On Wednesday, Oct. 9, FHS juniors and seniors participated in Freedom’s annual powderpuff boys volleyball tournament. This tournament was hosted by Freedom’s SCA with student attendees being required to bring a food donation for the Dulles Food Pantry Organization. The school event was assisted by the FHS Varsity Volleyball team to coach, plan the teams and create the behind the scenes that goes into the school event.
“Honestly, I just enjoyed getting to play volleyball for the school. Since we don’t have a men’s team, it was fun to show some skill for the school and have fun,” said Connor Hampton, junior powderpuff player, with his first experience with participating in a school event like this.
The varsity volleyball team first divided the varsity player coaches and players during the one day tryout held by SCA to scout the skills that the male athletes held. The student coaches decided to create a gold and white team for juniors and an orange and black team for the seniors. This change was made to ensure that none of the players were considered as an A or B team to have an advantage or a better connotation based on the team name.
The student coaches separate the students so that the boys are able to experience this event with their friends and the skill level is spread across the board for all the teams for the juniors and seniors. During the morning tryouts, characteristics other then skill were observed such as sportsmanship, respect to the coaches, and the way the student athletes respond to the critics given by the student coaches when making the teams
“We had all kinds of all skill levels,” said junior Angie Aziz, powderpuff junior coach. “We had guys who played volleyball. We’ve had guys who’ve interacted with it a little, and we’ve had guys who have no clue what’s going on and just show up and kind of do their own thing. I would say it was fun to see the different skill levels interact, and it was also really entertaining.”
The diversity of skills shows the variety of students that offer their school spirit to this event and allows opportunity for the players to have fun with their friends without the pressure of talent. Once evaluated, the student coaches determined the student players and the boys’ colored shirt, creative nickname and the team’s walkout song for game day. The Varsity Volleyball team designed, planned and supplied the activities while their season was still active. Specific designs and numbers are asked of the student athletes so the coaches are able to manage their time between games, practice and school assignment to work on designing the shirts for the boys to keep and have for memories.
While fun is being generated throughout the course of the tryouts and practices, a competitive environment is also created between the two older grades– coaches and players. Building the competition within practice was enforced by the seniors who asked the juniors to scrimmage during every one of their practices to instill the players with a game-like experience, preparing them for the big day of the powderpuff event.
“I am so excited for this year’s powder puff because, you know, senior year, best year, so juniors are going down,” said senior Isabel Morales, powderpuff senior coach. “Sorry, but it is what it is.
Although powderpuff seems more operated and organized by upperclassmen, freshmen who have earned a spot on this year’s FHS Varsity volleyball team were given an opportunity to assist in the event as well. Volleyball powderpuff requires a trained work team to make the games fair and well judged. A work team for this school event consisted of the scoreboard and announcer done by seniors Ainsleigh Wood and Madison Lowe, but also the three freshmen on the 2024 varsity volleyball team were asked to participate in the job of line judging. Powderpuff also introduces the high school spirit and available events to the new student experiencing their first year of high school.
“They ask the people on the varsity volleyball team, like me and another freshman, Irena, and also they just ask their friends,” said freshman Rawan Salem, student member of the powderpuff work team. “There’s no activities that include this. it’s all very in school, and there’s nothing that lets you have more school spirit like this.”
While the student coaches run the process behind the event, there is a lot of work that goes into the planning and coaching. All the work done on and off the court paid off in a junior sweep against the seniors to end the 2024 Powderpuff Volleyball event.
