Playing it smart

from George Waller

Bob, Merrill, and I registered to play triples volleyball at Winsted about 1999. We had designated roles: Bob was the setter/blocker, Merrill was the digger and semi-hitter, and I was a semi-digger and hitter. At the end of the day, we had made the finals. The other team was antsy to start playing because they were late to a wedding.

I recall Bob ambling back to our stuff, taking a couple of bananas, then calmly and slowly starting to eat them. The other team was upset and urged us to hurry up. I even thought Bob was taking too much time. Turns out we lost because we were tired and the other team had two twenty year old spikers... but it was close.

The point of this memory is that Bob was 100% right to take his time between matches. We had just played a hard team in the semi's and, unlike our final's opponents, we had had no time to rest.