Interview: Olympic gold medalist excited for Rumble
POTTSTOWN — Although Olympic champion Misty May-Treanor hadn’t heard much about the Pottstown Rumble before, now she’s found more than a few people who rave about it.
“I’ve never really heard about the Pottstown Rumble, but then when I mentioned it to one of the coaches at Long Beach State, he was like, ‘Oh, the Rumble?’” May-Treanor said Tuesday in a phone interview with The Mercury.
“Now that I mentioned it, it seems like everyone I come across knows about it. I hear it’s a huge tournament and a huge turnout.”
May-Treanor is coming to the Rumble to host a clinic and tournament for youth players beginning Thursday.
Titled “Dream in Gold” and partnered with Spalding, the clinics and tournaments paired together are hosted in areas around the country includ- ing New Orleans, Austin, Texas and Oshkosh, Wis.
Pottstown is the second stop on this year’s tour.
“I have a good time seeing the talent all over the game,” May-Treanor said. “Believe it or not, you get to see the different styles in different regions.”
May-Treanor is looking forward to interacting with kids and helping improve their game.
“It’s passing on the knowledge that I have,” she said. “Someone will say, ‘I’ve never thought of passing the ball like that.’ It’s (about) making them better players.”
Although young players may want to hone in the flashy parts of the game, May-Treanor said things as simple as moving more efficiently can be key to improvement.
Having a good command of the fundamentals is particularly important when a player is beginning to fatigue, she said.
Learning from arguably the world’s best player of the last decade is very exciting for a young player, but MayTreanor said one of the most important things in developing talent is taking critiques from a lot of different sources and adapting.
“You’ve got to take different people’s information, different pieces from different coaches, from everyone’s game,” May-Treanor said. “That’s what you hope for.”
She strives to be one of those voices while serving as an example of what a player can do with determination and work.
“It’s important to be a role model,” she said. “I think it’s fun to be looking up at a young player and have them say, ‘ Oh, she’s not that tall. Look what she did.’”
In addition to receiving tutelage from May-Treanor, players attending the clinic Thursday will get to work with another Olympic gold medalist, MayTreanor’s father, Butch May.
May won gold in 1968 playing for the U.S. indoor team in Mexico City.
“It’s fun for me and my dad to work together,” May-Treanor said, adding that her father is good at working with the younger set.
Unfortunately, MayTreanor’s knee is acting up and won’t allow her to play an exhibition this weekend.
“I played a couple weeks ago and my knee blew up on me,” she said. “I was bummed. I had to drop out of the finals.”
The week after the Rumble, she expects to have her knee cleaned out. Hoping to get a knee brace, May-Treanor wants to run some drills with some of the kids this weekend.
“It’s just fun to interact among the kids and make them better players,” she said.
Grass
tournaments similar to the Pottstown Rumble were much more prevalent in the past, according to May-Treanor, but there’s been more of a swing toward beach tournaments in recent years.
Having something like the Rumble is “important” for her sport, May-Treanor said, because it presents the sport in a way that’s easy to access.
“I think grass is a great way to learn,” volleyball, she said. “I was lucky, I was raised pretty much down by the beach, but I have a lot of friends who played in reverse coed (leagues) and played in the grass all the time.”
Having such a large tournament allows for different players to test their skills.
“I’m very fortunate to make enough to do this, but you have a lot of players who have a nine-to-five job,” May-Treanor said. “(Things like the Rumble) have been the platform of achievement. You get a different rating and you get to progress in a sport you love.”
“I don’t want to watch all the time. I want to play and it allows the public to not only watch the sport but also try it,” she continued.
“The whole family could be playing. It’s a game you can play for years and years. My dad is 73 and he still gets out there to the beach.”
The Rumble in Pottstown’s Memorial Park kicks off with May-Treanor’s clinic Thursday and ends Sunday with the tournament finals.
Follow Frank Otto on Twitter @fottojourno.