Michael Hurlbut
I sat down at my desk the other day, looked at my calendar, and realized that I only have 20 days of school left. Twenty more days of living in a dorm, 480 more hours of eating caf food, 28,800 minutes left to do all the goofing off I’ve been meaning to do my first four years at Pepperdine. Kind of scary really. I mean, it only feels like yesterday that I came in here with eyes as big as dinner plates and wild ambitions to take over the collegiate water polo scene. How quickly things change.
I’ll stand at the graduation platform, four years and three sports later, two inches taller and five pounds heavier. But appearance and athletics don’t leave the lasting impression that my memories do. I’ll give you a minute to get a tissue, ‘cause you’re going to need it by the end of this one. It’s my final article and I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth.
I’ve played sports every day for my entire life since I was 5 years old. From tee-ball to high school water polo, PAL soccer to club lacrosse, I’ve seen teammates break world records, watched friends crumble at crunch time and cried my eyes out when I lost the big game. Competition has driven me my entire life.
So now that I’ve been all over this school, what do I do? I don’t have a job and I don’t know what I want to do. My instincts would tell me to learn to surf or at least learn to skate better. But that’s not always the best course, I’ve learned. Life is lived through the heart, my friends.
My volleyball coach, Marv Dunphy, took me aside at the beginning of the season and he asked me if I knew why I was on the team. “Umm, to shag balls?” I replied. “No,” he said. “You’re here to make these guys tough.”
I was confused — I didn’t know what he meant. I mean, I’ll be perfectly honest with all of you: I’m not good at volleyball. I played one year in high school and this is my first season playing at Pepperdine. I’m not exactly thriving off a wealth of experience that my teammates have. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I know that when I go to practice each day and lace up my shoes, I’m a member of the No. 1 team in the nation. I may never see the court again, but I know that I played once, and I helped us win.
I joke with the other guys on the bench that us B-teamers are really the guys who run the team because we control the pace of practice. We shag all the balls, feed the players and if we weren’t there, practice would never get done. So in essence, I feel somewhat responsible for a small part of our success.
But back to my point. I take pride in the fact that I have made an impact on this school and especially on this team. I work hard at what I do even if it’s shagging balls for the rest of year, but I’ll tell you this. Nobody in the nation shags volleyballs better than I do. And that’s all you need to do in life. Do something and do it well.
I’ll close with this. At 6-2, I’m the second shortest player on the team and I definitely realize it when I’m on the court, standing next to my teammates. After practice was over one day, Marv came up and asked me how tall I was. “Eh, I’m 6-1, 6-2,” I said. “That’s OK,” he replied. “You’re a bigger man than me …” Thanks, coach.
April 04, 2002
