Danielle Scott Weblog

Hey Yall, it has been one week today since our finish of the World Grand Prix. We placed in the final week.
And the announcement of the 2008 Beijing Olympic team. What a stressful waiting period the hours that followed the match. Finally at just after 10 pm the meeting was called to order and the announcement was made. A very difficult decision for our staff as they trained so many athletes. I am so happy to have been selected as one of the twelve. Although only we twelve selected will travel to Beijing all who trained with us in Colorado will be represented there, as well as our entire Nation! Wow, our entire Nation!

After 31 hours of travel I arrived in Baton Rouge to spend my days off with my family. My husband arrived there before me. We had a great time with the kids (my nieces, and nephews), who are getting bigger and bigger. My mom was and is beautiful as usual. Baton Rouge seems to change with every visit. More shops and restaurants. Eduardo and I celebrated our second year anniversary on July 15 at a restaurant call Flemmings. Flemmings restaurant gets two thumbs up! We arrived a bit late but the service was remarkable evening though it was near closing. We were given strawberries dipped in chocolate as a gift. Mmmmmm, Mmmmmmm.

As you know I love going to the cinema. Although I am so behind in my film watching, we made time to catch a movie. We saw “WANTED”. It was entertaining, definitely action packed! Time flew by quickly however we squeezed in a couple of hours of billards with my dad and cousin. Yes all of this in my short three day stay, not to mention lifting weights and getting in cardio.

Today was day two of a seven day training session until we depart for California for sea level training in Berkley and processing in San Jose. Woohoo!

The countdown continues! GO USA!

Danielle

I am on the airplane heading to Baton Rouge as I write this entry. I have to rewind a bit to bring you up to date. Probably you are already aware of our results. Seems we love the five game “thrillers” as the journalist like to write. We beat both Japan and China in five. Woohoo! We lost however to Cuba in five, and Italy in four (I think, it seems so long ago, hehehehehe). Yikes I am getting old, but physically I certainly don’t feel it. All praise be to God.

Though the Grand Prix is a long tournament, I really enjoyed going to the different countries and to be greeted by some of our familiar followers of USA volleyball, Keikei, Naa, Kin and gain new fans. It was awesome playing in front of a nearly sold out arena of about seventy-five hundred fans against Japan in Japan, and more than four thousand fans in Poland… Not to mention, the interpreters from each city are the best, so sweet and helpful. They worked so hard to make us comfortable and to have everything we needed. Thanks, Grand Prix organizer, and everyone who made our stay smooth.

You know, our results weren’t really indicative of what our team can do. I think the best is yet to come as we are still getting to know each others tendencies, bettering our skills and working at minimizing our error (which not doing so really made a difference in wins and loses). Everyone was giving an opportunity to play so we are also are building our team chemistry with whomever is on the floor. Finally getting everyone healthy and staying healthy over the next several weeks will be key to what I expect to be USA’s best finish yet.

However before we get back to pooling our gifts, love and passion for the game, we get a short break to visits our family and friends. Though we won’t play volleyball we will have to do cardio and weight lifting twice.

That’s it for now.
Blessing to ya and thanks for your prayers and support,

GO USA!

Danielle

Well, it was a rough day at the office. We lost to Brazil today in three. There were moments throughout the match when I though we had a chance, however we couldn’t play consistently. Our block and defense was off.

The positive about the finals being a round robin tournament is that we don’t have to wait until next week. We will play Japan tomorrow. We played them the first leg and won in five. I am expecting another difficult match.

GO USA!

Danielle

Yes! All Glory be to God! We qualified for the finals of the Grand Prix for the first time since 2004. Our qualifying couldn’t have come at a better time as this is our last tournament before the Beijing Olympic Games! Of course all of the teams that we will face at the Games will not be in the finals however we will get to play Asian, European and South American styles of volleyball.

We beat Turkey in four today. WOOHOO! While our errors were still many, we controlled the match for the most part.

Tomorrow we will play one of the top ranked European teams, Italy. This should be a fun match. I think we match up well against them. Both teams are very familiar with each other, although both teams have newcomers. Italy is a team of few errors so we will have to clean up that area of our game in order to beat them.

Stay tuned,

Go USA!

Danielle

Well, we lost a day traveling here from Poland, rather it was a really long travel day almost 30 hours with the delays. Jenny just had us stretch rather than start with a double day Tuesday. Our bodies were grateful for the rest.

Wednesday everyone went to get massages. Here a one hour massage is like $35! It was wonderful. Actually Kris Richard and I went together. Instead of changing into a robe for the massage they gave us this half top which opened in the back like a hospital gown and pants. The pants were so funny because of the length. We are sure they would have been full length on a native, but on us it was like our half pants reaching just below the knees. The used hot towels to prepare the body for massage. My massage pressure was great I left there feeling ready for our early morning practice.

I decided at hit my trainer Emery for my legs after the morning practice yesterday. He usually takes care of all the massages and treatments for the team. I think he was feeling cheated on with a lot of us going out to get paid massages. I even went for a foot massage. It wasn’t the best that I have had but who am I to complain, it was and hour of having someone massage my feet.

And now GAME DAY yeah! Down with Poland National Volleyball team.

GO USA!

Danielle