My daughter made a beautiful spike at a high school volleyball match last night. It was the kind of spike that you might see a dozen times a night by women at a college match, solid and worthy of a big cheer, but coming from my daughter it was amazing.

A few words about my daughter. She is 5’5” tall and a 13 year-old freshman on the varsity team. I have made more structurally sound items with duct-tape and baling wire than the average 13 year-olds’ spindly frame and my daughter’s is no different. I call her spaghetti arms when I want to give her a bad time.

A nice pass by the back row, followed by a great set by the setter, and all that there was left was to smack it home.  And she REALLY smacked it home. She had a great jump, perfect swing, perfect impact and a down the line winner. It had that resonating sound both from the contact with her hand and the almost better sound of clean contact with the floor. I asked her after the match why she went down the line and she said she had noticed they were trying to block cross court and the next time she got a ball, she was going to look down line. Even perfect strategy.

Personally I am not very emotional when it comes to sports, even with my children’s teams. I tend to look at sports more logically, why did the coach put that player in, is the shortstop positioned correctly, etc. Every once in a while a sports moment happens that makes me a little emotional. For a few moments last night, I couldn’t speak.

I remember in the movie “Vision Quest” the cook said he wouldn’t miss the “big wrestling match” because “every once in a while a person does something that lifts those watching to a different place and it is a pretty glorious place“(or something like that with a lot more swearing). Everyone there got a surge of energy from my skinny daughter’s smack-down of the other team’s front row of women. The coaches looked at each other, smiled, and sat up a little more for the duration of the game. The rest of the team was pretty pumped. They all got mentally back in the match and ended up winning. It was pretty glorious.

I went to a varsity volleyball match yesterday and came away with a memory I won’t soon forget.