Episode #11 - Fathers Day Edition with Tom Elser

In this episode we are joined by our Dad, Tom Elser, for a special Fathers Day Edition of the Pit to Pro Podcast. Our Dad had a lengthy career consisting of many years with the National Team, a National Championship with the University of Calgary Dinos, a year of professional ball in Italy, and on various masters teams -- playing well into his 50’s. We discuss topics ranging from the parents role in the recruiting process, the best memories of his career, the role of volleyball in our family, and the evolution of the game of volleyball.

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Transcript

Dad 0:00

So Dr. Death would put us through a lot of bike work and weight work and almost to, you know, Total collapse

Jesse 0:09

You joined us and you played with us and you like taught us new ways to move our body

Oog 0:16

less regrets.

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

Welcome back everyone to the Pittsburgh podcast. This is episode number 11 today in honor of a very special day. Very special guy. It's Father's Day. We've got our very own father, player, mentor, coach, all of the above, Tom Elser, on the show. Welcome to the show.

Dad 0:57

Woo! Thanks for having me, boys. Really feel honored to be here. Thank you very much.

Mathias 1:04

Alrighty, Jesse, do you want to kick this thing off with our first question?

Jesse 1:09

Well, yeah, we don't really have a very clear direction for today. We just want to Talk to you and talk about your experience in the volleyball world and stuff like that. So why don't you just start off by telling us, um, about your volleyball career, where it started, where it ended and the in between.

Dad 1:24

Sure. So, uh, I remember the day that, uh, volleyball was introduced to me. I was, uh, in grade four at, uh, Chinook Park Elementary, And, uh, volleyball, in those days was played, at that level, was played in, uh, on Babington courts. So they had the, kind of, the screw into the floor. Standards and, uh, six little guys versus six little guys. It was, it was real volleyball, but only the grade fives and the great sixes could play. And Mr. Bavington, the vice principal, he's an Australian and he saw, you know, came into the class and I was probably as tall as he was in grade four. And, uh, he said, would you like to play volleyball? And I said, sure. He said, well, come to the gym after school. And then I said, well, what's volleyball? And so, uh, that's how I got my start. And, um, and then probably by, I don't know, grade eight, I knew that I wanted to play at the highest levels. I already had, um, aspirations of playing national team. And started playing club probably around that time, grade eight, um, played for, uh, the university of Calgary, uh, a few different chapters. So I, um, I played on the junior national team through high school. So I think, I can't remember if I made the team in grade 10 or grade 11, but played three years straight. And then we trained out of Scarborough and, uh, then I played for U of C. And then I left U of C, uh, went to play national team for three years and a pro a year and then came back to university. And so I've got lots of friends from different generations. I kind of like that about my checkered volleyball past. I have lots of people. Older than me, younger than me that I've played with the 84 Olympic guys, uh, Barrett and Hogue and Guiton. I'm good friends with them. So, um, yeah, so, and ended up playing master's volleyball for a long time after that.

Jesse 3:23

And so

Mathias 3:24

you had to leave. University to play national team. It's not like it is now where you could do both back and forth. Was it year round, the national team training?

Dad 3:33

Yeah, it was year round. And fortunately it was in Calgary. The men's national team program was here for 20 years or something like that. So, uh, it was able to live at home and train and, um, but yeah, it was a full time program.

Jesse 3:47

And then you had, um, for our Calgary listeners, the Volley Dome, you had a big role in the Volley Dome, uh, upbringing, right?

Dad 3:55

Yeah, I was one of the original preparators, so, um, Myself and, uh, Don and Milan Saxton and another player, Tony Wells, uh, Don and Tony and I played, um, Canuck Stuff, the original Canuck Stuff club team. Now Canuck Stuff is a massive club with lots of levels, but it started off as a men's program. And, uh, so I'd played with Don and Tony for a number of years and then it was Don's idea to, build the first or Western Canada's first indoor beach facility. That was our focus. So took over an old, um, tennis bubble and had to Cut off the steel standards and dig holes and put posts in. And so we had, um, three beach courts and two wood courts and, yeah, so there was, the, the sand was very challenging, given this weather and the cold that can conduct through the, the, the ground into the sand. But, uh, yeah, we kicked that off and I think 1994 and, um, Don and Milena are still running it. So that's a pretty big run.

Jesse 4:58

Yeah.

Dad 4:59

Yeah.

Jesse 5:00

That's huge. Yeah. Well, let's, I want to move into, I want to know your opinion on what the biggest difference in volleyball, in your opinion, when you watch volleyball now that you watch probably more volleyball than all three of us combined some weeks. What's, what's the biggest difference that you've noticed between now and then when you played?

Dad 5:19

Well, there's, there's lots of differences, right? Because I grew up, uh, playing side out volleyball. So these, and, and 15 point games, you know, uh, first to 15 or win by two. Um, so the game is completely different that way. Um, but in terms of the athlete and the offense, um, I think the, the, the service, pressure, uh, at any level is huge. Like, uh, I, I laugh when I watch a reel from the 84 Olympics and Tom Jones is putting this serve in and it's like, that's a free ball that I would give, you know, Aaron's U14 guys, that's how hard they were serving. Um, so, so I think the service game is just massive now compared, but, but all that, like the rally point took me a while to, to be able to accept it. I didn't accept it for a while because we weren't able to win at this new game. So

Jesse 6:13

that's funny. Yeah. That's really funny. And, uh, you,

Mathias 6:18

you used to be able to block serves, right? How many years of your career was that? In play? And also, what was the strategy for, like, who did you send to block the serve? Did you have, like, when you were serving, did you have a guy covering? Because they could block your serve, or what was that? Oh,

Jesse 6:36

interesting. Yeah, was there, would you, like, try and recycle a serve? Did you ever try and get blocked on purpose to get the ball back?

Dad 6:44

No, you avoided, and it was always the middle blocker in the front that would be the, the, the blocker. And it was actually a pretty easy skill, like if, if someone was willing to serve it, you know, two feet above the net, or whatever, within, You know, uh, 20 feet in the middle, it was blocked. Like, you know, people could move fast enough to get over there. So the service became very, uh, you know, un, un, unoffensive, right? It was avoid the blocker, like get it over high. So

Jesse 7:14

interesting, interesting. That is, that is weird.

Mathias 7:17

So almost every play was transitioned for you in the middle because you had to be at the, you didn't, you didn't ever start off in service. Eve, you'd always have to be up at the net rate of block and then transition in service. See you.

Dad 7:30

Yeah, yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, another, um, just, you know, talking about middles and their jobs, uh, back when I played, uh, side out ball before specialization in, in positions, middles passed as well. We were part of the, the, the, the four man pass receive. So, um, obviously not in that situation where the middle's up front, but, but the back middle would be in the passing line. Yeah,

Oog 7:59

I think we have a couple of pictures of you, of you passing and maybe we'll throw some on Instagram, but just to show people that, uh, middles can look good passing.

Jesse 8:08

You had a nice platform.

Oog 8:12

it is impressive

Jesse 8:13

Dad, when you watch, uh, when you watch us play. Do you ever see yourself, like, the way we move, or the way you moved, or perform a certain skill? Um,

Dad 8:26

I mean, well, you're all, all four of us have, you know, played the game at a very high level, and there's a certain common denominator of moves and coordination, but I've never said, oh, you hit like me, or Or you block like me. No, I think we all have our own little individual styles for sure.

Mathias 8:44

Also, would you have ever done a video analysis, like game planning by watching another team's video or rewatching a game that you played in? Because right now, I think like, I mean, we get to see ourselves play after every single game. We watch it back almost every single practice too. We watch it back, but I feel like that would be. More rare back in the day?

Dad 9:05

Uh, definitely. Uh, we never took video on ourselves. Um, I think film was pretty darn rare. Um, maybe once in a while you'd get some, but it wasn't a piece of equipment that we had to lug around the world. That's for sure. We, we, uh, lugged bikes around, but, uh, no cameras.

Mathias 9:23

Did you go for scouting? Was it like your coach would head to games and watch live take notes? Or did you go as a team and scout that kind of stuff?

Dad 9:32

No, usually we left that up to the coaches and we would get sort of a paper summary of the coach's analysis of the game. So yeah, eight and a half by 11 sheet of little notes and this guy hits this way when he's in this rotation, hits that way, but it was pretty basic.

Jesse 9:51

What about, uh, like strength training and physical training? What would you guys do back then? I remember you said you, you did a lot of stuff with the badminton coach or something like that for footwork or something along those lines.

Dad 10:02

So, uh, we trained out of the university and, uh, so the university has always had a strong, sports physiology program. So when the Olympics came through 88, they, they, you know, built out a beautiful lab and, uh, Dr. Dave Smith, uh, also known as Dr. Death, uh, trained a lot of athletes. So he, he trained, uh, um, Like speed skaters, like, uh, uh, Gaetan Boucher, I think it was his name. Like he was like the top Canadian skater back in the eighties. And, uh, he trained, a top, badminton, a national team, uh, badminton player. And, uh, so Dr. Death would put us through a lot of bike work and weight work and almost to, you know, Total collapse. Like we do wind gate tests on the bike where you sprint under heavy load for 30 and then off for 30 and on for, you might do that eight times and you just basically fall off the bike. And then in the weight room, uh, in the basement of U of C, uh, we used free weights, did a lot of squats and that sort of thing. We had Nautilus equipment. I don't know. You guys probably don't even know what Nautilus equipment is. Machines look like

Jesse 11:16

what,

Oog 11:18

what, what was your most impressive lift that you can remember?

Dad 11:23

Um, I think I think I did about a 450 pound squat, but these were like not full squats, right? They were basically load up and see if you can, you know, do a. A little bit of squat. So four 50 on my shoulders. Neat. Is that, I don't know. Is that,

Jesse 11:43

that is pretty heavy. Like that's for a quarter squat. Like you're like, you're just saying like a little bit, you go down.

Dad 11:49

Yeah. So you tried it like it was the, it was like the max squat and I can do it once or twice and that's it. So. Bench press was, you know, I'm a big, tall, lanky guy, I'm sure like you guys, like, bench press isn't an easy thing to do when you have long levers.

Jesse 12:07

Bench press and chin ups, those are the worst exercises ever for tall people.

Dad 12:11

Tall man curse.

Jesse 12:13

Yeah. Yeah. And

Oog 12:15

deadlift. Give me the risers. I love deadlift. It's just, you gotta move the weight a long way.

Mathias 12:22

I think along with the physical side of the sport, you were able to play until, what was it, 55, 56?

Dad 12:31

Yeah. I, um, I played, uh, I played while I was, you know, struggling with a hip degradation, um, and you know, that I could have done that for a long time, but then had a ski accident and kind of messed my wrist up. And so that was kind of the nail in the coffin. Um, but I probably could have. Played a lot longer if, if I didn't have a big wrist injury. So,

Mathias 12:53

well, that's pretty impressive playing, playing that long. My question was going to be, what was kind of the secret, like what was the evolution of when, for example, you just started playing, and then through university, through national team, and then after. Retiring from whatever high level competitive volleyball. What was the secret then to playing until your mid fifties?

Dad 13:18

For me, it was always about, um, um, good behaviors around stretching and recovery. So I was always the, the guy that would do the full stretch. Before and after, spent a lot of time maintenance, um, if I had something that was nagging me, I was the, the guy that would make sure that I was doing everything I could to get back on the court as quickly as possible. You guys have seen that, uh, in my adult life as I take my therapy pretty serious, but I think longevity, it was, um, um, yeah, the, the stretching and just taking good care of my body.

Jesse 13:54

Yeah, well one thing I'm curious about is we've done a lot of episodes on this podcast about like leadership and teammates and stuff What kind of teammate were you when you played and did that evolve as you got older?

Dad 14:09

Well, I'm a, I'm a natural leader. I like to, I like to take charge. Um, we were always, all my teammates were always good friends. Like, you know, whatever level, whatever team, um, it was just easy to play with, with players. And, I'm a serious about my, my fun, I guess, you know, it's a, um, I like winning and I like having fun at the same time. And sometimes those things, uh, can collide a little bit, but, uh, yeah, it was all about, um, good relationships on the court, having fun, playing with my friends.

Jesse 14:46

I love that. It's cool. What about, uh, okay, I actually, I have a question from Brighton such it's actually for us three, it says, in honor of Father's Day, what is the most meaningful thing, memory or characteristic that each of the Elsa sons think their dad provided for them to be successful athletes or humans?

Mathias 15:08

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is his willingness to invest in things that we were interested in. So I'm sure we wasted a ton of money just trying different sports, trying different activities, going different places. But anytime that we expressed interest in something, for example, started fencing and It's a weird, like, you don't know how long that trend is going to last, but dad was like really intentional about making sure that he had the right equipment, that he was there every week, like investing time and two in, in practicing in the basement or driving him there. So I think that, uh, yeah, anytime we got interested in something, we were encouraged to take it as far as we could go. And dad was always there to support us with.

Oog 15:55

I think another part of that is the dad really never said no, like if, if we expressed interest into something or if we were doing something, he would help us find the best way to do it. like, if, if we showed an interest in playing with balls in the kitchen, dad didn't say, you can't do that. You just, he just said, you can't do that here. Like, so he built us the pit and like, he was just very accommodating for our interests.

Dad 16:24

I was going to bring up that point. The pit was the impetus. No was the impetus for the pit. I didn't want to say no to you guys when you're experimenting, you're curious or whatever.

Jesse 16:36

Yeah, well that's what I was going to say. And, and it wasn't like go downstairs and do your thing. You joined us and you played with us and you like taught us new ways to move our body and like we had Every kind of ball ever imaginable. And some, and I remember like we'd play games, like the broken launcher, lawn chair, whatever, or dad would just like throw us up on the wall and the Swiss ball, and we'd try and stay on and stuff. Like we did all kinds of stuff like that. I remember that's something like, well, I was just gonna say like, not saying no and joining. Us in our activities, I think is something I really want to do with my kids when I have kids too. Yeah. And I remember even we were playing baseball one time and dad didn't have a baseball glove so we wore gardening gloves. And I had a baseball glove and dad had gardening gloves. That's funny.

Oog 17:22

Well, I, even, even like another example is we went and watched the PBR event that came through. Professional Bow Riding. And we built a makeshift chute out of those big, like, tiles that kind of clipped together, the foam tiles. And T. S. would be the gate man, and we were like, We'd strap a belt around dad's boobs and he would be in the shoot and we'd hop on him and he'd be commentating while he's bucking around and like smoke or something, right? Yeah. Black smoke was the bull of the time. But then, uh, that's awesome. So like, it's, it's like a, yeah, you never let us do something alone if we were interested in it. It was like, let's, let's do this together. We'll figure it out and we'll have fun.

Dad 18:12

But one of the things I, that, um, you know, impresses me the most about you guys, you, and maybe it was from me letting you do whatever, but you guys always created your own fun. And I love the way in the winter when it would snow and you guys would be out there as soon as you got home from school and it was hard to get you into even to eat dinner. And you'd be, you know, gathering all the snow off of the street and off of neighbor's lawns. And you'd bring it all onto our lawn. And then you'd create, you know, the, do you remember the, the best year that we created that terrain park with, you had names for these big, um, um, drops, you know, rodeo, rodeo has been in our life a long time. You guys learned how to, to. And that's, I think that's what binds us. We, we all like to play, right? When we go traveling, we play.

Jesse 19:03

Well, I think that's cool too. You said that about your, your teammate style is you just want to have fun with your friends and play and compete. I think that's cool. One thing I was going to add quickly about this question. The other thing I think I really gained from dad was his saying of finish healthy. That always says finish healthy, finish healthy, finish healthy. And I think. Yeah, I thought you did a great job exemplifying that it's not just like, Oh, finish healthy, but you're crushing Cokes and chocolate bars on the couch, you know, like you're finishing healthy. You're exemplifying that every day that I can remember from watching you when we were whatever, 12 to now, even now you're, you hurt your calf two days ago when you're icing and you got your recovery ice thing going, finishing healthy. So I think that's a big thing I got from you as well.

Oog 19:44

For sure.

Jesse 19:45

Yeah.

Oog 19:45

And I think another last note is just punctuality and kind of being a little OCD about things that really helped us, or helped me at least, like, if I wasn't that, like, obsessed about making sure that I had everything done before going on a weekend trip to, you know, wherever to play whoever, like, I think that's something that has helped me be able to play like, well, it's just having everything done and knowing when everything needs to be done. Yeah. Lists. Lists is what I'm getting at. I

Dad 20:18

think you take it to a different level, Aaron. You've, you've taken my organization or my OCD and. Uh, and I, I'm going to tell this story. I remember Aaron in grade four or whatever, coming home, it was like the middle of May and he's crying and what's wrong Aaron, I've got this assignment and uh, I said, oh, okay, well I'll help you out. I'm doing exactly what you guys like, jumping in. I'm going to help you. When's it due? June 25th. Month and a half. I was never that stressed out about, about, you know, executing my deliverables.

Mathias 20:58

I got a, I got a question that, uh, Like follows a similar line, and it's like, I'm sure the listeners know by now that we didn't have a TV when we grew up. Not in the entire house, we didn't really have too many screens at all. So I think that really encouraged us to go outside and play and create and do all that stuff that we talked about. Was that a conscious decision? that you guys made not to get a TV or which is part of how we lived. And what do you think the benefit of that is?

Dad 21:27

So when I grew up in, in my household, we were a TV household. So my mom, uh, watched a lot of TV and so the TV was on quite a bit. Um, but, uh, Christiane, your mother's family had a TV, but it was very restricted. Like maybe they could watch a half an hour a day and that was it. And so when we, um, got together as adults, we just kind of said, okay, we don't need a TV. So even before you guys were born, mom and I didn't have a TV and then we just continued on. Um, but it was very conscious and I can see, um, you know, your, your boy's ability to socialize and to. Uh, look in people's eyes when they talk. I often get, uh, compliments about, oh, your boys are so lovely. They shake my hand, they seek me out. They look my, me in the eye, they can converse. And I think that was because we, we, uh, socialized together as a family because we didn't have a TV, right? We're always playing together or, or outside together or that sort of thing.

Jesse 22:31

Interesting. That's cool. I didn't know that you and mom didn't have one before us. That's cool.

Dad 22:37

Uh, nope. Mom and I didn't have a TV.

Jesse 22:39

Um, I have another question here from a listener that kind of relates to this, the, our father son dynamic. It says, as a father, do you think your kids felt pressure to be as good as you one day?

Dad 22:53

Well, I never put any pressure on you guys. I mean, if, if you felt pressure, that was, that was your, um, thing. yeah, I, I was, I sort of follow my father's, Um, the way he supported me, he said, I'll support you and whatever you want to do. And, um, so the fact that you guys all landed on volleyball is great and you enjoyed it. And so I think you, you were all about the, the, um, the enjoyment of the game rather than the competition of the game at first. I know you're all high level competitors now, but, uh, uh, I think you went into the game of volleyball. To have fun, not necessarily to be, be better or, or at me or have pressure to be better at me. I don't know. I don't know.

Jesse 23:42

I know. I mean, I don't want to speak for TSNU, but I had never felt any pressure to be, to play volleyball, let alone be better than you. I always thought when I was a kid in elementary school and junior high, it was always my first thing. My dad played for the national team. That was always my claim to fame.

Oog 23:58

I remember just thinking that you were probably the best volleyball player in the world when I was 10. Whatever, five or six. I don't, I don't think it was something that really affected my decision to play volleyball. Like it was definitely like something fun that we could all do together on, on road trips or vacation, like we'd go and play, play pepper on the beach. And yeah. Yeah. I

Mathias 24:21

would say that I would say that, uh, you playing obviously had a big impact on us starting and probably our skill level now, just given like the compounding nature of improvement, like we've been playing since we were super, super little, but I don't think any of us actually took it seriously until we were maybe 13, 14. And we all kind of. We tried a bunch of different things beforehand. And I remember, I think the last sport I played before volleyball was soccer. And I was kind of dreading going to those practices by the end, but there hasn't been a single day since I started playing volleyball where it's like. I don't want to go. There's always a draw to it no matter what. That's, that's natural and yeah, I don't think I've, I don't think I've ever compared myself to you or your career, but just been inspired by it. And again, like the support that you give us was huge because a lot of kids will start and they don't have someone like a mentor that they can look up to and ask questions to. So I think that accelerated our, our improvement, but yeah, it wasn't a comparison thing for sure. I agree.

Dad 25:27

So I think the reason that you guys are all great ball players is not the time that you've put in a, in a, um, an organized, series of practices. You're, you're good because you played with the ball. Like the, the number of contacts that you guys had in the pit, um, learning how to, you remember when you'd master something with your right hand and I'd say, that's awesome. Let's let me see if you can do it with your left hand. So, so you guys honed Your, you know, volleyball skills playing, uh, in an unstructured way rather than a structured way, obviously you had to get the structured part, but your base is all about just playing with the ball, keeping anything up off the ground, balloon, uh, you know, a glove.

Jesse 26:13

Yeah, definitely gardening. Well, actually, Nick, Nick, when we had Nick Del Bianco on, he talked about the science behind variability and play and variability in sports and stuff. I think that's exactly what you're talking about. So if you are curious about the science behind that, go listen to that episode. But yeah, dad, I think, I think you're right.

Dad 26:30

And I think the, the long term athletic development model is it's, it, it nails it, like the early stages of development. It's all about, you know, learn to play, uh, catch, jump, climb, um, you know, roll, all that stuff. That's just, just playing. Yeah. And then you get up to those, learn to train, train to train, train to win. So yeah, I think it's all about play.

Jesse 26:58

You think though, that maybe. It's a little too slow in Canada, when you look at how young some of these volleyball superstars are in Europe, like Mikio Leto, for example.

Dad 27:11

Yeah, and we'll never get out of that. Like, if we're, you know, North America, that's how we train our players, is the university system. Um, we, we'll never be a Europe. We'll, we'll never start them earlier, I don't think. I mean, you guys are fortunate, because you were, all three of you, experienced, um, you know, intense national team training at age 17. It's pretty good for a Canadian.

Jesse 27:42

Yeah. True. But it's so, but it was so different, but it was so hard and like emotionally and physically draining because it's not something anyone in our social circle is used to or has ever done.

Oog 27:59

You got a question, Newt? No, I was just gonna say, I don't think that there's like, it is getting younger though. Like it's a very slow rate, but I think that there are kids that are whatever, 16, 17. It's not all year round and it's not consistent enough, but it is the age of. Getting exposed to high level training is getting slightly younger

Dad 28:22

and and and you guys broke the trail on that You know this NEP thing Jesse you were the you were the experiment And so now the program both on the men's and women's side. Let's identify our athletes Earlier, so we are getting better Um, but we'll never be a European model where, you know, a kid at age 10 decides he's, you know, play on the club team in his club and by 16 he's an international or at least a national star.

Jesse 28:57

No, that is cool though, when you look at it, think about it that way. What, uh, what's your best volleyball memory?

Dad 29:08

Uh, it would have to be winning the, the championship, the U sport championship at home in the, in the newly built Jack Simpson gymnasium. Um, there was, I can't remember what the number 3, 500 people fans were, uh, or the stands were filled on both sides. And all around the track and the Jack Simpson was just packed and, uh, uh, we won in a brand new gym and we won three straight in the final. And I probably remember every little detail of that night, even the after party and, um, got a call from the coach the next morning. Have you seen the trophy? And I said, yes, I have it. Cause he was worried that. One of the other guys took it to the bar or whatever and left it there. So I was the responsible one when we, when we won.

Jesse 29:59

That's awesome. That's awesome. I think that, I think that's not, not that is my favorite memory, but my memory, my best memory is the winning with Thias and Aaron and national champions last year. Yeah, that was sweet. That's just a surreal feeling, especially from all the hard work you put in from. All the years, but September all the way to March.

Dad 30:19

Yeah. And I think as you guys progress and you, you'll win bigger and bigger things. Um, you know, Jess, you might win a, country league championship or a champions league. And, but I think going back to that, that roots, the U sport, um, moment, uh, the memory, the one that's, that's a pivotal memory.

Jesse 30:38

Yeah. And then you just keep chasing that feeling because that feeling is unmatched.

Mathias 30:44

And, uh, that year that you won, that was when you made your return to UFC after the three years with the national team in the one year.

Dad 30:56

Yeah, that's correct. And, uh, so I came back to a pretty sweet situation. So, um, the next gen guys of the national team, Randy Gingera, Kevin Boyles, uh, Kelly Groski, who's passed away. But those three guys were, um, The core that came out of university, a UFC that went to the national team. So again, this generational, circles that I was able to play with. So when I played the first time I played with, uh, uh, you know, other national team guys, and then went away and came back and played with Randy and Kevin and Kelly. And, um, yeah, yes.

Mathias 31:34

And how was the, uh, how was the pro experience compared to what you've seen now? Like you came and visited Jesse and I in Europe this year and watched a lot of pro volleyball. What, uh, what are the big changes in, especially for Canadians? How that's been different.

Dad 31:51

Yeah. I think, uh, the definition of professional is a broader now, like people can go over and make little money and just have an experience and you're still a professional. Back in my day, there wasn't as many opportunities to just go over and, you know, make nothing. Um, so, uh, I, I think the club. You know, organizations are, are much better, uh, these days, uh, seeing how they took care of U2 this past, past year. but, uh, but, you know, those leagues have been around for a long time, almost the same towns have, have the pro teams in them. Um, but yeah, it's generally the same.

Jesse 32:34

Would you do anything differently if you could start your whole career over again?

Dad 32:39

Uh, yeah. I mean, I've, I've said this before to young athletes, uh, uh, you know, be patient and, and, uh, you know, I, I left university after, After two years, I think, to play national team. And so I probably would have, uh, continued playing university, um, be the, the superstar, uh, then go on to the next level and national team and continue that and go up that and then pro, but I sort of rushed through, I, I impatiently left U of C and went to the national team and then went pro and then kind of came back to university to sort of, um, tie everything together. So. I would, I wouldn't have done that sort of full circle. I would have just university national team pro.

Jesse 33:29

But I mean, then you wouldn't have had all your cool generational social circles that you have now.

Dad 33:34

Yeah, true. True. Yeah. I mean, I don't regret it. mean, the, the, the trips with the, my, um, Astors guys, which are all ex national team and ex, uh, university players, um, You know, that was, that was as satisfying as, uh, playing pro or, or whatever. Like it's, uh, we saw some, played in some great matches, went one big, lost big. Um, but it was, well, it's as good as, all level was good. All levels were good. Yeah.

Mathias 34:05

I was going to say that, uh, volleyball doesn't feel much different at any stage of what I've been through so far, at least playing, playing in a. Club Nationals feels very similar to playing in a University Nationals, feels very similar to playing in VNL, for example. Like, you're, you're moving up with the level of play, and the pressure feels the same. And honestly, Like I felt the same internally as well. Like I always felt like I had more improvement to be had. I was a ways away from where I needed to be. And no matter where I was along the journey, like I just continued to feel that. So I think that's just something to get comfortable with is the uncomfortableness of, of playing no matter what level you're at.

Jesse 34:54

That's a good point. And how enjoyable it is. Cause you get to hang out with those like minded people and compete with those like minded people on the road trips. And the practices, sometimes they suck, sometimes they're good, but you, you do them with the, with the guys you love and. Yeah, that's a really good point. And yeah, well,

Mathias 35:11

and the reason I brought that up is I've always felt that once, once my career stops progressing in terms of the level of play, I felt like I might not enjoy it as much or it would feel different if I'm just playing men's league or playing rec or anything like that. But if it's felt the same from club to national team, then I'm sure it'll be similar. On the other side as well.

Oog 35:35

True. I'm, I'm really thankful for dad's kind of cross generational things just cause like it brought me some of my best friends, Cause guys that dad played with had stayed in Calgary and had kids that, are of similar age. So like Merrick Edwards is, is Bruce Edwards son and Bruce played with dad. And Merrick's one of my best friends and Kent and Candace Greaves are in town and, and their sons, So I think it's cool that you had that experience to play with, with guys that are younger than you and guys that are older than you. So it's

Dad 36:09

an awesome treat for me to experience the next gen connection. So, you know, you and, and the, the Greaves boys or, or Merrick and it's, it's. We're all part of the same circle. We're all part of the volleyball family. We just extended it over the next generation. And

Mathias 36:29

I was going to kind of mention just like the volleyball community, especially in Calgary, it's kind of booming and, but all across Canada, actually, there's some sweet volleyball communities. how have you seen like a growth in that community, especially with the support for volleyball and that kind of stuff since you started playing?

Jesse 36:46

That's it. I just want to add, did you guys see that we set a record for VNL attendance in North America this weekend in Ottawa?

Dad 36:54

What was the number?

Jesse 36:56

Uh, I don't remember. But it was a record.

Dad 36:57

7, 7, 000 or something like that.

Jesse 37:00

Yeah, something like that. Very cool.

Dad 37:04

well, the, the, the youth, um, uh, volleyball scene has absolutely exploded, in the last, 10 years, like to host nationals, you know, super nationals with these 10, 000 athletes, um, that's incredible growth. So I'm, I'm happy because I know that, um, all those people that are playing are enjoying the same, the same trappings of the volleyball community. that we do, right? They're making good friends. They're making connections across different provinces. Um, you know, I love the, the, the fact that you guys play hard for your team, Trinity, and then you go down to Gatineau and then you become great friends with, um, You know, your, your adversaries, your U of A guys, your, your Jordan counts or your, um, you know, whoever else that you meet. I think that's, that's what volleyball does. Like we compete, but we're all kind of on the same team.

Jesse 38:01

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. The UBC guy's a great guy. All everyone's a great guy. Yeah, but you make a great point. Like it's just, it's just a game at the end of the day and you can't play just a game. You can't play with the, without the other guys on the other side of the net.

Dad 38:14

That's true. And, and, uh, when you appreciate your opponent and, um, um, and you become friends with them, um, that, that's just the, the ultimate. Then, then, then you've nailed the, every aspect of volleyball.

Jesse 38:30

Definitely. We have a question from Ty Fraser, another generation quite a bit lower than you, that you played with. And his question is, how many blocks is enough blocks?

Dad 38:43

uh, as a player and as a coach, I always had these little sayings, I'm sure, uh, Aaron can probably, you know, dad repeated this same phrase every practice or whatnot. But one of my, my phrases was more blocks, more blocks. And, uh, so Ty saying, uh, how, how, how, how many blocks is enough. More blocks. I just, I just think, you know, blocking is the most exciting, uh, way to score a point and it doesn't happen that often. And so when it does happen, um, you know, I want to see, I want to see more of that, you know, spikes, spikes happen often, but big blocks, good blocks don't happen that often.

Jesse 39:32

Hardest skill to execute.

Mathias 39:34

Yeah. I've heard that, um. Across all sports, blocking is one of the lowest success percentages, or something like that. Because the amount of times you go up to block versus the amount of blocks you make is an insane ratio. So, like you're saying, blocks are, are rare, and they're big, and big momentum points also. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm in for more blocks.

Jesse 40:01

Hashtag more blocks. Hashtag more blocks, yeah.

Dad 40:05

You can use it wherever you want. You can see more blocks on any team you're playing for. It works everywhere. That's

Jesse 40:12

funny. Well, should we just rapid fire these last couple of questions here?

Oog 40:17

Yeah, sure.

Mathias 40:17

Let's do it.

Jesse 40:18

Uh, okay. What kind of music does Tom Elser love?

Dad 40:24

Well, I'm, I'm definitely a classic, uh, rock fan. Um, I, I do like, uh, a lot of genres of music. I, I surprised myself. Um, and I'm, I'll give you my Spotify handle. People can go out and see the playlist that I have. They can go find out for themselves. Um, but I was building these, these lists. You remember My, my playlist called, uh, four emotion and I put, you know, 500 songs together. I was really excited. And, um, So I started listening at the 70s playlists, like just say, okay, we'll go get whatever they've done and see if I'm missing anything. So 70s, 80s, 90s. And then once the music passed 2000, I didn't like anything really. So there's not a lot of bands unless they're kind of like a Greta van Fleet, new age, old rock type of van. I lose my, um, acceptance of all music.

Mathias 41:20

Uh, side note, Dad's always looking for new music, he always asks me if I'm ever listening to anything new, so if anyone out there has anything in mind, new band, old timey, rock and roll feel, let us know.

Oog 41:35

TomElser65 on Instagram. Sorry? Your Instagram handle is TomElser65, you can just DM Tom. With new music.

Dad 41:44

Sure. And, and my, my handle on Spotify is, uh, T O M underscore E L S E R. And you can, um, all those playlists are public. And so you can go look at whatever.

Jesse 41:58

I hope someone follows you on Instagram.

Oog 42:01

Dad's gonna have 600, 600 new Spotify followers here. We got 700

Jesse 42:05

followers on Instagram as of yesterday.

Oog 42:07

Yeah, that's huge. WHO Me? No, no, our podcast.

Jesse 42:17

That's funny. Okay, next question. Uh, Who is your favorite son, and which child is most annoying?

Dad 42:27

Well, who's your favorite son is the most ridiculous question to ask a parent, because you're all my favorites, of course. Thanks, Don. Yeah, you know, love is, love is about joy and it's also about other emotions. So, um, you know, even being angry, it can be loving. So if you guys were in danger or something like that, and I scream at, you know, get off the roof or what are you doing? Um, it's, it's all, it's still love.

Oog 43:00

So, so, so you're saying the person that got yelled at the most. Yes.

Dad 43:08

You, you all had your moments that, that you took me to the limit, that's for sure. That's funny.

Jesse 43:14

Um, and then the last question is, what are your career earnings? but I don't know if you remember your contract number in the, uh,

Dad 43:21

it was, uh, it was 25,000💵That looked like a pretty good contract. And then, um, the day that I signed up for, uh, my contract with, Gonzaga, Milano,🇮🇹uh, it was black Monday. So that was a stock market crash and the US dollar tanked.📉And so I lost quite a bit of value in my US contract. I think it's like October, something 1987. That's when I arrived in, in Milano. Um,

Jesse 43:52

Crazy, crazy. I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. And

Dad 43:54

then, when I came back, I bought a brand new car.🚗So I, I bought a brand new car with my first contract and, and. What'd you buy? I bought a, um, uh, two door coupe Honda Accord. It was black. Um, it was brand new. They had just developed this model and I bought one of the first four that showed up in Calgary.

Jesse 44:17

Oh, very cool. So that

Dad 44:20

contract was gone pretty quickly. That contract was gone. No regrets.🤙

Oog 44:29

Good. Yeah. More blocks, more blocks, more blocks, less regrets. Oh, good. All right.

Jesse 44:38

That's all our fan questions. Yeah, I think, well here, we have one more question here that we could answer. Um, we kind of answered it, I guess, but it says, What do you think parents should do to foster athletics in their kids?

Dad 44:53

Uh, well, like I mentioned, it's all about, um, unstructured play, to me, so rather than a parent forcing structure on the child to learn a certain thing, um, I would say let them play, uh, at the sport, let them experiment, uh, with certain things.

Jesse 45:13

Well, what if, I don't, I don't know if we have any parents listening to this show, but what would you say to parents if they were? Uh, spectators, because I know that some parent spectators can be quite, uh, I don't know what the right word is, but more selfish, I guess. I think,

Dad 45:32

I think a parent should be, um, um, inconspicuous to their child. Like, I, um, you know, here's, here's an extreme example where, you know, a player's dad, Would be behind him in his ear while he's playing and do this don't do that like I think of the antithesis of that like get Out of your kid's eyesight or, or earshot and just let them play and don't let them have to focus on you as another distraction as a parent. And

Oog 46:06

if there's any

Dad 46:06

brothers

Oog 46:07

out there. I

Jesse 46:08

knew this was gonna come up.

Oog 46:10

Don't show up to your younger brother's U14 volleyball tournament wearing all of his clothes and make a racket in the stands. So just be considerate. But I

Jesse 46:22

look

Dad 46:23

good,

Oog 46:23

hey? You look

Dad 46:25

terrible. It's terrible. That brother thing is not, it's a completely different, paradigm. It's still,

Oog 46:31

still just another distraction. Right, Jess?

Jesse 46:35

Definitely a distraction. That was my goal, and I succeeded.

Mathias 46:38

I had, I had one more question about, yeah, the parent athlete relationship too. We did an episode on recruiting for university and, uh, we talked a little bit about the parent's role and we think that it should be minimal except for, again, the guidance, the support, and that kind of stuff. And for us, you being an alumni of U of C, obviously you wanted that to be a consideration for us. Eventually, when none of us chose that, I don't know if that was difficult for you, what you think about that or what, but like, through that process, speaking to an athlete or a parent, what do you think that relationship or dynamic or anything should be?

Dad 47:16

Um, yeah, I, I think I was, uh, I'm playing a fantasy in my head. I thought it'd be really great to have, uh, the Elser name wear a red shirt up at UFC and, um, but I learned through that process that you, you guys make great decisions and so I guess my advice to other parents, let your kids choose. Um, they're, they're fully capable, uh, of expressing their own free will and, and they know themselves better than the parent does. So I really, um, I was impressed with each one of your, um, your ability to choose and you continue to make good choices. All of you. So

Jesse 47:59

it was powerful. I

Dad 48:02

have one question. So, so of all the crazy places that we played volleyball on the beaches or in the, in the pit or, you know, on the dock at, uh, Shushwap, what's, what's the kind of the most memorable crazy volleyball derivative that we played or, you know, pickup game or, or, you know, we, we, we strung things between. Trees, or just played an open lawn, or I don't, I can't remember all the things that we probably volleyed, maybe pine cones and that sort of thing.

Oog 48:37

Uh, yeah, honestly, I think some of my fondest memories are playing over an oar. On the dock and then the ball would get shanked by probably me and I'd, uh, I'd get either thrown in or I'd have to dive in to go get the ball. And I just remember hating that. Cause you guys would be dry by the end of it. And I'd be sopping wet.

Jesse 49:03

Yeah.

Mathias 49:03

Yeah. That was like the, uh, the punishment for being the rally wrecker is Whoever lost the ball into the water was the one diving in so the better you were the drier you stayed

Oog 49:15

for sure

Mathias 49:18

I think there was some cool ones when we were traveling europe as a family Uh, just beach volleyball Roll up to a beach. There's stuff going on. There was one in Greece I remember one of the first times that Jesse and I played together like in a real match We played against some locals him and I on the beach. Two military guys. Yeah, something like that Um, oh, I remember a cool one. We were peppering in Italy in just a tiny side street and, uh, some guy poked his head out his window and he didn't speak any English. We didn't speak any Italian and we're like, oh, sorry, sorry, like, we'll, we'll head down the road.'cause it was pretty loud, like echoing between the buildings. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like waving us back. Like, yeah, he just wanted to watch and he was just like sitting there enjoying us playing pepper in the streets. So that was pretty cool.

Jesse 50:13

I remember that one. That was a good one. I don't know if I can pick one. I remember we had the net in the backyard for a long time. Put a lot of volleyball there.

Oog 50:24

I

Jesse 50:24

remember

Oog 50:24

that we had a bounce contest once. And I wasn't tall enough to bounce. So I got on a stool. And you guys took a video of me above the net hitting the ball.

Jesse 50:34

I think actually my favorite one might have been in the hot tub at Revelstoke maybe. Was it Revelstoke? With the little, the tiny little McCaskill's in the pool. I think I like

Dad 50:46

pool, pool, ball, volleyball in the pool with the small ball, where you got to take everything right at your face. That's probably one of my favorite, uh, versions of volleyball. Nothing beats pool ball for sure. Nothing beats pool ball. But I also think that the pit, uh, pepper on the knees, two on two, trying to keep the ball off the ceiling. That was also, uh, those were fun games. Be what do you, what'd you guys call it? Basement pepper, BP,

Oog 51:12

you're

Dad 51:12

going to go play some BP,

Mathias 51:14

BP in the pit. Well, that's obviously like why we called this podcast pit to pro, because I feel like That was pivotal in, uh, in our development plane down there. We spent probably the most amount of hours, uh, peppering in the basement than anywhere else I would say.

Jesse 51:32

Yeah.

Oog 51:32

Sweet.

Jesse 51:33

Well,

Oog 51:34

happy Father's Day, Dad. And, uh, thanks for coming on.

Dad 51:39

Well, thank you boys. It's been an honor to be a guest on the show and, uh, nice to go down memory lane and talk about my past and, and our past, uh, as a family. So thank you.

Jesse 51:51

Yeah, that was awesome.

Mathias 51:53

Well, that wraps up episode number 11 of the Pit to Pro podcast. Today we had our father on. We talked about his experience growing up in a volleyball family and hopefully you guys were inspired today and learned something new. Thanks for listening, signing off.

52:15

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.