EGYPT

Hello All! Greetings from Cairo, Egypt!

This year's World League has taken me to places most people never get to travel too. Russia, Finland, and Egypt. Each place has been uniquely special for different reasons. Egypt, for me, has to be one of the most historic places in the world. From Joseph being sold into Egypt by his brothers to Moses freeing his people and parting the Red Sea, Egpyt embodies so much history that it's even hard to imagine being able to stand in the same place and walk on the such sacred ground.
We flew into Cairo from Frankfurt at about 8pm on Wednesday night. I purposely requested a window on the left side of the plane so that as we flew in I would be able to see the great pyramids. Knowing that this was a short trip and its main purpose and focus was to win our matches, I didn't know if I would get a chance to get out and see them. Flying into Cairo, we flew directly around the pyramids and even from 15,000 feet above them they looked spectacular. Once we landed into Cairo we spent another 2 hours at the airport waiting for all of our bags to make it...all but 2 did. Alfee Reft our libero, and Riley Salmon bags didn't make it. Its Saturday and they still haven't arrived, no telling what little boy is walking around with USA Volleyball gear on and size 13 volleyball shoes. Thursday was like any other day for us, we woke up, ate breakfast, showed some video, and left for practice. On this trip, like all our trips, we take a few additional coaches along with us. This trip we were fortunate enough to have Shawn Patchell, BYU Men's Head Coach and Arnie Ball, IPFW Head Coach. Patchell and I go back about 7 years now, so it was exciting and fun to have him on the trip. He had coached our Junior Natl team and had created a friendship with the Junior Natl coach of Egypt. He expressed his interest in wanting to see the pyramids and knowing that Thursday was really our only day to get out and see them, Mohammed (Egpyt Coach) agreed to take Shawn and I in his car to see them. What an opportunity! So in all USA gear, we risked getting mobbed and went to the pyramids.
I can't begin to describe the Pyramids and the Sphinx. It's amazing to see these things up close and in the flesh! Being nearly 6,000 years old, they are in great shape and leave you in wonder. Each ton stone was carried in a barge from the nile one by one.We were treated to quite the experience to be able to see the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx both on Camel an by horseback. The pyramids are guarded at every post and are only open from 9am-4pm each day. There is a huge massive 20 foot wall and fence that surrounds the entire area with cameras everywhere you look. Obviously this is pretty standard procedure now since there has been documented tomb robbers over the years. The incredible part of it all is seeing how great of shape they are in. Right where the pyramids are is the start of the Sahara Desert. They are still finding new tombs under and around the pyramids. Just incredible. The pictures only do little justice.

Last night we played our 3rd match against this young and talented Egyptian team. The arena we are playing in has a capacity of about 30,000. They brought in about 5,000 military students in full jump suits, if you didn't know any better you would think they were prisoners. Seriously, they were in the same color jumpsuits and were under watchful eye by their officers. They brought with them a lot of energy. We struggled out of the gate as we have so often this summer. Egypt took game 1 and we did our part and a great job of being resilient and grinding out a win when really nothing was working for us early and each set we played more and more steady and were able to win in 5. It's never fun dropping a point by going 5, but a win in 5 is much better than a loss in 5.