Aaron’s likes
MUSIC I like anything that has a good beat. I tend to
like a little bit of each genre and I think the day depends on which I listen to. Some days I will listen to something upbeat like hip-hop or EDM (Matina and Kygo) and the next day I will listen to something more mellow like acoustic or Indie (Jack Johnson and Mumford and Sons). Some- times I like to play classical music when I’m doing chores around my apartment but a lot of my likes and dislikes depend on the day.
MOVIES I like a lot of movies, but my favorite genres
are comedy and thriller/suspense. I love any Will Ferrell movie as well as “I Love You, Man” and the “Horrible Bosses” movies. One thriller/suspense movie that I really liked was “Gone Girl,” but I also watch a good action movie like Quentin Tarantino’s movies, and I’ll watch some romance and chick flicks with my girlfriend for brownie points.
FOOD I like anything my mom cooks, but I would say
that my favorite is Italian. I love the wide variety of foods you can eat with Italian, and I’m lucky to be playing in Italy for my first year overseas. The food has been great.
HOBBY I love music. I really like listening to and
appreciating different kinds of music. I also play the drums, and I love playing the bongos. I have bought a set out here in Italy and my American teammate, Sam Holt, plays the guitar. We have played a lot together and want to record some songs for fun.
TREATS I like anything that’s warm and gooey, but I
love gelato or mint chocolate chip ice cream. (But it’s got to be the green kind of ice cream, not the white kind.)
Erik), Micah Ma’a,” Speraw says. “These are players who are showing a high volleyball IQ upon arrival at the national team because they’ve had a longer education in the game than maybe what we’ve had traditionally.” That has tangible benefits. Throw some-
thing new at a player who has been immersed in the game his whole life, it often sticks more quickly. Consider Russell’s adjustment to the jump float. Before the World Cup, the U.S. coaches decided at the last minute that they wanted another jump float server besides middle blocker David Lee, who Speraw says has been one of the team’s best point-scorers from the service line. They picked Russell. “It was the day before our first match in the
World Cup, end of practice,” Russell says. “John told me he wanted me to switch to the float, so
I hit 30 serves at the end of practice, got the feel for it, got the rhythm, and the next day they put me in and said, ‘Go float serve.’ Interestingly enough, my first serve was an ace. (He served a total of 14 aces in the tournament.) It’s cool to see how much trouble float serves give the other team, and also what you can do with your float serve to make it more difficult to pass, whether you put a little bit of topspin on it or pop it a little short.”
IT WAS PAST 9 P.M. IN ITALY WHEN Russell answered the final questions on Skype. Six times, maybe seven, the call dropped, but you deal with this kind of stuff when you play overseas. Russell was still waiting to get Wi-Fi at that point, and he knew the wait would continue. Another American who plays for Sir Safety Conad Perugia, Sam Holt from Califor- nia State University, Northridge, lives a floor above him. Holt has been in Italy longer than Russell – since August – and had just begun in mid-December to get a response from the Wi-Fi folks.
The pace in Italy takes some getting used to.
Training usually ends around 8 p.m., and by the time players get therapy and do their post-prac- tice stretching, it’s 8:30. If you go to a restaurant after that, expect to be there until 10:30 or 11. Meals in Italy move like a DMV line. The faster option, Russell will tell you, is to cook at home. Not that the restaurant food isn’t great. It is.
Russell says the sauces – all those non-Alfredo toppings – are hard to beat. The fans are hard to beat, too. “People here recognize me,” Russell said.
“You don’t get that in the United States.” As far as his volleyball career, this is just one step in the process. Russell says that Speraw has tried to instill a mindset in all U.S. players that “every time we go into the gym, every time we touch the ball, we want to get better.” Rus- sell sees that happening with other American teammates who are in Italy: outside hitter Taylor Sander and setter Micah Christenson. “I’ve played Micah here, and I’ve played
Taylor,” Russell said. “It’s great to see how much they’re improving on their own.”
When he talked about his teammates and
the U.S.’s chances in Rio, you could hear the en- thusiasm in his voice. Presumably, it was similar to the passion Pavlik saw in him at Penn State. “I’ll never forget Aaron as a freshman in his first NCAA semifinal,” Pavlik says. “We were playing Irvine. Aaron dug four balls in one rally, and after every ball, he was pointing up and yelling. I remember him looking at the rest of the team like, ‘I would not be any place else than with you guys doing this right now because it’s so much fun.’” It is fun, and that was his closing thought on
this evening. “I love what I do,” he said. “It’s a blast to be
living my dream.”
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