{"id":16559,"date":"2018-10-24T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16559"},"modified":"2018-10-29T09:31:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T16:31:24","slug":"camosun-chargers-volleyball-teams-get-ready-for-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/10\/24\/camosun-chargers-volleyball-teams-get-ready-for-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun Chargers volleyball teams get ready for season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Camosun Chargers men\u2019s and women\u2019s volleyball teams are getting ready for their season to begin. The men\u2019s team has four consecutive Pacific Western Athletic Association (PACWEST) championship titles to their name and are aiming to win their fifth consecutive championship. Head coach Charles Parkinson laughs when asked how he plans to fit six new players into the roster to keep their successful streak going.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I knew the answer to that early on, I\u2019d be a genius,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like anything. It\u2019s a puzzle where you try to look at what you have left after the end of a season, and then look at where you need to be doing your recruiting to fill in those gaps.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Parkinson keeps a healthy mix of rookies and vets on the team. He says that the shorter length of some of the programs at Camosun means that the annual turnover on the court is higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to have continuity, have a mixture of guys at various years. You want to have a group of first-years and some guys that are going into their second years. If you\u2019re blessed with guys that stay four or five years they can anchor the group,\u201d he says. \u201cThe trick is to make sure you have that combination and that mixture, because if you don\u2019t, then you have one good crop of guys and once they leave you\u2019re sort of back to square one.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Camosun Chargers women\u2019s volleyball team are playing their next home game on Friday, October 26 (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But as more colleges offer four-year degrees, the nature of college volleyball has changed, says Parkinson. He says that skill levels are on the rise as longevity at the colleges increases, because the players are able to dedicate more time to their athletics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing is more and more players that are actually electing to play their college career and spend five years doing it, and are very happy to do so,\u201d says Parkinson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over on the women\u2019s team, Camosun second-year Athletic and Exercise Therapy student Katie Wayling says she functions better academically when she is also playing volleyball. Working with head coach Brent Hall has been incredible, she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not too far out of the game, so he\u2019s been able to relate to a lot of things that we\u2019re going through as student athletes; he\u2019s a super fun coach, but he can also lay on the hammer when he needs to,\u201d says Wayling. \u201cHe keeps the intensity up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year was Hall\u2019s first year coaching; from Wayling\u2019s point of view, it was more about connecting with each other and having fun with the game. Now, the intensity is rising;\u00a0 <\/span>Wayling says she loves it, adding that it was hard for the rookies to settle down last year with fewer vets on the team. This year, people have become more established in their roles, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a couple more second-years on the roster,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot easier to raise the expectations; I think Brent\u2019s pretty happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall says that the training environment has been productive so far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving more depth in training has made for a little bit more healthy competition, and I think we\u2019ve been productive pretty quickly as a result,\u201d says Hall.<\/p>\n

Before becoming a coach, Hall played for the Chargers. He says his mentality had to change when he went into coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing an athlete gives me a good background in understanding what it takes to compete at this level, but there\u2019s certainly been a learning curve to picking up the skills that it takes to be a coach,\u201d says Hall.<\/p>\n

As an athlete you\u2019re not overly concerned with the intricacies of motor learning, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways it\u2019s been a full restart,\u201d says Hall, adding that he got into coaching to stay involved in the sport. \u201cThe mentality that I had as an athlete was much different than what I have now as a coach, and maybe part of that is being a male athlete and working with female athletes. It\u2019s a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wayling says that Hall is working on keeping the athletes a little bit more accountable; Hall says that having more depth to the roster this year helped with that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest differences is just having the chance to do a little bit more recruiting,\u201d says Hall, \u201cBringing in some people that really fit well with our team culture, our ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wayling says the foundation of team culture comes from a place of love for each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving that support, the trust, and being able to hold each other accountable,\u201d says Wayling, \u201cthose are our foundations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parkinson says what counts is the relationships he forms and the joy everyone gets from playing, no matter the skill level. The success is icing on the cake, he says. After many years in the industry, the notion of perspective means a lot to him. He says even if he has the worst day ever, he goes to practice, \u201cbathes in testosterone,\u201d and focuses on helping the guys become better players.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat has nothing to do with winning and losing,\u201d says Parkinson. \u201cIt\u2019s about helping people realize their potential, and being able to show them a path that they can walk down. Whether or not they go down that path is entirely up to them. You can lead a horse to water but you can\u2019t make them drink.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First-year Business Administration student Carter Karpenko plays on the men\u2019s volleyball team; he says that he hits the gym every chance he gets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always trying to get in the gym, work out, get stronger,\u201d says Karpenko, \u201cbecause I\u2019m just like a boy in this league, basically, with all these men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karpenko says you can\u2019t hide anyone on the volleyball court; you can\u2019t have a weak link. He says that Parkinson has shown him areas to improve where he never thought he could.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCharles is a really good coach,\u201d he says. \u201cAt this point in the game, you don\u2019t think you\u2019re gonna learn new things, but Charles keeps on teaching you plenty of stuff and helping me work on my game.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Karpenko says the team is like a family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been awesome, being a first-year, to really push myself, because I\u2019ve never been able to play at this level before. [Charles] still pushes me to try harder and to do things perfectly because in a game you want to be perfect.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chargers\u2019 volleyball teams\u2019 next home games are Friday, October 26 for both teams.<\/p>\n

See camosun.ca\/sports\/chargers<\/a> for a full game schedule and other information about all the Chargers teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Camosun Chargers men\u2019s and women\u2019s volleyball teams are getting ready for their season to begin. The men\u2019s team has four consecutive Pacific Western Athletic Association (PACWEST) championship titles to their name and are aiming to win their fifth consecutive championship. Head coach Charles Parkinson laughs when asked how he plans to fit six new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-october-24-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16561,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions\/16561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}