Where are we headed?

Volleyball players move around a lot. Being a professional is committing yourself to a rootless lifestyle. It's hard to really get comfortable in one place when you easily could be moving somewhere else in a year. What's funny is that each new year, more or less, follows the same program as previous years. Figure out a way to move all your stuff to new place, spend first month trying to get internet and telephone set up and spending way too much on food, spend the next couple of months figuring out the new city, learning where to shop and where to go to have fun. Spend next couple of months repeating the same daily schedule. Spend last months looking forward to the playoffs and figuring out where you will spend next year. Repeat.

Since it is that time of year where everyone is out looking for new jobs (at least the people who aren't ballsy enough to wait until just before next season when they could make even better money but might end up without anything) I thought I would share my thoughts on the whole process.

I've played at three different clubs during my career, switching from SK Aarhus to Marienlyst and from Marienlyst to SV Bayer Wuppertal. The first time, I switched because I thought that Marienlyst provided a much better environment for the players. And it did. The second time, I switched because I wanted to push my limits as a player. I did. There are lots of other reasons to move: experiencing something new, exploring a different culture and the likelihood that I'll be playing for a winning team all play important roles in the decision making process.

Money has never been a big issue for me. True, it's nice to make more money than the year before. But, the money that I make, and this isn't true for some volleyball players who make very good money, is never going to be enough to make me feel rich. I'm not in the class of players who can demand huge sums of cash, therefore there are many other things that mean more to me than money when I'm looking at a potential club to play for.

First, I look at the team and I look at the staff surrounding the team. Do I think I would be a good fit there? Do I think that the staff is reliable and that the players are willing to work hard enough to win? Can we win more than we are going to lose? Is the coach crazy? Is the coach crazy in a bad way? Then I look at the technical stuff. The city and the arena etc...

What I really want though, and this may sound kind of weird, is to know that the club really wants me. Before coming to Europe to play, I used to marvel over how professional athletes in the US could leave a great situation where they had played for many years and were loved by the community, etc... over a few million dollars. They make so much money, I couldn't understand how a couple million dollars could convince a player to just get up and leave a team and move to some other place. Well, the answer is the other team made them feel wanted. That extra money shows that they are willing to go the extra mile for that player. It shows that they believe in that player and want to show that by giving more.

If a club is willing to do something extra for me, then I will seriously consider playing for them. It seems like a simple thing, but not every team manager or club owner understands this very well. Of course, there are certain conditions that have to be met, but a little attention from the club's side can go a long way. I think every athlete likes to have their ego stroked a little bit here and there...