Goodbye College

And that was it…

This day came a little too fast but this is the end. Four years later I wore my Miami jersey for the last time ever. I can’t believe it.

I still remember the first day in the States being lost in the airport trying to figure out where to go. I still remember crying in the dorms, being super homesick. I still remember calling my dad and telling him to book me a ticket to go back home. “Just stay for another month, Christmas is almost here and you’ll be home. If you still want to stay after I’ll support you,” he was saying. And I stayed! Not only for another month, but for 3 more years.

Let me tell you a little bit about my journey.

After finishing my junior year of high school I was thinking what I was going to do after. The options were either going pro or go to college. Unfortunately, in Europe it’s very hard to both study and play volleyball and I had to make a decision. That was when I heard about NCAA and college volleyball. I was really against it, “only bad players that can’t play pro go to play in college,” I was saying. After my dad pushed me to come to the States, I decided to give it a shot. I emailed a lot of schools and in the end I had more than 20 offers and more than 6 coaches from top schools visiting me in Greece. I had no idea what college volleyball was and I could barely understand what the coaches were saying about it. After a lot of online research and a lot of back and forth emails, I decided that the best option for me was to go to UCLA, an awesome school with a great volleyball history.

Time flew by, August came and it was time for me to go there for the first time. I was crying during the entire trip and believe me it wasn’t short. Once I got there, I realized how unprepared I was to leave my house and live in another country. School was really hard since my English wasn’t good enough and the volleyball gym was my safe place. The only time that I was forgetting how homesick I was, was when I was playing volleyball.

When the spring came, I decided to try something new. I wasn’t happy being at UCLA and before I gave up completely my college career, I thought that going to another school would make me happy. So I got released and started looking for my new “home.” I was so worried about making the right decision because I only had one last shot. I had to find the right place to stay for the next three years!

Going to Miami just felt so right. It was so easy for me to see myself living there. The more time I spent on campus, the more I loved it. And the next three years found me there!

Every year I was feeling more and more confident with the system and with what my coaches were asking from me. I wanted to be something special for this program and after my sophomore year I took it very seriously. I studied harder and practiced harder. I wanted to be a better student, a better player and a better teammate and I really focused on that. I wanted to be someone that the younger girls would look up to and wanted to be a leader for this team.

I struggled a lot in the beginning! I’m not someone who’s gonna push other people and a leader has to do that. I had a meeting one day with Keno (my coach) and we were talking about leadership and he said “I know you’re not a person who’s gonna talk a lot but you can lead through your actions.” That really hit me! After that day I tried to be a good example for my teammates. I tried to say and do the right things. I’m sure I didn’t do it all the time and I messed up a lot, but over time I was seeing my teammates trying to do and say the right things. We were helping each other and playing for each other. Everyone found their role on this team and we knew what to do when we were going through tough times.

And now, almost two weeks after my last game, I still can’t believe that I won’t play for this team ever again. After everything we built and everything we achieved I have to say goodbye forever.

I grew up over the last four years and learned so much! I can’t thank the coaches enough and my teammates for making me the person I am today. It was an honor playing with them and I’ll never forget all the memories I have with them.

Goodbye college, you were good to me!

Forever a Cane,

Olga

Ps: Something that I was seeing on the whiteboard in the gym every day: ”We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle