2008 Olympic Gold Medalists

2008 Olympic Gold Medalists
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

Wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Day!!! My family will be playing a little family picnic ball on the court. Supposed to be 70 degrees or so tomorrow so..... play ball!!!

Just wanted to update on training and comment on some things.

Training started November 5th for me. Officially got back in the weight room with my trainer Bob Alejo. This is our third week in now. Starting slowly which is good for the body. Still sore as all get up though. No ball work with the exception of the highly intense family games of which the boys are dominating still!

I will not be playing in the Hot Winter Nights this year. I was thinking of playing in the Northwest stops but after discussing it with various people I decided against it. Takes an entire week out of the training regimen and I personally think the guaranteed money is just average. Word on the street says that Phil, Kerri and Misty will not be playing at all either. I have heard that most of the other top players will be playing in at least one if not several.

Phil and I's first planned event is the FIVB event in Australia at the end of March. That will kick off the new season for us and will allow us to stay away from touching the ball too soon for our own good. I know some people like to start even now or in December but I always like to start as late as I possibly can. There is plenty of volley to be had in 2008 and starting early makes it tough to stay up for volley in the late months of summer and fall.

Eat lots of Turkey!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving in return.

I'm sure you and yours have plenty to give thanks for in 2007.

No rush, but was curious if Bob Alejo has been pushing the plyometrics, and if so just how he is going about it. If I understand he is big into the negatives.

Have a nice bottle of Santa Ynez Pinot Noir with your bird and best wishes to all.

Jeff

Anonymous said...

Wow, playing bvb on Thanksgiving! It's like a dream come true for most of us. Enjoy!

We'll miss seeing you on the Indoor Tour, but understand your reasoning.

And during this off-season, it's hoped that thoughts of the AVP will be distant. There has already been a "changing of the marketing guards" this month.

E.C. Steve

Anonymous said...

Todd, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. It must be great to live in cali and be able to play v/b year round. I was wondering how many avp events do you think you will miss next year being olympic year, and how many fivb events do you think you might play in? I am thinking you already have 6 fivb's under your belt and isn't the requirement at least 8 or so?...alan beverly/birmingham, al

Unknown said...

Volleyball on Thanksgiving...that and turkey make it perfect. A safe and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

Garret

UmassJSP said...

Happy holiday to everyone on the board and to Todd from Cape Cod. We will all say a prayer for Todd's turkey to have a gold medal around its neck next Thanksgiving.

Todd Rogers said...

Jeff - Right now I am doing no Plyo's. Too early yet. Just started lifting and that lifting is not heavy for me. More getting my body ready for heavier lifting in the coming months. I do very little negatives and have done very few over the last couple of years with Bob. In December I will start doing longer sprints and stuff like that. Had two very good bottles for Thanksgiving. A 2000 Qupe Syrah that the sister-in-law brought and a 2003 Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir. Hope you had a good bottle too.

Steve - Did have a very competitive game before we crushed the bird. Weather was around 70 degrees or so.

Alan - Still going over the schedule with Phil. The question isn't really how many AVP events I am going to miss. I would like to play in most if not all of them. We need 8 total events and we will get that and then a couple of more without missing any AVP events. Still dependant on the AVP not scheduling against Grand Slams. The question for Phil and I is how much travel do we want to do? Mostly this is the FIVB as those are the long travel days. If we are looking like a lock, I would rather stay in the states and play on the AVP then travel around the world. If both S/L and R/G go to all the FIVB events, then we might have to look again to make sure we are not passed by both teams. Remember, according to our AVP contract which runs through 2008, we are required to play in all of the AVP events and according to the AVP, we technically have to get dispensation to play in any FIVB events. Including non-conflicting ones as well. Bottom line for Phil and I is less travel the better.

Thanks Garret and Steve in Cape Cod.

Todd

Anonymous said...

Todd, thanks again for the very fun and informative blog.

If any of you are like me and want to still watch BVB in the Winter, I recently found this resource. http://missionbeachvolleyball.com/VideoGallery.aspx Lots of good video of recent AVP events like Manhattan Beach, and lots of great Todd/Phil games. The gaps between points are edited out, so you can watch lots of VB in a short amount of time, and it looks like most of the matches are not finals matches, so you won't find these on the AVP Website.

Cheers,

Drew

Anonymous said...

Todd -

Just wondering who you like in women's NCAA this year.

- Jsev

Unknown said...

Todd,
With Karch & EFonoi(almost) retiring
this past season, just wondering if you have any great memories or memorable matches or favorite moments of both players.
I hope training is going well and the men are still prevailing on the home court.

Garret

Anonymous said...

Mavereicks claims another... : (

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315169,00.html

george

Todd Rogers said...

Jsev- Can I say Stanford and Penn State? Little late for that. Hope the Cardinals win though.

Garret- I have fond memories of going to dinner with Dax, Karch and Adam Johnson my rookie year. Karch and Adam kind of took Dax and I under the wing and I really appreciated that. I have a million memories of Karch playing and it would be tough to pick just one.
Fonoi is a Gaucho just like me and was a senior during my redshirt frosh year. Probably the most I enjoyed with Fonoi was watching him win the Gold. He and Dain played so well and were not even supposed to have a chance. It was inspiring.

Todd