Greetings from Louisville, Ky.

Our trip to the USCAA National Volleyball Championships is underway. We arrived in Louisville around 10:30 last night. Fortunately we did not play our first game until 2:30, so it wasn't an early wake up call (unless, of course, you got the bright idea to visit Churchill Downs in the morning). It was worth the trip, but I digress.

The team was full of excitement when we arrived at the Mid-America Sports Center around 1 p.m. The team wanted to see Rochester play Spalding, because they are both in our pool and our 2:30 game was with Spalding, the number two ranked team in the nation.

When you ask people about what college athletics are all about, winning and championships usually are at the top of the list. If you do that, you give college sports too narrow a definition. It's more than that, much more. Had you seen our team walk into the facility today, you would have understood exactly what I meant.

Even though this is our third consecutive trip to nationals, for most of the team it was their first. Just to see their eyes light up when they walked into the facility was amazing. It was in that moment that I realized that college athletics are not just wins and losses, but experiences.

While the team was disappointed over the loss to Spalding, I was very proud of the way that they rebounded to defeat OSU Marion, a team that had defeated them earlier this year. We won the first game of the match after being down by as many as seven, and fought back from six back in Game 3.

The folks here at Spalding University have done a wonderful job of putting this tournament together. Believe me, I know firsthand what it takes to run a national championship (you might recall that little USCAA get-together we have the first week of March).

In a few minutes we will be off to the tournament banquet where the USCAA National First-Team All Americans will be named. I have a source that tells me that if you check www.twitter.com/GoRoaringLions and you might hear some good news.

And while I'm here in Kentucky, my thoughts drift farther north, to Concord, N.H., where Jenn Naymick is getting ready to run in tomorrow's USCAA National Cross Country Championships. She is so shy and really didn't like all of the attention yesterday. Outward humility is always a nice approach.

More from the national championships tomorrow.

VC