Volleyball Returns to Germany
May 10, 2001 | Women's Volleyball
May 10, 2001
By Nancy Smith
Auf wiedersehn Osterreich und Hallo, Deutschland!
The Unviersity of Louisville packed their trusty vans and headed north back into Germany and into Dresden ... a nine hour drive. Now the van drivers are bold and grizzled veterans of the Autostrade/Autobahn and were much bolder about lane changing and putting the pedal to the metal. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, evidently, because we were treated to a new and varied selection of Germanic obscene gestures, some of which looked a lot like the Octoberfest Duck Dance that Louisvillians know so well.
Dresden is deep in what was the heart of communist East Germany. A city of 500,000, Dresden is very urban and was once the site of the capitol of the Saxon (Sachsen) Kings. The palace, the Church of Our Lady and Zwinger were all reduced to rubble in the Bombing of Dresden on February 13, 1945. The Dresdeners sifted through the ruins of their beloved Baroque architecture and marked every single brick and have almost restured the entire center of the city to its original beauty. But they have only been free to do this in earnest since 1990 when the Soviets left and Germany was reunified.
Reinhardt Hoffman, the director of the Dresdner Club has prepared a busy intinerary for the U of L group. There are precise times for each activity. He likes precision and lollygagging and general chaos that 15 college coeds can create is not tolerated! Although he is very polite, the German accent makes most simple requests sound like police barking orders. We decided we watched too many episodes of Hogan?s Heros. Our team is more like herding cats (prompt, cute and athletic cats, but cats nevertheless) rather than little soldiers that Reinhardt would prefer. He is adjusting!
Our group has a wonderful addition in the person of Johannes Staemmler. He was an exchange student in Michigan last year and greeted us with a Michigan State t-shirt on. He is about 6-5 and weighs a good 125 pounds. His English is perfect and he knows all the American slang which helps a lot. He said the coaches at his Michigan high school in Twining made him play basketball but that he wasn?t used to the physical play of the Americans and got manhandled in the lane. He caught on quickly though and proudly said in his final game in the U.S., he had seven points and FOUR FOULS!!
As guests of the Dresdner Club, the team ate a German dish of potatos, steak with grilled onions. Coach Yelin sat at the table with the coaching staff of the German club and they were gesturing wildly and using English, Russian, German and sign language. Of course this method is not to be tried at home, but beer seems to facilitate translation quite well.
Practice came at 8 a.m. the next morning at a big gorgeous SportsHalle that the Dresdener Club uses. A multiple-use facility, it is about twice the size of Cardinal Arena and seats about 3000.
After practice, the team went on a walking tour of the old palace, The Palace of the Four Seasons and the Academy of Fine Arts. An older woman was our docent and carefully and tactfully explained about the removal of the utilitarian structures the Russians raised from the rubble after the bombing and a careful return to German architecture. She was in a group of Americans (the bombers) and two Russians (the occupation country) yet still made us feel in awe at the task of rebuilding the city faithfully.
We drove about an hour to Dippoldeswalde, a small city outside Dresden, where the Cardinals played the Dresdner Club and lost 3-1 (22-25, 25-20, 29-27 and 25-21) The gym was a tiny facility and the former town hall. It had natural light and they opened the windows for air conditioning. It seemed the entire tiny town showed up to watch the match and were chanting point! Point! Point! unceasingly. A small group of young girls came over to cheer for us and asked Johannes to translate some cheers for them. They then chanted ``Vee Vish Yous To Vin`` and our Cardinals fell in love with them immediately but could not pull out the match.
Reinhardt, the keeper of the schedule, hustled us out of the TownHall and over to a restaurant that was owned by the first official. We had a great meal of spaghetti German-style. Much to Reinhardt?s horror, we were unable to physically complete the last item on the agenda which was bowling which was scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. Leonid and Reinhardt good naturedly battled that out. The Dresdener coach had gone toe to toe with Leonid earlier to be able to plaz with the livero and Yelin lost that decision.
When Leonid confided to us about the stubborness of the Dresdner coach, we tried not to snork spaghetti out of our noses laughing at the irony of our stubborn Russian getting a taste of his own medicine.
Tonight the Cardinals will drive an hour and play another second division team about an hour north of Dresden.
