking about, um, and really committing. To doing those exercises and whatever they're telling you, because it does take a really long time to put on muscle mass and to gain speed. Some things in terms of just technique changes could be quicker, but it's really about the consistency over a long, long period of time.

Jesse 18:54

I think that's a really good point. I think, I think it's like a biological fact that it's just really, really hard to put on muscle before a certain age or before you mature to a certain point

Mathias 19:06

yeah. I just wanted to add here that in terms of all these physical aspects, staying healthy is probably the number one across all of us. All stages of your volleyball career, because there is that compounding effect of the longer you can stay in the game, the more hours you can put in generally, the better your skills will get and the more physical you'll be. So I think, yeah, putting a priority on staying healthy is going to be amazing for, for a lot of aspects of your career.

Oog 19:38

This kind of leads perfectly into, uh, one of our next questions, which was, what was your training schedule like compared to club from club to university, to pro? So I don't know, Jess, do you guys want to kind of go through the stages of that? Sure.

Mathias 19:58

So in club volleyball, I don't have the greatest memory, but I think it was maybe three times a week practice. Yeah, about three times a week for two hours each, probably. And then maybe one weight session in there and tournaments every couple of weeks on the weekend. Um, and then, yeah, the jump from club volleyball to university is one of the biggest, Probably that you'll experience in your whole life in terms of the load that you put on your body and your mind as well because you're doing school at the same time. So I'm not sure what most programs run, but for us at Trinity, we were practicing every night and we had two and a half hour slots. Yeah, so Monday to, Monday to Thursday, we had two and a half hour slots every evening. And then we had. Reps in the morning, which you're required to be at twice a week. Some guys when you're younger, they would go three times a week, and that was for an hour and a half. And then we would lift in the weight room four times a week, likely, and then yeah, yeah, three, three heavy lifts a week, and then one game day lift on the Friday. And then on the weekends when we're playing, we're doing serve and pass both mornings, the Friday and the Saturday, and then playing the games on Friday and Saturday, and then usually get one day off on Sunday. Maybe if it's late in the season, you'll get that Monday off as well, but just really heavy. And at the same time, you're doing all of your schooling. So you're, you're going to class and then you're doing all the homework. So that jump from, from, I guess, U18 to university can be big. And I guess, you know, Knowing that's coming, preparing for that can be, can be really good. Jesse, what do you think?

Jesse 21:52

Yeah, dude, uh, I was just gonna add that I think that relates to our last question and why those movement patterns are so important when you're younger, because when you do have to sustain the load of a university program, it's very easy to get injured and to break if you're not prepared for what's to come. Um, but yeah.

Mathias 22:12

Jesse want to speak a little bit about your professional schedule now compared to the university one.

Jesse 22:18

Yeah, I'll speak about my personal professional schedule I don't know. I mean, I've only played one year overseas, so I don't know what what it's like everywhere I guess TZ can talk about yours after but mine was Very busy because we were in European championships as well as the German League. So every basically, we would play. Like German or German league games on the weekends and European games on Wednesday. So we were obviously always traveling. Sometimes we would have like a 10 hour bus ride after a Saturday game. We'd get back at like four or five in the morning on Sunday and then lift at 6 PM that Sunday. And then, but like the lifting schedule was our most sporadic thing because sometimes we just didn't have access to a gym. We're always traveling, but we practiced almost every day. Usually we would get Sundays off. Depending on where we played and how long the travel was, but not always, but I don't know if that's what it's like across Europe. I know you weren't in European Championships too, so maybe yours was a little more mellow. But honestly, our hard part was the traveling. It wasn't the volleyball. Like it was the trying to find ways to recover and rest on the road and in different beds and in different countries and like stuff like that.

Mathias 23:40

Yeah, I would say the same thing. We actually trained less, um, playing pro than we did at university. Uh, we'd still practice every night for two hours and still do weights. I think we did it twice a week. Uh, but yeah, the challenge is definitely the travel. The wear on your body is similar, if not more than university. Um, and mostly that's due to the kind of weird game schedule. We would play on Saturdays and sometimes Tuesdays or Wednesdays. So yeah, it's, uh, it's a lot when you have to take a, yeah, like you said, a 12 hour bus ride between games that you have two days apart.

Jesse 24:19

Yeah, like there was one week where we played in, in Munich, and then we flew to Turkey, and then we flew to, back to Munich and trained to Freiburg, and then trained to Lundberg for another game. Like we had four games and we weren't home for the two weeks, like it was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. But again, if you're prepared, it's really fun, and yeah, I mean, we're not trying to scare you, we're just trying to give you the facts. But lots of people do it and, and it's, it's a really, really cool lifestyle. You get to see a lot of cool things and meet a lot of cool people. And there's a lot of times on the buses and the airports and stuff to play games and get to know your teammates and try new food and stuff.

Mathias 24:59

Maybe this is a good segue into the question about burnout here, as we're talking about these heavy schedules. This question says, My question for the three of you is how you guys deal with being burnt out or tired of volleyball, especially when you're loving it, but part of yourself is getting bored of it, or is unsatisfied with the lack of progress you're making. How do you dig out, and of those moments and get back on track and love the sport even more. Jesse, do you have any thoughts on this?

Jesse 25:29

I think first of all, I want to say that that's not uncommon. Especially with how much volleyball and sport kids are playing these days. I remember, Well, I'll share a story. When I was in U18, I went from my club season directly to Team Alberta Beach, directly to the FTC. Directly to junior team and then directly to team Alberta indoor. So there was like a year and a half there where I didn't, I think I probably had like two days off max in a row. Like I probably had Sundays off, but that was like 450 days of straight volleyball. And I remember we were at the Seville center in Edmonton and we were practicing and I just like. Did not want to be there. I hated being there. I hated volleyball. And, and it came out of nowhere, kind of, it wasn't like it crept up on me. And I remember looking, or like after the, after the practice play, my coach decided, and I was like, Hey guys, I, something's wrong. Like, I'm, I don't want to be here. I'm, and they were like, that makes total sense. Like you've been playing for the last year and a half straight as a 17 year old kid. And I basically, the team went to Florida, T's was on the team at times a little barrel. And he went to Florida, and I went back to Calgary, and I went to Stampede, and I did a bunch of things that 16 and 17 year old kids should be doing, and I hung out with a bunch of friends, I went to the mountains, I did a bunch of stuff, and I just like reconnected with, with my age, basically, because I felt way, I felt way too professional, and it was way too consuming how my whole life was about volleyball, and I just wasn't ready for that at the time The cool part like with this question is it says when you're not loving it, or are you getting bored? But if you fall out of love with the sport, I think that's different than getting burnt out because I still love the sport I was just Not ready to, to keep going at the time. I don't know if that really answers the question, but that's a personal experience I've had with burnout. And it's happened a couple of times in my career, but that was the biggest one.

Oog 28:03

I think that's kind of like, you touched it right on the nail or the head of the nail there just, but when you're even like mini burnouts, like I know the worst times for me are right before Christmas. And then right before nationals, Cause it's like, you can see the end and you're, you're just excited for what's coming, but it's also like, okay, three weeks till playoff starts. Like that's the thick of it. And I think those are the moments where you have to do something that you enjoy or do something that is completely unrelated to volleyball. And like for me, like going to hang out with someone who doesn't play volleyball, doesn't really want to ask about how like practices are going or what's going on with the team and just kind of diving completely off the other end of the Diving board really kind of helped me separate the two and that kind of mitigated my burnout more than anything. But TS, what do you think?

Mathias 29:09

I think both of what you guys said is important and both of them are kind of just finding space from the game. Creating space away from the game. Sometimes that's difficult to do when you are in the middle of a season. And I really liked what Nick said in our most recent episode about burnout. And now he, I think if I remember correctly, he was saying just doing some exploring, some, some soul searching about what the true cause is of the, the burnout, if it's something off court, or if it's your body that's breaking down or, I don't, I'm not sure. But finding the true cause of what, what you're really feeling and then starting to work on that. Um, if there's, if it's your off court relationships that need some tending to, making sure you spend the time with your family and with your friends or your girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. Or if it, uh, if it is your body that's breaking down and that's making it not fun to be in the gym anymore than investing a little bit of extra time in, in your recovery and your strength program. So. Hopefully something in there was good. Jesse, do you have any more thoughts on that?

Jesse 30:25

No, no, I think that was really awesome. Um, I guess this is a question for me. And yes, sorry, Luke. This is how are you, how are you put in touch with your agents? Um, mine was simply through, my friends. Pierce Oshenko was talking about how much he liked his agent. how great of a guy he was and how hard he worked for him. And I said, Hey, is that, is that like, is he taking on new clients basically? Like, can I, can I get to know him? Can I meet him? And, um, he said, yeah, I'll give you his number. And then I reached out and we, we set up a FaceTime and we both really liked the conversation and decided to work together, but I think social media is a really good thing for the agent connection is a lot of agents, especially now in Canada, the way the volleyball is traject, trajectifying. Trajectory izing? The trajectory of volleyball. The trajectory of volleyball? The way the trajectory of volleyball is going right now in Canada, agents are reaching out to, to players in university and asking about their, their career aspirations and stuff like that. Um, but I think you just got to be careful. Because there are a lot of agents out there that will say a lot of things or say they have a lot of connections that don't, that are basically lying, but then there are also a lot of agents out there who are really, really great people and want to work with you and beside you and for you. So I think just asking those that you know, and you can always reach out to me and Tias, but if, if you don't know us, or you have someone else in mind that that has played overseas, ask them. Um, yeah, I think just use your community to find your agents. What do you see of anything different to add?

Mathias 32:20

No, I think that's a really good, uh, really good outline of, of what people should be looking for. And I would say, yeah, just really doing your research, asking around, making sure that you know you're making a good decision before you sign with someone. Um, and also this is tough to discern, but trying to find someone who you know has your best interests in mind, if you can find an agent that has a plan for you and your development, I think that's awesome thing to look for.

Jesse 32:47

I think that's super awesome and especially because well, no, sorry not because also to add I think you need to have very clear priorities for yourself. Being like, is it important for me to live in a nice place? Or is it important for me to earn a lot of money? Or is it important that the money is guaranteed to come? Or is playing time the most important? And then being honest with the age and be like, Hey, this is what's important to me and seeing if your values line up, because it's a, it's a relationship and you're in a relationship, a business relationship, but you both have to have the same commonality, I think, in that sense.

Mathias 33:25

Do you want to read us the next question here?

Oog 33:29

Yeah. Um, so I guess this one's kind of, I would assume it's for Jesse, but we all kind of played, but, uh, it's, uh, this one's from Parker Shroshka says, what is your favorite memory from the Canuck Dino club days relating exclusively to off court memories? Um, so Jess, you want to tee us off? And

Jesse 33:51

one of my favorite ones, which I won't elaborate on very much, but was when Ryan Zachary found the potato. Parker, I hope you liked that one. That was at your house. Um, but then there was one time we were at, I think they called it junior Olympics back then, JOs in the States. It was like the high performance USA volleyball things. And we were in like Iowa or Ohio or Idaho or something. I don't know. I don't know where we were, but we were in between games and there was this big grass area out front of this convention center. And our coach had given us little snack bags and there were grapes in there. And we were just slumming these grapes as high as we could and Parker was catching them in his mouth. Like, running around with his mouth open. So that was pretty fun. But we had a really good time. Good group of guys on that team. We did a lot of like same trip down the States. We played wall ball in a squash court every morning for like four hours. And we just like, yeah, we all went skiing one time. We often meet up now, like that was 10 years ago now or something. And we still meet up every time I'm back in Calgary, shoot the guys to text and stuff. Um, but yeah, those off court memories are definitely something that was the best part of club volleyball. Like that's what I missed the most. For sure. What about you? Yeah, because like you said, we all played kuck, so ti you got any good funny memories?

Mathias 35:23

I don't have, well, yeah, I do have amazing off-court memories, but as it relates specifically to that team that Jesse and Parker were on, I uh, have an on court memory where it would've been pretty early on. You guys might've been you 15, were you on the team at that point? 16. 16, yeah. You 16 maybe. So I was, I was pretty young. I'd have been 12 years old and I got the opportunity to come join you guys in a practice just for a little bit at the end. And I just, I don't think I really understood the rules of volleyball. Great. At that point. And Maddox spiked one off the block and it was going out the side on our side. And I ran as fast as I could. And I laid out for this ball and tried to save it. And I didn't, I didn't. Get it up, but Maddox just looked at me with the dirtiest look I've ever seen in my life, because I could have just let it, let it go out and he would have scored. Yeah. What about you?

Oog 36:27

Yeah. Um, from, from this specific Canuck Dino team, I only have one off court memory, but it was Not from playing. It was from, uh, just being the younger brother around the tournaments. I remember one time we meandered to the, to the Walmart and bought ourselves Nerf guns and there was some sort of convention at the, at the hotel. And we went around shooting people in costumes.

Mathias 36:58

no,

Oog 36:58

that was fun.

Mathias 37:01

Okay, awesome. Here we go. Next question. What was the biggest thing you took from being coached by Ben Josephson? Jesse, what do you think?

Jesse 37:15

That's a hard question for me to answer because I took so many things. That I still reference or use today. One, I'm going to answer this question is what have, what has been greatest strength, I think, in my opinion, Ben's greatest strength is his ability to explain the same thing, four different ways to four different people so that they can understand. And I thought, I just thought that was so incredible, especially in my first couple of years when there was so much new material coming into my head every single day. And I would hear him say something to let's say Eric or Ben Lewin, And I'm like, that doesn't really make sense. And then he says it differently to me because of how my brain works and how he knows me and my relationship with him. And I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. And I just think as a coach, that's such incredible gift to have. And, and a really important thing to have if you want everyone to be on the same page, because everyone has to understand the best they can, what do you think? You were only with him for what? One year? Yeah. What do you, do you have any thing to add? Yeah.

Oog 38:26

I think. That some of the plays into that is the Ben's ability to relate and his want to get to know his players. I found that Ben was really invested in figuring out who you were before, before you were a volleyball player. The effort that he makes in order to get to know his younger players better is something that separates him. He puts in a conscious effort, which is something that's very admirable, so.

Jesse 39:04

T, do you have anything, like, specific volleyball things that you took from Ben? Yeah,

Mathias 39:10

pretty much everything I know about volleyball has come from Ben Jones. I think, yeah, when I, when I kind of look back at, If I took inventory of everything that I know about volleyball, the majority of it would be, would be Ben's ideas because it was a pretty pivotal moment in my career going to university and I grew a lot at that time. Not that other coaches haven't had an influence on me, but for sure Ben, Ben's. One of the things just in general that I really appreciate about Ben was his willingness to experiment and his willingness to change and to try things. I think that's awesome for kind of all areas of life. Being able to see an opportunity in something and then actually go and try it. and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, being super okay with just letting it go as a bad idea and moving on to the next one. We were always experimenting with, especially our offense, there was always a new idea every week that we wanted to try to implement. Um, and I think that's, that's just a really cool character trait and, uh, something that I'll definitely try to carry on in my life. We'll move on to the next question here. And it is, do you guys have a volleyball bucket list?

Jesse 40:31

Yeah, I do. I actually have one in my iPhone notes and I'll pull it up. No, I won't pull it up. It'll take me a while to find it. The first one that I've checked off was the onto set to the middle. And I did that. I checked that off. I wanted to do a kick save. Here's almost blew the free ball up the side though, but it went in and then I have a couple, but the one I really want to do is like the one where you like someone shanks the ball and you like run up the wall kinda and like jump off and save the ball. I really, really want to do that. I also want to get a standing float quick serve ace. Don't really have the balls to do that in a game. I've done it in practice. I started doing it in practice a little bit this year. Like, uh, cause if you miss, it's just, yeah, it's bad. What do you, anyways, that's mine. Uh, you guys got a bucket list tea?

Mathias 41:30

Yeah, for me, I don't really, that's kind of cool that you have individual actions on your bucket list. For me, it was more just. Places I want to play, or teams I want to be on, or yeah, things I want to win. And definitely the number one overarching goal of mine since I was little was to get to the Olympics. And so that's number one on the bucket list for sure. I would love to play in the Champions League, win the Champions League. I think that's an accolade that very few people get to put on their resume. That would be amazing. And then. Also kind of a side quest one would be to take a contract in Japan. I think that that would just be a super cool place to play and Yeah, that one's not necessarily a goal of mine, not a trajectory that I'm headed on, but if there was ever an opportunity to play in Japan, I think that that would be, that would be really awesome. Oog, what about you?

Oog 42:26

Yeah, I kind of have three. And I think I've checked off one of them, which was win a national championship with you guys. Like that was probably the biggest actually checked off too, but yeah, that was probably the biggest one. Um, the second was to get an Elser which we did against Sask. So fitting. Um, and my last one is, yeah, maybe go play pro for a year somewhere. I think so. I don't know. That could change in a while, but yeah, I don't know. That's a goal. Maybe.

Mathias 43:03

You heard it here first. Oog doesn't want to be a barndominium owner anymore.

Oog 43:09

That's awesome though. Okay. It's just a goal that might be there, might not, but it's something that I think could be explored if, if the opportunity is there. And it's, it fits for my life. I think it'd be cool, but I'm not also not going to turn down a good job offer of 2, 000 contract. So,

Mathias 43:32

okay. Awesome. I will say though, with the bucket list, I think bucket list and, and goals are, it can be somewhat synonymous in some situations. And I think that, uh, yeah, really stretching the imagination of what you think is possible in your careers is, uh, kind of a good place to start. And if you have this goal that you might think is unattainable, but you can break it down into steps and years and basically what you need to do to get there. And I think that's a, that's a cool way to live, just making progress towards your dreams, essentially. Move on to the next one here. This one's, uh, specifically for Jesse. It says, How did you come back from your low back injury? Do you have any residual effects, either physical or mental?

Jesse 44:17

That's a good question. I, um, How did I come back? It took a long time. I think we, me and my sport medicine team took a lot longer than probably it not should've. We stretched out because we knew that I wasn't gonna play that season. And we really wanted to make sure that I was healthy going forward for the rest of my career. So I was out for almost a year. Um, but I, like, if I really had to, or I really wanted to, I could have been back in probably just over half that time. Um, but I definitely have residual effects more mental than physical. I think I talked a little bit about them in the mental health episode. Um, but just like that was a, like before the surgery, before I had an answer and before I had a fix, it was a really hard time for me. Cause I was in a lot of pain. I was very isolated. I was losing weights. I couldn't play sports, but then gaining a lot of weight. Cause I wasn't like, uh, exercising and I was lonely. And yeah, so that, I still have residual effects from that because When certain things happen nowadays, those memories kind of get triggered. And that's when I kind of spiraled down dark paths again, because it was such a hard time of my life. Um, but in terms of physical residual effects, not really. I worked really hard and still do to maintain my pain free state. Um, but I, but it's not like it just, you had the surgery and it's all good from there. I, I did a lot of stuff and still do a lot of maintenance exercises to ensure that the pain doesn't come back.

Mathias 46:14

Jesse, you mentioned, I think it was in the mental health episode that it took you a little while to trust your body again. What, uh, what does that mean? And like, how does that feel?

Jesse 46:27

Yeah, it was weird because I was at the point where like I literally couldn't put my socks on by myself because it would cause so much pain and I think that pain was just like burned in my memory. So then, like, let's just say on defense, for example, if a ball goes to my, like when I was starting out again, starting to reprogress into volleyball, if a ball goes low down to my feet, I would almost like stop myself because I didn't trust that I could do that action without like collapsing in pain. Um, but then with like, especially with the help of Ben, like that was, I got a lot of good things to say about Ben, but he, he never lost trust in me and that helped me a lot with trusting myself and trusting my body. Um, but I will say there's another question on here that says, how do you deal with injuries mentally? And I, I'm going to answer that one now too, is for me, it's just like finding the little victories, especially in the rehab process. Like for me, like when I could put my socks on by myself. That sounds so stupid, but it was a huge accomplishment because I spent so long not being able to do that. And like celebrating that and celebrating the progress because it's so easy not to view that as progress or not see the progress when, when things are so poor. Yeah, Ties, I guess why don't you answer that right now too because you're also dealing with Um, a mental injury, not a mental injury, but a, a brainial injury. Alright, T?

Mathias 48:06

Yeah, well, I wouldn't be the first guy that I would come to for advice on how to deal with injuries. Because I had, I was really lucky throughout my entire career, I didn't really have any injuries. I can only remember one day in my entire career that I missed. Um, because of pain. It was, it was my back for one day in COVID, and that was it. Until I ran into all these concussion problems, and I think that's a bit of why I got into such a mess with this is that I didn't really have a good mental frame of how to deal with injuries. The idea of, of taking the time off from the game was unbearable to me, and it kind of got me into a difficult situation with just prolonging. Uh, my recoveries, um, because I, I wouldn't stop playing. So, yeah, I think had I gone back, just taking a really wide view of your career as a whole, and missing two weeks, missing a month, missing a couple months, missing big games, missing big tournaments, that kind of stuff, you really, I don't think, I really remember. I took three weeks off for my first concussion, and that feels like just the shortest amount of time in the world now. So, really, really taking a long term view of your health and your career, uh, when you are dealing with those things, and, uh, just prioritizing your longevity over anything that is going on in the present moment.

Jesse 49:39

Hell yeah, T. Well, and you learn a lot. Like, you can tell by the way you're speaking now. So, it sucks being injured, but It's a good time to learn a lot about yourself and about your values and stuff. Um, we've reached the last question. Oog, the only current uSport player on the couch in TS's childhood bedroom. For someone who wants to play uSport, what is the best way to go about achieving that goal? Yeah, perfect.

Oog 50:06

I think if you're, you're asking questions about you sports, or you're asking questions about how you can get to a, another level, you're on the right track and it all has to come down to however you go about achieving goals. So if esports is your ultimate goal, there's gonna be a lot of big steps you have to take, like sending emails, and going on recruiting trips, and that, but there's also small things that you can do, like listening to stuff like this, or talking to current esports players, shoot me a DM, anyone, On any team will more than happily talk to you. Um, and then just trying to find information about what kind of what team, what program, but if you want it enough, I believe that you have it in you to go and get it. T. S. Do you have anything to add?

Mathias 51:10

I think that we covered a lot of kind of the practical steps that you can take in our episode on recruiting and the recruiting process. So I would definitely go check that out. Um, and then. I kind of mentioned this earlier in this podcast, but the way that I like to achieve goals is really create a clear picture of what I want, uh, what does that look like, and then kind of looking at the gap between where I am now and what I'm going to need to be able to achieve that goal, and then breaking that down into, let's say you have Three years left before you use sports career starts. You can break that down into what you're going to need for each year. And then you can break that down into what you're going to need for each month. And then eventually it comes down to just the decisions that you make daily. So when you're in practice, are you focused on every single rep or are you throwing some of them away? When it comes down to sleeping, are you making the decisions that you're going to get you the best sleep every night? Same thing with diet, same thing with taking care of your body. And it's. It's a really, really slow process getting from, from one place to another. Um, but that's the joy. That's, I think that's the fun for me in sports is, is making progress towards those big goals and seeing those improvements that you can make on, on a daily basis. So yeah, I wouldn't get discouraged and yeah, stay the course.

Jesse 52:43

I think too, TSC said this last episode, no, two episodes ago is just like asking yourself, what can I do about it? And instead of just hoping that it works out, like if that's your goal, What can you do about it? And like Tia said, it takes a really long time. It's a slow process, but if you are in control of those decisions and those daily activities, then, then the goal will not seem that scary. I don't think. Um, but yeah, this has been the ninth episode of the Pit to Pro podcast. Our first episode all together. well, we had a lot of fun doing it together here in Calgary. And we hope that we answered all your questions. If not, feel free to send them back in greater detail. or if you have more questions, ask away, uh, in the link in our bio on Instagram. Thanks for listening. Signing off.

53:40

Thanks everyone for listening to the Pit to Pro podcast. Give us a follow on Instagram and submit your questions to the link in our bio. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you think will like it and subscribe to our show on Spotify and Apple podcasts.