Okay, so we didn't come in first. But, well, I mean, after all, the night before the play-offs, team captain Karen Lattea tore a contact lens (it's the extraordinary finger strength that comes from setting so many volleyballs) and had to play with her glasses, which of course weren't even the right prescription. And Bob Hulteen was still sort of recovering from his car accident. And Jim Rice had some problem with his right rotator cuff (this is not part of his car, but part of his body).
Dolly Arroyo was suffering from a case of shingles (we think she would have been much better off with a case of aluminum siding) and had to sit on the sidelines. Brian Jaudon kept saying, "Did I tell you how when I was in El Salvador I lost a lot of sleep and picked up a stomach bug?" Jim Miller had a previous engagement. The rest of us had no excuse.
On April 22 the Sojourners volleyball team went into the local recreation-league, double-B playoffs in second place, after a two-week break because of Easter. The stands were packed that Sunday night. (Nah, actually, the stands were empty. In fact, there weren't any stands.) In the semifinal round, we played the third-place team. Best out of three won. And, hey, we were, like, really awesome.
We won the first game against them pretty handily. And in the second game, we made the kind of comeback that should make the cover of Sports Illustrated -- or at least a question in the sports category of Trivial Pursuit. Down 12-3 -- and then an even more nerve-racking 14-6 -- we came back to win the game 16-14! Unbelievable. I was on the edge of my sneakers the whole time.
With only a few minutes to rest, we moved on to the championship round. In the middle of the first game, the ref made an unusual call. It was "children crossing" -- all play stopped while Adam and Jessica Rice-Longenecker, with Sarah and Brian Arroyo King (ages 2, 4, 2, and 4, respectively), and their respective mothers Dawn and Dolly, paraded in to join Jim Wallis in the Sojourners loyal fan section.
We bumped, we set, we spiked (back-hand and forehand); we dug, we blocked, we served right past them -- but still the other team got more points than we did. The high point of the game came when David "Always go after the impossible shot" King actually jumped on top of the scorekeepers' table to make a hit, totally startling our faithful scorekeeper-fans Rose Berger and Hilary Doran.
Our energy was flagging. Our cheering section paraded out and headed home to bed. Remaining fan Jim Wallis rose from his seat and did "the wave" all by himself. But even that didn't help. Contrary to how we had told Brent Musberger in an on-camera interview before the game that we were really gonna give it to this team, they actually played better than we did.
We were a little disappointed when we saw the trophy the other team got and then were each handed a pair of socks emblazoned with the always-inspiring "M-NCPPC." But spirits soared again when we realized that we were getting to take home a trophy just as big as theirs!
OVER PIZZA AT SHAKEY'S, we reflected philosophically about it all. We told old volleyball stories -- about the time we had to tape Carol Schachet's shorts to her when they ripped the length of her thigh; about "Christian Bob," who always felt the need to tell the ref when he crossed the net; and David's proclamation in the middle of a game, "I hate tall people."
Our team name was "Smack Dab in the Middle" for the fall season, and became "The Fugitives" by spring. And among the playoff teams, we ended up right back where we started -- smack dab in the middle. But, of course, we beat all sorts of teams just to get to the playoffs. Dozens of them, hundreds of them -- okay, four.
Carol proudly announced that her vertical jump had grown from one-and-a-half inches at the start of the season to two-and-a-half inches by the end. We agreed that we had all improved and grown into a finely honed machine of a team.
Now, for a while, we are retiring our trademark hot-pink volleyball. We may be just the runner-up. But, hey, we have our nifty socks ("Can you say 'Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission'?") and a dandy trophy. It's resting right there on an overturned wastebasket in the Sojourners conference room, next to our awards for poetry, photography, reporting, feature writing, and general excellence.
Someday we might build a trophy case. Someday we might add all our names to the trophy and engrave it with our team motto: "We serve the Lord; the Lord will return." Someday we might put all this behind us and go on to greater glory. But, hey, whatever happens -- we'll never forget this moment.
Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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