Ruby's Midwest Podcast

The speaker, Ruby McDonough, shares her experience playing sports, particularly volleyball, in the Midwest. She talks about the convenience of having a local club volleyball team, but also mentions that many players from other towns have to travel long distances for practices. She highlights the competitive nature of volleyball clubs in bigger cities like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Ruby also discusses the overlapping of players in different settings, such as playing against her club teammates in high school games. She emphasizes the sense of community and connection she feels with other athletes, even in college. Additionally, she mentions the challenges of traveling in winter weather for club tournaments. Overall, Ruby expresses her appreciation for her sports experiences in the Midwest and the opportunities they have provided her. Hi everybody, my name is Ruby McDonough and I'm going to be telling you guys about my experience playing sports through middle school and high school and specifically what it was like in the Midwest and what parts of it I think are specific to the Midwest and people in other places wouldn't necessarily experience. So getting right into it, a little bit of background information. I'm from Iowa City, Iowa, I have lived here my whole life, I attended Iowa City High School and I played volleyball for Iowa City High School and my middle school, Southeast Junior High. Along with playing volleyball for my school's team, I also played club volleyball. So I played for a club called Iowa Rockets that was located also in Iowa City, which was super convenient to me and while volleyball was my main sport, I also ran track. I ran track in middle school and then I ran my junior year of high school. Volleyball was my favorite sport so I'm mostly going to be talking about that today and just the specific things that I experienced throughout my time playing volleyball. So although the club that I played for was in Iowa City, that's mostly because the volleyball teams kind of are spread out through like the bigger towns in Iowa. So with Iowa City being one of them, we obviously had a pretty good volleyball club and then like places like Des Moines or Cedar Rapids were kind of the other better volleyball clubs that we would compete with. So I was actually one of two girls on my team that lived in Iowa City and everybody else traveled to get to our practices. One girl traveled all the way from Galena, Illinois, which is like a two-hour drive. So that's pretty crazy to me. I don't think people from other places would necessarily drive that far for a volleyball practice but because it's the Midwest, people have to do stuff like that to accomplish what they want to, I guess. And then there were a lot of girls that would travel not as far but still like 45 minutes or so to get to our practices. There are still clubs in small towns. It's not just the bigger cities in Iowa but those are usually clubs that are like runs through the high schools and they're not as good and they don't compete at as high of a level as some of the bigger clubs do. And then along with traveling for practice, we would have to travel for our tournaments. So our smaller regional tournaments, we would go to the other clubs that were around Iowa, so sometimes Des Moines, sometimes Cedar Rapids, whatever. But then we'd also have national tournaments and those would be in the big cities that are all over the Midwest. So we would go to like St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, and we would see a lot of the same girls that we would play with at our tournaments in Iowa. It was just a bigger scale and there was a lot more people including them. So that kind of leads me into my next Midwestern factor about playing volleyball. So I would see like all of these girls, I would see them sometimes on my club team, I would see them for club tournaments, and then I could even see them for school volleyball too. So a lot of the girls that I played on the club team with, I would actually play against them for high school games. And that was just kind of weird like to be playing against the people that are actually on your team just for like a different setting I guess. And it was also kind of hard for me sometimes because my high school team was never that good. My high school team never went to state, but I was playing on the same club team as girls that were on the team that won state. And so it's just kind of weird how that like difference is that separates like club volleyball and school volleyball. Along with seeing these girls at different volleyball events, I would also see them like at track meets. So some of the same girls that I played volleyball with also ran track. And so I would see them sometimes at track meets and be like, oh, I've played volleyball with her before. And now that I'm in college, I see these same girls often when I'm walking around campus. Like just last night, I saw like three different girls that I played club volleyball with or that I knew from playing Rockets. And I just think that's really like, I really like it. I know some people might not like it. They think they want to get away from all that for college, but I like being able to reconnect with all those girls and seeing them and just being able to see them again after being at a different stage in our lives. So I really think that all those things are specific to the Midwest, just because like it shows that sense of community that I feel like there is in the Midwest that there isn't necessarily in other places. And I just really feel like my whole life with sports and school, like all the different stages really have just come like full circle in college. And I've been able to like reflect on that. And I think a lot of that does have to do with the Midwest and just like the way that it is here and the people. There's one more specific thing I want to talk about, about the Midwest and playing club volleyball that is kind of crazy to me and I don't think would happen other places. So this is about the weather. So club volleyball, the season goes from like December to April and obviously Midwestern winter is during that time. So a lot of times I would have to travel in really terrible weather because I had to get to a volleyball tournament. And thankfully I lived close to my practices, because my club practiced in Iowa City, but the other girls on my team, like they would have to get to practice and it was often snowy or icy and bad driving conditions. So I have one like specific story that comes to mind when I'm thinking about this, and it was when we had a tournament in St. Louis and it was like a, I think the tournament went Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And so we were planning on coming home Sunday night, Sunday afternoon, but there was a huge snowstorm in St. Louis. And we were like, well we can't, like we didn't want to drive home in that weather, it was just me and my mom and we just didn't feel comfortable doing that obviously. And of course some of the people on our team, it was mostly like the dads with like their big trucks, they were like, no, we have to get home, we will drive through this weather. But my mom and I were just like, no, we don't want to do that. So we ended up being stuck in St. Louis for an extra day. And this is also when COVID was kind of still happening. And so we really couldn't do anything. So my mom and I were just like stuck in our hotel room in St. Louis for another day with not much to do because there was a blizzard. The weather affected us and club volleyball a lot. And it was, I know it was always just like a scary thing that was in the back of your mind like, oh, am I going to get stuck at this tournament or is it going to be hard to get there? And there was just so many times throughout the season that we would have to worry about that. But yeah, overall, I think that I really enjoyed growing up in the Midwest and I think that playing volleyball and running track here was a really good experience. And I'm glad that I'm able to reconnect with all these people now that I'm in college. And just have, like I said earlier, that like full circle moment in my life, it really makes me happy. It also makes me proud to be from the Midwest. Sometimes I think I don't appreciate it as much as I do, or as much as I should. But I really think that reflecting and thinking about it in this way kind of helps me appreciate it more, I guess. Yeah, thank you for listening to me talk about the Midwest and all about my life. I really enjoyed this little podcast and being able to have these reflections on my life. So thank you.