A clock is simple.
It marks the seconds and minutes of our lives and passes each day without hesitation.
But for Florida’s five senior volleyball players, a clock is an enemy.
National championships are earned, not given, and the window of opportunity to win one is incredibly small.
“There’s nothing like being a senior and knowing that you have to do it this year,” Kelly Murphy said during the UF volleyball team’s media day.
Senior Kristy Jaeckel echoed that sentiment, agreeing the time has come to leave their mark on UF’s history books.
“Us five seniors have all said we don’t want to have any regrets at the end of the season,” she said. “We want to go out knowing that we did everything we could to finish as high as we can. Everyone wants to win a national championship.”
Jaeckel acknowledged that winning is the standard at UF, and that the seniors have followed that principle since their first years on the team.
“[High expectations are] something we have known since coming here as freshmen,” she said. “It’s something that drives you to this school. You just have to work hard and realize it doesn’t come easy – you have to earn that honor to be held to that high of an expectation.”
The seniors certainly know it won’t come easy this year.
After posting a perfect 20-0 SEC record last season, earning a No. 1 national ranking for a stretch of eight weeks and finishing with a 27-1 regular-season record, the Gators were trounced by Purdue 0-3 in the first round of the NCAA regionals, bringing such a great season to a crushing finale.
The clock kept hurdling forward, not waiting for broken dreams to heal or tears to dry.
With 2010 senior leader Callie Rivers now gone, the Gators’ seniors must step up into leadership roles to continue to push the Florida program on the path to national success.
Jaeckel said that rather than one person filling the void as the vocal leader, the seniors have all shared that role thus far.
“I think all of us have done a good job picking that up here and there,” she said. “Since we were so lucky to have everyone here the entire summer, we really developed chemistry and do a good job talking to each other and encouraging each other. It’s something we don’t really try to put on one person, but instead spread it out and have a lot of people take that role.”
With so much emphasis by the team last year to win the SEC, the goals have now shifted to a Final Four appearance and national recognition. Coach Mary Wise said that to accomplish such lofty expectations, the team has to take the season in a series of steps.
“We take our pre-SEC matches as an opportunity for growth, and then we take the SEC season in its entirety,” she said. “Then we re-focus for the NCAA Tournament.”
Wise said that her seniors’ national championship goals, as opposed to simply an SEC championship, are good examples for the younger players to follow.
“This is their last go-around,” she said. “For them to have that sense of urgency, that’s what we want from our seniors. [The younger players] will never feel the way a senior does, but if they can at least come close to it in terms of their commitment, we have a good starting point.”
That commitment, she said, was very obvious from her seniors over the summer.
“At one point I walked in this summer and saw this very elaborate practice plan written out and I had no idea where it came from,” she said. “I looked at it, and I know the drill, so I thought, ‘Someone is going to be in here a while.’ I thought it was one of the club teams really pushing themselves, but I found out it was a practice plan the seniors had put together for the players here over summer.”
“That’s what our seniors have been doing,” she continued. “We’ve never had that before.”
Wise also said that despite such a great senior class, she is not disappointed that the seniors have not already won a national championship.
“There are so many great players now around the country that it isn’t a given who is going to be there,” she said.
The clock is ticking on Florida’s five seniors. The season has arrived. It is now or never, and Kelly Murphy knows it.
“Being in practice every day, you see all the Final Fours on the banners,” she said. “It has definitely been in the back of my mind.”
For the Gators’ five seniors the clock will always be the enemy, but they hope to freeze frame this season as one to remember forever.