Olympic Volleyball at Logan View High School

If you have been following the Olympics like most of us, you are probably aware of the Nebraska connection to the USA Women’s Indoor Volleyball Team.  Starter Jordan Larson grew up in Hooper, Nebraska, graduated from Logan View High School, and became an All-American at the University of Nebraska.  Hooper and LVHS are just up the highway from Fremont.  Her volleyball accomplishments throughout her career have all been richly deserved.  She also stated a desire  at an early age to play in the Olympics.  So, that dream came true in London in 2012.

NBC has been less than helpful in finding out when the USA matches will be televised, in that they are sometimes live, sometimes on tape-delay, and sometimes not all, except for streaming video over the Internet.  On Thursday, the match was scheduled to be televised live but then wasn’t, so I ended up watching a play-by-play printed account on the Internet as it was typed out word by word.  How archaic is that in this age of instant communications?

So, with the final gold medal match against Brazil on Saturday not scheduled to be televised live, in favor of a tape delay on Saturday night, Karol and I decided to travel to Logan View High School where we could join other volleyball and Jordan Larson fans watch the streaming video projected onto a large screen in the gymnasium.

The boosters were selling Jordan Larson T-Shirts so we had to buy a couple of those before finding seats in the last row of the bleachers.  The boosters were also providing hot dogs, nachos, and water free of charge.  It was a little hard to see the big screen on the stage from the last row, so Karol went on a recon mission and found two folding chairs in the second row.  Much better!.  Other people with more sense than us had even brought their own lawn chairs.

So, how did the game go?  The first set was a complete surprise with #1 ranked USA winning so easily 25-11 against #2 ranked Brazil.  Every time the USA made a good play or there was a close-up of Jordan Larson, the crowd erupted in applause and cheers.  That continued throughout the match, but the second surprise was how easily Brazil won the next three sets (25-17, 25-20, 25-17) to take the match and the gold medal.

Written news media accounts of the match mentioned the different standard of sportsmanship displayed by the Brazilian fans and players than what we are accustomed to, but the USA players seemed to take it all in stride because they are used to it.  Brazil could have taken a few sportsmanship lessons from the fans at LVHS, who broke into applause at the end of the match, even though the USA lost.  I expect that is the norm for LVHS, as it is at many Nebraska high schools and the University of Nebraska.  In any event, Karol and I thought it was a nice touch at the end of a disappointing loss.

The 2016 Olympics will be held in Brazil.  Many of the top women either play professionally in Russia or Brazil, so it seems likely that we could see many of these same players again in four years.  Brazil will also be the early favorite to repeat their victory. I did find one report that said that Jordan Larson was committed to playing one more year in Russia, but it will be interesting to see if she tries for a second Olympics.  Nebraska coach John Cook has already said he would like to see her coaching at UNL some day.  But whether she tries again in 2016, she will always be remembered as a small town Hooper girl who realized her dream in 2012.

Kudos to LVHS for making it possible to watch the match in real-time.  I’ll bet they are already making the arrangements for the day when Jordan Larson makes a return visit to her school. Now that will really be a BIG event!

I’m preparing this post for the first time with Windows Live Writer, which should make it easy to attach the pictures that I took on Saturday.  Check below to see if it was.